Dallas vs Miami - the NBA Finals rematch noone predicted (or wanted)

When Miami signed Chris Bosh and LeBron James in July last year, not only sports fans but the world sat up and took notice. The best player in the league changed teams of his own volition and took deserved heat (oww ... unintentional pun) for leaving his hometown club for beaches and booty. And rings.

When the Heat filled out their roster with a few role players - Mike Miller and Udonis Haslem - and a series of stiff big guys like Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Juwan Howard, Jamaal Magloire, Erick Dampier and Joel Anthony, they were the popular tip to make the NBA finals even though their squad wasn't originally built for this year. Their start was slow - what would you expect with three new major cogs? - but as the 2010-11 NBA regular season rounded to a close, the Heat had gathered speed to the point where they dominated East playoff opponents Philadelphia, Boston and Chicago.

Of Dallas, it seems only Jason Terry really believed the team was destined for the NBA finals. Their playoffs have been a symphony conducted by Dirk Nowitzki and with feature solos from Terry and mighty mite Jose Juan Barea. The squad, hard and veteran, have coped admirably with the loss of starting SF (and likely LeBron stopper) Caron "Tuff Juice" Butler. They ploughed through Portland, the Lakers and Oklahoma City on their way to the rematch.

Rematch, because the teams met in the 2006 Finals. Only four players remain from those squads - Nowitzki, Terry, Dwyane Wade and Haslem; but the hurt still encompasses the Mavericks organisation. Much of the backroom staff remains the same and it's an easy bet that Mark Cuban wants an NBA Championship so badly he can taste it. But it's not the popular rematch that league observers throught we were getting: before the playoffs started, most analysts predicted a Chicago/Los Angeles decider, harking back to the twentieth anniversary of their 1991 encounter, a series which launched "Michael Jordan ... oh ... spec-TACK-ular move", a rain of John Paxson threes and the last games in Magic's first Lakers stint.

Nobody wanted this finals match outside Florida and Texas because, quite simply, the Heat are the bad guys (see WWE Superstar Chris Bosh at 2:15 - so schlock it's funny) and Dallas, until the playoffs, were seen as the "same old" - a veteran squad with minimal personnel changes from an ultimately unsuccessful 2010 campaign. As rematches went, the ones people thought likely were Lakers/Bulls, Lakers/Celtics and perhaps even Bulls/Blazers. But not the Mavs and the Heat. That both clubs have managed to proceed to their current peak is testament that really, nothing beats experience - or all-timers playing out of their collective skins, as LeBron and Dirk have.

As much as the Heat are nigh-on unstoppable, the popular vote will swing to Dallas. For redemption (game six, 2006, the infamous game brought into question by disgraced referee Tim Donaghy), for popular star Nowitzki, who's dominated the Western Conference playoffs and cohort Jason Kidd who has toiled for seventeen years without a Championship. Finally, they'll be favoured just because they're not the Heat. The South Floridians became the league's arch-enemy so fast thanks to that gaudy opening ceremony and the kerfuffle surrounding "The Decision" that it would take another Kobe case to dethrone them. A ring would start the process, but only increase the target on their backs next year (if there is one).

Predictions: Going with the head rather than heart here - Dirk and JJ Barea dominate just enough offensively for designated Wade and LeBron stoppers to do the same (just enough) to get the Mavericks through in seven.

Thanks to Bill Simmons for spec-TACK-ular phrasing & Chicagonow.com for the photo.

What you don't realise about the Miami Heat

The Miami Heat are stronger this year than we could have imagined, especially after all the dramas in December about how LeBron and the coach weren't getting along. LeBron is having his usual, MVP-type season, Dwyane Wade is playing well, Chris Bosh's head remains exceedingly-small and the steadiness of Zydrunas Ilgauskas and Erick Dampier has offset Joel Anthony's growing pains as a pro centre. You get the feeling they're going to cause some grief in the playoffs - and that they may be the NBA's third best team after Boston and San Antonio.

But the Miami team wasn't built for this year. It was built for next year. The team knew it was still missing a couple of key ingredients for a title this year, namely a centre who can defend the paint while not being a complete zero offensively and a point guard who can shoot the trey. They were well aware of this when the Key Three signed in July - news to noone.

The Heat were hoping that during this offseason's Collective Bargaining Agreement negotiations between NBA owners and players, the Mid Level Exception (MLE) isn't rescinded. The MLE was created a few years back to allow teams near or over the salary cap to sign players annually to try and improve their team. It's worth $5 million, and can be split any number of ways. Contending teams usually give the whole amount to one key role player, or split it between two older pros who can still help. The players like it - it decreases salary pressure ever so slightly, meaning more pie for the guys who play the game.

