Season Previews Miami Heat

[KG-MVP21]

To be completely honest, I still don't understand how they won it all last year.

Their team was playing well, but inconsistently. Dwyane Wade represented the only real threat that showed up for each and every game, and yet when it all counted they rallied together and won a Championship for head coach Pat Riley.

But since I didn't know how they were going to do it the first time, I certainly don't know how they are going to do it again this time.



Granted, Detroit looks a little limper than the team that bulldozed through the regular season last year, and Indiana isn't even a lock for the playoffs, so that's two big hurdles that may have taken themselves out of the running to knock Miami off its course.

Cleveland still doesn't have a team built to help LeBron, so they're still a year or two away from being considered contenders, and the Bulls, for all of their defensive prowess, still can't score any more consistently now than when the Heat knocked them out of the first round in April.

So, perhaps Miami is destined to land it self in the Finals again simply because of the lack of imposing forces along the way. What they'll have to face from the West could have a lot to say about whether or not they repeat, but anyone who tries to predict the NBA Finals a month before the season starts is just asking for trouble.

The biggest challenge facing this team is essentially trying to halt the aging process. The bulk of the Heat roster is winding down their careers rather than ramping them up. Shaq looked entirely mortal in the playoffs last year, and for the first time needed to be carried to the Championship rather than doing the carrying himself. Alonzo Mourning had a fantastic year, but gone is the motivation to win one before he calls it quits. Ditto Gary Payton. Their backup shooting guard position is somewhat up in the air, with Derek Anderson looking for a buyout, leaving only a collection of untested youngsters to spell Dwyane Wade throughout the year, and make no mistake, since he hasn't stopped playing basketball since last summer, and he will need all the rest he can get this winter to stay effective down the stretch.

The mission this year has to be two-fold for the Heat: First, they have to get all their ducks in a row as they try to become the first team to repeat as Champs since Shaq did it twice in LA. But second, and in my opinion just as important, they have to start the transition towards youth on this team. There is no reason why this team should experience a lull in winning when Shaq and company retires, and that transition begins today.

Wayne Simien, Dorell Wright and Jason Kapono need some time on the floor this year as the Heat try to prime them for the transition to regular minutes, if they demonstrate a reason to get them. Riley has to decide on the future of Posey and Walker, and whether or not both fit into the long term plans for this team, or if one can be used as trade bait to nab a piece or two for depth. But the biggest question going forward has got to be what to do about the Big Fella.

Any team Shaq has played on and then left has been torn apart by his absence. He is such a unique player that trying to compensate for his absence is nearly impossible, no matter how battered down his body has become. He is the kind of player who truly demonstrates how valuable he is to a team when he's not there. It's only then that teams seem to genuinely grasp how much he did for them.

The Heat have a decided advantage over Orlando and Los Angeles, however. In Miami, everyone knows he's only got a couple years left in the tank, and that he plans to finish his career in Miami. There will be no surprises when Shaq doesn't return for training camp. Miami has an opportunity to figure out a battle plan for dealing with life after Shaq while still having Shaq on the roster. They have to figure out what direction they want to go in, perhaps playing small ball, when Shaq isn't on the floor. Obviously this plan can't include Alonzo either, and since both will need plenty of rest to keep them fresh for the playoffs, the Heat are going to have to find something to do when both of them are out of the game. Might as well use that time as productively as possible, I say.

Clearly this isn't a team who has to worry yet about losing O'Neal right away, but it's never too soon to have a plan for the future. In the meantime, they'll look to build on the cohesion they achieved during last year's playoffs and bring it into training camp, their first with Riley, and beginning their run to repeat with some positive momentum. They might as well try and steal one more title while they still can because they sure aren't getting any younger.

PROBABLE STARTING LINEUP

PG - Jason Williams

He has sort of become a non-entity in the league the last couple of years, hasn't he? After all the hype in Sacramento coming in, he's sort of just gone about quietly rounding out his game and becoming an above-average point guard, in the mold of a Travis Best or a Kenny Anderson. He's able to run a team, and score when needed, but he isn't going to nab you any wins himself with his playmaking. Most of that responsibility falls on the shoulders of his backcourt mate anyway. Williams has managed to actually fit very nicely into a productive NBA player mold; not too flashy, not too loud, not too anything. He represents hope for all of those playground-schooled guards (Sebastian Telfair, Nate Robinson, etc) who prefer style to substance that there is a chance they can make themselves dependable even without the turnover-prone highlight reels. Here's hoping.

SG - Dwyane Wade

Wade is probably the best guard in the game today. He can do it all and does do it all and is one of the only guards in the history of the NBA who has propelled his team to an NBA Championship. Yes, he had Shaq on his roster, which helped immensely, but it was Wade that brought home the bacon last June, and while this could spawn another age of building teams around athletic guards, even though it's only resulted in a Championship team once in NBA history with the Bulls (this Heat team was rebuilt around Shaq, remember), Wade can hardly be faulted. If the league wants to go on another wild goose chase, they can go right ahead because it clears the path for more titles for Wade.

SF - Antoine Walker

Even though everyone was insisting he'd be a sixth-man last year, and he even started the season in that role, by the time the playoffs rolled around, Walker was firmly planted in the starting five. His talents are too enticing, even if he rarely makes use of most of them. Everyone knows the book on Walker by now, all his faults overriding all his potential, but even so when you play on a winning team, it just doesn't seem as important. Riley knew what he was getting with Walker, and he used him as well as anyone ever has. Is he a perfect player? No, not even close. But anyone who expects him to change his game in year ten might be even more misguided than he is.

PF - Udonis Haslem

The unsung hero of this starting five. So few teams realize how important it is not to start your five best players, but your five most consistent. Pat Riley knows exactly what he can expect from Udonis each and every game, and that is why he is just as entrenched in this starting five as Wade and O'Neal. Haslem is aggressive, rarely injured, he goes after loose balls and he can score that high-post jumper than keeps defenses from sagging in the paint and bothering O'Neal. He might not have the sexiest game on the team, but he's just as responsible for their title as any member of '15-Strong'.

C - Shaquille O'Neal

One hopes Shaq knows when to call it quits. It's not because he is in any kind of danger of sullying his legacy; he's one of the greatest of all time and no one can take that away from him. It's just that at the same time it can be so uncomfortable watching a once great player struggle to play the game that once came so naturally to them that they dominated the sport as a whole. Watching Barkley with Rockets or Hakeem with the Raptors or Ewing with the Magic was just the last way anyone wanted to remember those players. At the same time, none of their legacies took much of a hit, but it would have been nice to avoid those sights all the same. It's up to Shaq to decide when he is done with the game he loves, but for selfish reasons I hope it isn't when he starts holding his team back trying to be the player he used to be instead of accepting the player that he is.