What's the deal with the Miami Heat?

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xfactor

Rising Star
BGOL Investor
Interested to hear some of the opinions on why the Heat stink this year.

Obviously, the team is flat out awful on defense.

They don't have anyone that can knock down open jumpers.

Dwyane Wade is still hurt.

Shaquille O'Neal is complaining about the team everytime someone sticks a mic in his face.

I bet Riley and Mickey Arison wish they spent the $$$ on Kapono and Posey now.

At 4-14, does anything think they have a shot at making the playoffs?
 
xfactor said:
Interested to hear some of the opinions on why the Heat stink this year.
Click to expand...

i HATE to say this, because i know someone will try to flame me for it, but it is the curse of tricky ricky davis.

his entire career, he's never been a full time starter on a .500 (or better) squad.

in oversimplified terms, he's fucking up the continuity and flow. more accurately, with him on the floor, there is no rhythm to the game.

don't get me wrong, the miami heat AS A TEAM are not playing excellent basketball, but the trades combined with the introduction of ricky davis have been a fatal mixture.
 
xfactor said:
Interested to hear some of the opinions on why the Heat stink this year.
Click to expand...


Well since you asked...where do I begin??

Shaq:
The rule changes pretty much renders his money moves (running over people) useless. When he was younger, he was quicker so he could hook people when he spun to the basket and it wouldn't get called. Now that he is slower, it's more obvious.

Shaq is a perfect example of a robotic player that depends on one move. think Mike Tyson in his prime. Mike's fundamentals eroded to the point that if he was forced to actually box, he would get beaten. But he always had that knock out power which made him dangerous. Shaq is the same way. he has no jumper, no finesse moves, so he has nothing to fall back on. Zo has been getting equal if not more playing time with him in foul trouble..but the Heat offense is not built to have him as the focal point.

Lack of young athletic talent:
I thought Kenny Smith did an excellent job or covering this point. They have no perimeter defender, and no player that can run on the fast break. They have failed to infuse any young talent into their team.

Lack of rebounding:
The Heat consistently get killed on the boards. The opposing team is getting to the loose balls faster than the Heat.

Dwayne Wade:
The injury issue does NOT exempt him from having poor decision making ability and poor shot selection.

Small Forward:
Eddie Jones, Antoine Walker and James Posey are missed severely for what they offer. Jones is an above average perimeter defender and a solid three point shooter at this stage in his career and Posey is an athletic defender. They made an attempt to replace them with Penny Hardaway and Ricky Davis. Penny is hurt, and Davis just doesn't fit with the team needs. Which brings me to..

Lack of bench players:
There are no real serviceable plaeyrs off the bench once you get past Zo and Ricky Davis. And finally..

Lack of caring:
The Heat lack that commitment to basketball. Riley has touched on this several times. If Riley can't motivate his team, then it is his fault, you can't coach effort. If the players don't care, then they won't play well. Look at the Timberwolves. They don't have anywhere near the talent of the Heat, but because they play competitive basketball, they are in every game until the end.

This is my opinion..and I'm sticking to it. :D
 
Looks like this post was right on time as the Heat are beating the Golden State Warriors on the road. When you need a win? Just play the team that gives up the most points allowed in the league.

*EDIT* These MFs have blown the lead double digit lead they have and are now trailing by 7 with 2 minutes left.

cranrab said:
i HATE to say this, because i know someone will try to flame me for it, but it is the curse of tricky ricky davis.

his entire career, he's never been a full time starter on a .500 (or better) squad.

in oversimplified terms, he's fucking up the continuity and flow. more accurately, with him on the floor, there is no rhythm to the game.

don't get me wrong, the miami heat AS A TEAM are not playing excellent basketball, but the trades combined with the introduction of ricky davis have been a fatal mixture.
Click to expand...

:lol: @ Tricky Ricky Scarecrow.

I agree about Davis. Even last night, he was out of control on O and for his athleticism, he is a poor defender.

I think they'll turn it around before it's over. I've always been a fan of Shaquille O'Neal and hope he doesnt go out like this.

