Houston will be a statement game if we win or even lose a tough one. They are a damn good team. Its a chance to say "Hey NBA....we still exist"
Unfortunately I think the Heat will still be trashed when they stumble. Remember. The media narrative about the Heat's fall from grace post-LeBron has already been written. It's already been canned. It's ready to go. They're going to look for any signs of it and then they'll run with it. All this stuff about teams getting to now take their revenge on the Heat now that they don't have LeBron, etc. We've already seen it but I think it'll be even heavier when/if they stumble.
Personally I wonder what record the Heat will have to run out to before anyone in the media even starts to acknowledge that there might be a different post-LeBron narrative being written in Miami than what they'd all been assuming. I mean I go to ESPN and of the 14 headlines in the top right I don't see a single one about the Heat. I go to the Heat team blog page and I see one entry for November 3rd all about how well Chris Bosh is doing post-LeBron, but prior to that the last story was October 28th. And in the latest one about Bosh, they stick this nugget in there just to make sure we know that the Heat's 3-0 record thus far ain't worth dick:
Oh there will definitely be trash talk but the avoidable kind. I meant more along the lines of fans of other teams coming to this thread just to talk crap. I mean last year you had fans of about 4-5 different teams at different points coming in when we weren't even playing them just to get a shot in at us. I don't see as much as that. The media trash will be there but I think on a fan level some of it will die down
LeBatard was on Cowherd's show this morning, and while I usually change the channel when I get in the car, I listened because Lebby was on. While I don't like Cowherd very much, I did agree with one of the points he was making. LeBatard was talking about how it's funny that while LeBron is handling the move in 2014 exactly how he did it in 2010. Cowherd agreed and said that it's because the people of Miami already have it so good, that people don't feel bad for them. He said he has a fat local weather man theory, that no matter how talented anyone else in town is, the most well-liked guy on TV is the fat local weather guy because people can sympathize with him. As much as I hate to say this, I think Colin is spot on here. I think that's the reason Miami is hated so much. Miami is seen as a "have", and the people of Miami are not bashful about it, while so much of the country are "have nots".
[video=youtube;4VvQ0JumafU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VvQ0JumafU[/video] This video is beautiful, I love the Miami Heat franchise as much as the Dolphins. They really care about the fans and the city. If this video is any indication.
I've said this earlier - but LeBron left y'all with Bosh, Wade, and Deng. Sucks he left, but you're still talking about a potential ECF team. You're not going to get sympathy from teams that don't even have 1 player as good as those 3, ya know? Not to mention 3 rings since 2006. Again - that's better than like 26 teams in the NBA. "Uuuuugh LeBron left and now we are a little less likely to make the Finals and only have these 3 championship rings in the last 10 years" is not a really powerful sympathy play.
We're not looking for sympathy. We're looking for the constant stream of pulled-from-*** nonsense to stop.
I don't know why you'd think Heat fans are looking for sympathy. You've got important national personalities that control entire networks' narratives out there saying that basketball is dead in Miami and that the fans don't care anymore now that LeBron is gone. Wanting those kinds of shenanigans to stop is not the same is "please give us sympathy cuz we lost LeBron".
Nah, bro. According to the 'experts', we had one of the worst offseasons ever. We lost out on Bosh. Lost out on Melo. Let Asik and Lin walk for nothing, which killed our depth. And, we didn't pay Chandler Parsons $15 million to stay. We absolutely suck. If you're looking for a statement game, it's not against Houston.
At least the contrary results are being recognized. I do see stories being written that are kind of like, "Uhh, wow so the Rockets are a lot better than we thought". The Heat sit atop the Eastern Conference and you either hear "... (crickets) ..." or you hear, "the Heat beat up on this team that was without these two super awesome players and they won against this team that is the worst basketball team ever put together since the sport began, blah whatever I think Chris Bosh looks like he's having fun."
Sometimes, higher usage for your best players results in a .....better team. I love how Ariza is fitting in. Houston will be very good.
Miami should be good too. I am really wanting to see how Canaan and Papanikalao play against your defense. I think they are the key and biggest question marks to our season.
First of all, LeBron didn't leave the Heat with anything. He let all of those guys twist in the wind and gave no ****s about it. Secondly, no one is asking for sympathy. It's an absurd level of hypocrisy that LeBron was criticized in how he handled the situation the first time, yet when handling it the same way this time, he is celebrated. Added on top of that, Heat fans are continually torn apart by prominent media members. It's ridiculous and IMO the reasoning behind it comes from what I mentioned previously.
Birdman, UD, and Granger out tonight. Gonna have to play a little faster to compensate for a lack of size. Gotta guard the 3 pt. line. Houston might be the best 3 pt. shooting team in the NBA.
I think if you get Spoelstra to give you an honest answer of what he thinks of his offense now compared to years past he will say this is what he had in mind, but with LeBron, you have to do things differently. LeBron is at his best when he's controlling the ball, the ball kinda stops with him, he waits for his teammates to get into their spots, he drives and either passes it for a wide open shot or creates a shot for himself. That's good and works well when you have LeBron James, though it is easy to exploit and while it was successful, it wasn't dominant in my opinion. We've had some Game 7's against teams we shouldn't have had Game 7's. Every night we stepped in the court as the most talented team in the league, but that offense was too reliant on fast breaks. Our half court offense lacked chemistry. When you have someone as talented as Chris Bosh just standing at the three point line, and Wade just staring at Lebron 17 feet from the basket, that tells you all you need to know about the offense. We rode the LeBron train till the end and I think last year's results was clear it saturated and if he came back, there had to be change. He would have to evolve more as an off the ball player. That's Cleveland's problem now, if they reach the Finals I don't think the Cavaliers beats the Spurs, Mavericks, Suns, or Clippers, and I'd say that about last year's Heat team too.
Damn you guys, I was literally responding to someone who was talking about Miami getting sympathy haha. I wasn't saying you were asking for it - just responding to the convo that was described with Cowherd.
LeBron's best contribution to Heat basketball was the NBA thread immediately after The Decision. Most fun I've ever had on a message board.
James Harden is averaging 14 FT's per game? I hope RIO doesn't guard him too much (refs hate him), Harden will shoot 35 in this game.
Anybody else having huge problems downloading the LEbby/riley podcast from the ESPN App? I've been trying for over an hour
I haven't been able to download it either, it's not loading. The iTunes podcasts from ESPN aren't loading either.
I wasn't really talking about sympathy though. I was talking about why people seem to continually dislike Miami and have a double-standard on LeBron.
Bill Simmons literally said the only reason the Raptors lost on Sunday is because they got drunk on South Beach the night before.
Terrence Jones and Tarik Black out tonight. D-Mo getting the start. That destroys our big man rotation. Dwight is going to have to log some serious minutes (38+).
