The Bionically Constructed Heat Are the Next Evolution of the NBA
bleacherreport.com
By
Paolo Ruiz
(Member) on July 31, 2010
We’ve all speculated about it as kids reading comic books or watching cartoons. What would happen if we combined Spider-Man’s hyper-agility with Wolverine’s indestructibility? Merged Magneto’s metal mastery with Professor X’s telepathy? Or gave Green Lantern’s ring to Superman? That would be a force unlike the world has ever seen.
Enter the Miami Heat. This is the collection of superpowers we all dreamed of, but never imagined possible. This is the stuff of fantasy and science fiction. The Heat are the billion dollar, gene-spliced, mutant bionic team.
They are so good, at least on paper, that they should almost be illegal. And if it were up to Mark Cuban, they would be.
Perhaps no team has ever been constructed quite like the Heat, with two of the game’s three best players consciously joining forces while still in their prime. Even the Boston Celtics trio, who became champions in their first year together, were already in the twilights of their careers.
However, there is a team of the past that bears a resemblance to the Heat.
In 1982, Moses Malone of the Houston Rockets and Julius Erving of the Philadelphia 76ers were two of the top three players in the world. Both were on the All-NBA first team. Erving was the dominant player of his era at his position, and Malone was the most powerful force inside.
Both had led their teams to the Finals before, and lost. Both were desperate to win.
In the summer of that year, Moses Malone was acquired by the 76ers to form, with Julius Erving, one of the most potent one-two combinations the league had ever seen. That team went on to win 65 games in the regular season, then romped through the playoffs, going 12-1 en route to a championship.
The team they faced in the Finals? The Los Angeles Lakers. That Lakers team, however, was depleted by injury. The 76ers would go on to sweep the Lakers in the Finals.
That Sixers team is considered one of the best teams in NBA history. Can we compare them to the current Miami Heat team? Not yet, not even close – the Heat have yet to play a game, and the playoffs are still but an oasis on the horizon.
In talent, however, this Heat team parallels that great Sixers team. Like Erving and Malone, Dwyane Wade and LeBron James are two of the three best players in the league—not to mention Chris Bosh, one of the league’s top power forwards.
However, it isn’t just talent that defines greatness. The whole of that Sixers team was even greater than the sum of their parts, and oh what a sum it was. The Sixers were equal parts glamour and grit, and their superstars complemented each other perfectly.
Julius Erving, aka Dr. J, dazzled with his high-flying, silky smooth act, while Malone was a force of nature in the paint, overpowering lesser men. They formed a relentless, two-pronged attack that most teams were simply unable to defend.
If the Heat are to find that kind of success, their stars must find a similar synergy of superpowers. Unlike the Sixers, the Heat lack a true dominant big man, the sort of post scorer, rebounder, and defender that has been the centerpiece of most championship teams.
Though Bosh is very talented, he is not a franchise big man; he is no Shaq, Kareem, Duncan, or Chamberlain. He isn’t even a Moses Malone. He just lacks the physical strength and size to consistently impose his will in the paint.
The Heat thus would seem to have a gaping hole in the middle, by comparison to past championship teams.
The Heat’s greatest weakness, however, may also be its greatest strength. The NBA is a different league now than it was in Kareem’s day, or even Shaq’s. There are very few superstar centers left in the NBA, and even fewer of them are dominant scorers.
Dwight Howard, for all his power, is not a top-tier scorer and Yao Ming is plagued by injury. Duncan is still great, but on the downslope of his career, and Shaq is a shadow of his former self. That leaves Pau Gasol, Dirk Nowitzki, and Chris Bosh, all of whom are finesse players, belying their titles as "power forwards".
Let’s face it, the NBA of our day is a finesse league.The increasing enforcement of hand-checking rules over the last few years, and the softening of “illegal defense” rules, has made powerful scoring centers somewhat obsolete. It has become easier than ever for perimeter players to get to the rim, and offenses have become heavily guard-oriented. There is a reason the three best players in the league are all perimeter players. Team USA’s roster is exhibit B—the vast majority of that team’s talent is at the guard and forward spots.
How does this help the Heat? The league is now a guard’s league, a driver’s and a shooter’s league—in other words, it is now the Heat’s league. To win now, having top tier perimeter players is even more important than having premier big men.
The only team that has precisely that, other than the Heat, are the defending champs themselves, the Lakers. The Lakers may have the kryptonite to Miami’s Supermen, and that kryptonite is named Kobe Bryant. |