On another note, after watching the Jazz lose to the Spurs tonight, I remember after the WCF last year and Deron Williams called out the Three Stooges (AK, Okur, and Giricek) for not having any heart.

Looks like nothing has changed amongst the Euros as they only put up 13 pts and 10 rebounds logging 70 minutes combined. :smh:
 
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Rollie_Fingaz said:
Well since you asked...where do I begin??

Shaq:
The rule changes pretty much renders his money moves (running over people) useless. When he was younger, he was quicker so he could hook people when he spun to the basket and it wouldn't get called. Now that he is slower, it's more obvious.

Shaq is a perfect example of a robotic player that depends on one move. think Mike Tyson in his prime. Mike's fundamentals eroded to the point that if he was forced to actually box, he would get beaten. But he always had that knock out power which made him dangerous. Shaq is the same way. he has no jumper, no finesse moves, so he has nothing to fall back on. Zo has been getting equal if not more playing time with him in foul trouble..but the Heat offense is not built to have him as the focal point.

Lack of young athletic talent:
I thought Kenny Smith did an excellent job or covering this point. They have no perimeter defender, and no player that can run on the fast break. They have failed to infuse any young talent into their team.

Lack of rebounding:
The Heat consistently get killed on the boards. The opposing team is getting to the loose balls faster than the Heat.

Dwayne Wade:
The injury issue does NOT exempt him from having poor decision making ability and poor shot selection.

Small Forward:
Eddie Jones, Antoine Walker and James Posey are missed severely for what they offer. Jones is an above average perimeter defender and a solid three point shooter at this stage in his career and Posey is an athletic defender. They made an attempt to replace them with Penny Hardaway and Ricky Davis. Penny is hurt, and Davis just doesn't fit with the team needs. Which brings me to..

Lack of bench players:
There are no real serviceable plaeyrs off the bench once you get past Zo and Ricky Davis. And finally..

Lack of caring:
The Heat lack that commitment to basketball. Riley has touched on this several times. If Riley can't motivate his team, then it is his fault, you can't coach effort. If the players don't care, then they won't play well. Look at the Timberwolves. They don't have anywhere near the talent of the Heat, but because they play competitive basketball, they are in every game until the end.

This is my opinion..and I'm sticking to it. :D
Click to expand...

I agree with your assessment of their lack of commitment. It's obvious that guys on the team don't play with much passion right now and that, other than their lack of defense, are the main two problems they have.

As far as O'Neal, as big as he is, if he can put himself in position to seal properly, he will score 60-70% of the time. The problem is that he is missing the lay-ups and short jump hooks he'll normally make.

The rest of the stuff I think can be corrected but if they are going to make any personnel moves they are going to have to address the SF and PG positions. I did hear they are trying to make a deal for Ron Artest and Mike Bibby over the summer but it fell through. They should revisit that.
 
They got decimated roster-wise in the past couple of seasons. Other than Shaq, Wade, Zo, J Will, and Haslem, no one else of note is kept from the rosters from 06-07.

Posey, Jones, and Kapono are gone via the luxury tax (or something like that) and its killin them. No perimeter shooters, and no frontcourt defense...We saw this when Chicago ran all over the court on em last year...

Shaq and Wade may not be 100% for most of the season; Wade with key injuries and Shaq just not being what he was. When he's missing point blank dunks, you know his career is about over.
 
I want the heat to get far, but I feel like they have no heart left. The good news is they can pull it together. The season is not too deep yet, the bad news is I see someone in their core ( Wade, O'Neal, Haslem, Williams, or Mourning) getting injured. It seems to happen every day year. I really wished Miami would have at least resigned Kapono, and left Smush chill in free agency :smh:.

I would like to see Shaq bow out on a good note, but who knows what will happen.

On a side note im pullin for Orlando to do big things.
 
Looks like the Heat finally got a W today. I hope this can start a W streak for them.

With O'Neal, D Wade, and Udonis Haslem all blowing up in Coach Riley's face, I wonder if he thinks he's lost respect of guys on the team?

