The New York Sun’s Martin Johnson thinks “it’s nice that all the contributors from last season’s title will be on hand for the banner raising and ring ceremony,” but suspects the defending champion Miami Heat’s complancency spells impending mediocrity.
Miami was 52“30 in the 2005“06 regular season, which makes them the worst team to win a title since the 44“38 Washington Bullets upset everyone en route to the 1978 crown. That alone should have made the Heat a bit more proactive in their offseason hiring.Then consider the team’s age: center Shaquille O’Neal is 34; his backup, Alonzo Mourning is 36; reserve point guard Gary Payton is 38; the starting point guard, Jason Williams, turns 31 in November, and forward Antoine Walker is 30. The Heat’s shooting guard, Dwayne Wade, 24, and power forward Udonis Haslem, 26, are the only Heat players in the rotation that figure to improve. And how much better can Wade get? At times during the Heat playoff run, Wade didn’t look Jordanesque ” he looked better than Michael. Or, considered another way: Last season Wade averaged 27.2 points, 6.7 assists and 5.7 boards per game while shooting 49.5%. Expecting dramatic improvement on that kind of production is unreasonable.
It is likely that the Miami graybeards will decline and even more likely that they will miss substantial time with injuries. O’Neal missed 23 games last season and has been out of uniform for 77 contests in the last five years. Those expecting some sort of miraculous bounce back should consider that O’Neal has always been a tad injury prone (perfectly logical given the level of pushing and shoving he absorbs in the paint); Shaq last missed fewer than three games in a season in 1994,when he was 22. D-Wade has missed 33 regular season games in his three years as a pro. Mourning has missed entire seasons with kidney problems and a variety of maladies have kept him out of other regular season games. Williams is often dropped from the schedule with some ailment or another. Put simply, this is an old and increasingly frail team that is returning to defend their title.
Hands up, everyone who thought J-Will would live to see 31, never mind still be in the NBA. Then again, there’s something to be said for improved arena security, post-9/11 (ie. coaches cannot so easily pack heat).
I don’t think you can look at the Heat as a 52-30 team. They had a bunch of new players who hadn’t played together and they clearly paced themselves throughout the season. I think it’s probably more appropriate to look at them as the team that won 9 out 10 playoff games at home, won 4 in a row against Dallas, really handled Detroit and has the best player in the game.
I get that everyone is a year older but Riley is a good motivator, Shaq (who reported in shape this training camp) will only play 55 games max and they’ll be ready for the playoffs. It always takes luck to win a championship but they’ll clearly be in the mix of it. I think it’s safe to assume that Walker, Williams, Posey and Haslem will all improve with more defined roles. Last time I checked out Zo he can still put out a ton of energy for 12-16 minutes a night, which is all they need.
yeah, but I think Johnson is correct in presuming there are other teams in the East ready to contend for a conference title. Chicago and Cleveland figure to be better in ’06-’07 and you’ll probably see an improved Raptors. 52 wins + in the East won’t be so easy to come by.
I wrote about this last week.
Cleveland, Chicago, Boston, and Orlando all figure to be better this year. New York, Atlanta, Charlotte, and Toronto all have reasonable expectations to win 30 or more games this year.
Detroit and New Jersey (barring another season of perfect health) seem the most likely teams to win significantly fewer games, though Bogut’s injury will make things tougher for Milwaukee.
Pat Riley’s decision to enter the season with a bench of Alonzo Mourning (when available) and a bunch of guys who have never played significant minutes in the NBA while waiting for Shandon Anderson and Jason Williams to heal and O’Neal and Wade to miss 35 games between them seems optimistic to the point of being delusional.
The Heat will be a tough out in the playoffs, but I think they top out at 48 regular season wins.
tbl,
I concur that Boston will improve, and the the Knicks should be able to win 30 or more (but not many more) with their existing, capped-to-hell roster.
I think the Nets’ window of opportunity closed last spring.
Does anyone think the commerical where Flash gives away the SUV is really stupid? And how does D-Wade know he’s throwing the keys to a kiddie hoops coach? Everytime I see the van drive away, I don’t imagine there’s a basketball team inside.
I don’t think Cleveland is ready to contend. I think it is a poorly designed team. The style that bests suits them is to run and surround LBJ with athletic guys who can shoot — not Z or Larry Hughes. I think what they did last year maxed out their potential. I see them as final 4 in the East material, not more.
I’m holding out hope that Kristic gew some testicles over the summer and shows up come playoff time for the Nets. If they can keep Kidd’s minutes down they might be back in the upper tier again.
Chicago I think is the Heat’s biggest threat in the East. I love the make-up of the team. Either Noconi or Deng will be an all-star real soon, Hinrich is great and PJ Brown is one of the game’s most underrated players. My one heistation with them is who’s the guy with the ball in their hands at the end of the game for Chicago. I’m not sure they have that one guy who can create and make his own shot in the clutch.
Boston won’t do much with that moron as a coach.
I think Cleveland wins more game this year for the same reason that Chicago does: both teams gave a lot of minutes to guys who were awful last year. LeBron was great, Z and Gooden were good, Varejao and Marshall were decent bench players, and everyone else stunk.
Larry Hughes is mediocre, but he’s better than 2000+ minutes of Flip Murray, Sasha Pavlovic, and Luke Jackson. I’ve not been hugely impressed by Mike Brown but I think he can cobble something relatively useful out of David Wesley, Damon Jones, Daniel Gibson, and Shannon Brown.