The Heat Problem

Everyone is willing to throw the Miami Heat under the bus now that they did NOT deliver on their promised NBA Championship in Year One.  Let's be honest, did anybody really think a team starting Joel Anthony at Center was going to win an NBA Title?  And really, he was the only C on the roster that played much in the Finals.  Excepting D-Wade and Chris Bosh, Lebron had about as good of a supporting cast in Cleveland, if not better than the one he currently has.  It's a pretty garbage roster outside the Big Three.

Alright, so let's take a look at Year Two.  I believe that the Heat have as good of a roster as they are going to be able to get.  They won't go out and make any big moves in free agency; they don't have the cap space.  They convinced Mike Bibby to come play for the league minimum when he could have earned 10-15 times that somewhere else.  Mario Chalmers is as good a point guard as there is for under $1M a year.  Eddie House's D is just bad enough to make his shooting ability irrelevant (see highlight video of Mav's wide open shots in game 6: House is "guarding" the guy almost every time), though somebody might find his stroke and $1.35M contract worth something.  Udonis Haslem, Mike Miller, and James Jones are about as good as anybody at their respective salary levels ($3.5M, $5M, and $1.15M, respectively), though Mike Miller was overpaid relative to his postseason performance.  Ilgauskas, Juwan Howard, and Jamaal Magloire weren't using up much cap space as they tried to free-ride their way to NBA Championship Rings (a shade under $3.1M combined).  They do not currently have a first round draft pick, and with the aforementioned players on the roster, they aren't going to be able to trade for one this year unless they deal one of the Big Three.

No, if the Heat are going to improve, they are going to have to do it internally.  Chalmers and Anthony can certainly improve (though I'm not sure Anthony can improve very much) and both gained valuable experience in this year's playoffs.  Maybe Dexter Pittman can earn more than 11 minutes next season.  Everybody else on the roster is over 30.  Most of them are seeing the back end of their careers.  They likely won't improve much, and some of them weren't very good to begin with anyways.

So it really comes down to Wade, Bosh, and James playing better together.  What more can Wade do to improve as an individual player?  He is one of the greats in the game and his biggest thing will be to avoid injury with all the contract he plays through.  Bosh can add more post-up to his game and beef up a little bit to help his rebounding: he got knocked around by a perennially soft Dallas team.  James can become a more proficient and consistent outside shooter.  No question, in Game 6, the Heat were a better offensive team with him on the bench.  It's tough to say the chemistry wasn't good between them: they all really like each other.  I think it hurt more to not have anybody else on the team that could consistently play on both ends of the floor than whatever chemistry problems they might have had.

Can the Heat get better?  Yes, but so can everybody else in the Eastern Conference (most of whom aren't that far behind them to begin with).  The difference is: those teams can actually go out and get two or three better players.  It's easier to improve your team in free agency and the draft than it is internally.  Unless they deal (Bosh is the only realistic possibility to deal and get something of value in return), the Heat can realistically only dump a few veteran salaries and hope to get one more guy that can actually help in the rotation.  They can talk a few guys into accepting smaller contracts to play for a contender, but they won't be able to get any Bibby's next year that leave millions on the table.  Their biggest problem is: they can only create about $5-6M next season in cap space, which is enough to add one impact role player, or two guys that probably aren't any better than the guys they currently have.  It really isn't enough to get a better starting PG or C than what they currently have.

Without a huge deal going down, I don't expect Year Two to end any differently than Year One, only I anticipate it to end one series earlier in 2012.  Is it too early for predictions, because I am making one: the Heat may do better in the regular season, but in the playoffs they are going to see tougher teams than they did this season and will not make the NBA Finals.  I expect Chicago, New York, Philly, and Indiana to all improve significantly and be tougher "outs" in 2012 Playoffs and, ultimately, one of those four will knock Miami out in or before the Conference Finals, assuming the NBA actually plays next season...