Wonder what SpiritualPorn thinks about his guys now?
 
cranrab said:
i HATE to say this, because i know someone will try to flame me for it, but it is the curse of tricky ricky davis.

his entire career, he's never been a full time starter on a .500 (or better) squad.

in oversimplified terms, he's fucking up the continuity and flow. more accurately, with him on the floor, there is no rhythm to the game.

don't get me wrong, the miami heat AS A TEAM are not playing excellent basketball, but the trades combined with the introduction of ricky davis have been a fatal mixture.
Click to expand...


I was going to just use that one emboldened word as my entire answe
(but I didn't know exactly how to spell it):

Continuity

But I disagree it's because of Ricky. Don't think he's important enough to muck up the flow of the entire roster. I place the blame at Riley's feet. He's continuing right where he left off before he quit on the team a couple of years ago
 
RunawaySlave said:
But I disagree it's because of Ricky. Don't think he's important enough to muck up the flow of the entire roster.
Click to expand...

Never underestimate the ability of one player to completely destroy a team's chemisty on the court. I'm sure cranrab can point out one that suits up for the lakers everynight :rolleyes:

On a side note - What about the Heat trading Shaquille O'Neal to the Nets for Jason Kidd. Miami gets a PG that can run the O and defend on the perimeter and the Nets finally get a post presence :D
 
xfactor said:
Never underestimate the ability of one player to completely destroy a team's chemisty on the court. I'm sure cranrab can point out one that suits up for the lakers everynight :rolleyes:

On a side note - What about the Heat trading Shaquille O'Neal to the Nets for Jason Kidd. Miami gets a PG that can run the O and defend on the perimeter and the Nets finally get a post presence :D
Click to expand...


Stop playing
:lol:
 
first off the season is still young, so they have a shot, their team is old, their superstar is hurt, their other superstar is starting to look his age and i don't know if it's age or disinterest or giving in or all of the above, but like many have said they aren't very athletic and their bench is slightly sub par at best
 
RunawaySlave said:
But I disagree it's because of Ricky. Don't think he's important enough to muck up the flow of the entire roster. I place the blame at Riley's feet.
Click to expand...

ricky davis doesn't get it all laid down at his feet.

there's enough to go around, and everyone deserves a share.

that includes a large portion for coach riley, who has allowed the team to become a circus.

but allow me to elaborate on the ricky davis situation.

as voiced IN THIS THREAD (and publicly elsewhere), the heat saw plenty indicators that they collectively were growing long in the tooth. losing james posey, they were definitely losing an energy player on the D side of the ball.

so some genius looked around and thought ricky davis would be a good solution. young AND athletic. what a bargain, right? WRONG. not any more a good fit than say, jr smith.

the problem is NOT that ricky davis is incapable of contributing. the problem with ricky davis isn't even a matter of productivity. it's a problem of ricky davis not being what the heat NEED.

they've already got a proven slasher/scorer in dwyane wade. they've already got a still formidable (but no longer explosive) post presence in shaquille o'neal. what they NEEDED was a long distance shooter to complement those 2 AND an athletic stopper on D. secondarily, the heat needed to find a PG to manage the O.

what they didn't need was ANOTHER scorer to take shots away from shaquille o'neal. and they certainly didn't need ANOTHER scorer whose shot selection UPS the tempo of the game when you have a BIG man playing on bad pins.
 
xfactor said:
Never underestimate the ability of one player to completely destroy a team's chemisty on the court. I'm sure cranrab can point out one that suits up for the lakers everynight :rolleyes:

On a side note - What about the Heat trading Shaquille O'Neal to the Nets for Jason Kidd. Miami gets a PG that can run the O and defend on the perimeter and the Nets finally get a post presence :D
Click to expand...

But that Collins kid is such a beast in the middle.*





























*-denotes sarcasm.:D
 
Rollie_Fingaz said:
But that Collins kid is such a beast in the middle.*

*-denotes sarcasm.:D
Click to expand...

He did lead them to consecutive Eastern Conference titles :rolleyes:

On a thread related note, the Heat just beat the Phoenix Suns in Phoenix.

Looks like cranrab was right. It definitely is the pussific division with the best team in the division losing to the worst team(s) in the league back to back nights :eek:
 
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