David Ramil likes to write, often about basketball, and someday dreams of being on the Mount Rushmore of bloggers. His words range from the unique to the unpopular, and can be found in SB Nation’s Hot Hot Hoops and Fansided’s All U Can Heat. Follow him on Twitter @dramil13.
It might be more a sign of my own personal failings but I don’t feel as comfortable as most other fans do in predicting that the Miami Heat will win a third consecutive championship.
The act of writing this breaks down the fourth wall, the line between journalist and reader, even as blurred as it has become in this internet-dependent age of constant pseudo-news. I analyze my opinion on a topic and make it the point of a story. Furthermore, I desecrate the foundation of unbiased journalism by admitting, in all honesty, my devotion to a particular team.
As a fan, and a fan of Miami’s in particular, I feel honor bound to proclaim that the Heat have an excellent chance of three-peating. But therein lies the problem. I don’t “feel” it, at least not yet. Fans are justifiably delusional about their respective team’s chances; they have to be in order to inherently be “fans.” It’s a test of loyalty, and a testament to how blind one can be regarding “your” team’s faults.
But I look at Miami and the way they’ve underachieved this season and I don’t feel quite as comfortable as the rest of the Heat-nation.
They’ll bring your attention to the just-completed sweep of the Charlotte Bobcats and see that as evidence that Miami is poised for the title-run. I see Miami being lucky they escaped Charlotte and that Al Jefferson was hobbled in the first half of the first game of the series and still managed to average nearly 19 points per game.
Of course you know by now that Jefferson, the linchpin of the former Bobcats team, suffered an injury to the plantar fascia area of his foot. This is a player whose game, the very foundation of what he does and does well, is built on his ability to shift his weight from foot to foot and deftly find a way of avoiding a defender to score.
His excellent footwork was handicapped nearly from the onset of the series and he still outscored Dwyane Wade – supposedly healthy and primed for the long title run – and Chris Bosh.
Again, the über-fan will argue that Wade’s and Bosh’s low-scoring output is a result of a deeper Miami roster that gets its points from a wider array of players. The bulk of the scoring load falls, reasonably, on the NBA’s best player (LeBron James) and everyone else is forced to do what one can to ensure a victory.
But this argument only strengthens my opinion. Jefferson was Charlotte’s focal point; in the words of baseball legend Reggie Jackson, the “straw that stirs the drink.” And his injury was debilitating. If James would (perish the thought) be forced out of a game due to injury – as Jefferson was in the deciding Game 4, the last in Bobcats history – there’s still Wade, Bosh as well as former All-Stars Ray Allen and Rashard Lewis. Remove Jefferson from the equation and a yet-unproven Kemba Walker must lead a team consisting of Gerald Henderson, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Josh McRoberts and Chris Douglas-Roberts to unseat the reigning NBA champs.
Heat fans will look at the downfall of the Indiana Pacers (although still statistically, if not spiritually, able to advance in the postseason) and the elimination of the rival Chicago Bulls and see a clearer path to the Eastern Conference, and then NBA, finals. I see a Brooklyn Nets team that has clear advantages over Miami in position matchups, not to mention a regular-season sweep of four games, still in the running. I look at Atlanta, with capable shooters destroying the Pacers’ vaunted defense, and I think of the Heat defending the three-point line in the bottom half of the league. Typical fans see Washington’s inexperience: I see John Wall, Bradley Beal, Nêne and Marcin Gortat slicing, shooting and bruising their way past Miami’s 11th-ranked defense (far worse than Chicago’s, the team they just sent packing) because they have no reason to think they should be doing anything but succeeding.
This isn’t to say that I don’t think Miami’s capable of winning it all. On the contrary, I think the Heat at their peak is by far the best and most dangerous team in the NBA. But they haven’t reached that peak, haven’t been able to maintain it for more than a few minutes at a time in the playoffs, and this was against a team of relatively-unaccomplished players whose leader spent off-days in a protective boot just so he could walk.
But the title-chase has already begun and this Miami team is the one that I, as a “journalist” and as a fan, must tie my hopes to. Will I be like the mythological oracle, Cassandra, whose pleadings and warnings were ignored despite her ability to see the future? Or do I walk the streets, grizzled, wild-eyed and foul-smelling, with the sandwich board around me proclaiming “The End is Near”?
No one knows for sure. Perhaps the message of this year’s version of the playoffs, so impossible to predict and thrilling in its uncertainty, is to simply enjoy the ride for as long as it lasts.