But it's increasingly looking like the Owners as a group don't see it helping them and want it removed. Existing MLE players like Ron Artest of the LA Lakers and Mike Miller of the Heat will still be paid what they're owed, but MLE deals are likely become as insubstantial as the Salary Cap will be hard. (Currently the cap is "soft", meaning teams are allowed to exceed it in certain ways such as to re-sign their own free-agents, but are penalised financially for doing so).

So where does this leave Miami? With a hard cap and no salary cap exceptions? With pretty much the same roster but very few tradeable assets unless a club is prepared to pay well over the odds for Anthony or the ageing Udonis Haslem. It's almost certain at some stage they will win a championship - they're just too talented not too - but the dynasty so many predicted may not happen simply for a lack of depth. The last couple of teams build around a "Big Three" - Boston and Chicago had excellent reserves of depth: the Celtics had PJ Brown, Leon Powe, Kendrick Perkins and a young Rajon Rondo. The Three-peat Bulls boasted Luc Longley, Ron Harper, Toni Kukoc, Brian Williams and Steve Kerr.

Miami may go the way of many championship contenders and try to pick up cheap veterans who have accepted salary buyouts from lesser clubs who don't need them anymore and want to avoid paying their hefty wages; but that limits the Heat to one guy per year who may or may not have anything left in the tank. What should be of comfort to the South Beach faithful is that with their current form and health, the Heat are an absolute lock to beat nearly everyone who comes knocking.

Until the playoffs, where Mario Chalmers, Carlos Arroyo and Juwan Howard will have to face up to playing serious minutes against younger or better opposition. It could be a glimpse of the future for the Heat. Not quite dystopian, but not the haven the wise guys in Florida expected on July 8th, The Decision day.

Immaturity the reason for Spostra's strife?

Shoulder-gate! Spoelstra-watch! Player-only meetings! Other hyphenated phrases with exclamation marks! As the Miami Heat sunk to 9-8 for the season there has been an explosion of rumours concerning the team's happiness with Head Coach Eric Spoelstra. ESPN's Chris Broussard yesterday suggested the players were unhappy with the coach, feeling he was both underperforming and focused solely on keeping his job rather than on combining effectively the talent on hand.

This is after seventeen games of an eighty-two game regular season, and less than a quarter of a season into the New Miami Triumvirate's five-year reign on South Beach.

That a coach is facing a player revolt seventeen games into a five-year journey speaks volumes as to the mindset of his key men James, Wade & Bosh. Spoelstra is on a hiding to nothing - has been since The Decision, really - and now it's become public knowledge. By signing probably the best two free agents on last offseason's market and combining them with their own prize Wade, Miami were suddenly expected to win big now. That they then brought in a glue guy and a potential starting centre only increased expectations.

Unfortunately, the glue guy got hurt and the centre has sucked. The roster is mismatched: two elite players who both need the ball in their hands, a highly-paid big man who doesn't defend the rim, centre-by-platoon and point guards more at home in the Minor Leagues doesn't spell championship. The Heat have struggled against good teams as Chris Bosh has produced only the shadows of his Toronto Raptors form and Wade has struggled with injuries. Rumours of player discontent at their coach's man-management skills have gone beyond whispers creating the impression that the star players are looking for someone to blame. Perhaps the most damning indictment of the current Miami team is that no-one envies Spoelstra his job, not even Coaching Supremo Pat Riley who came out of retirement once before to relieve a head coach he thought was overwhelmed.

The easiest target is the coach: the man with the most thankless job in pro basketball today. Why thankless? Because should the Heat win public opinion will say it was due to their talent level and the coach got a free ride. Should they lose, the coach takes the fall because of that same talent, no matter how duplicitous. Spoelstra has the most to lose out of everyone around Heat because it's his job to combine the mismatched talent on hand and shape it into a winner. The old adage that it's easier to replace one coach than an entire team is particularly apposite here because once-in-a-generation players like LeBron come along less frequently than good coaches. The New Triumvirate have five-year, $90M+ contracts and an investment of that sort buys significant job security. Spoelstra was promoted from within and the investment in him is not nearly to the same level.

Player-coach meetings happen all the time. But reported "clear-the-air" talks between coach and star do not, which is why yesterday's pre-game chat between Spoelstra and LeBron was headline news. Afterwards, the coach said "There's an amount of healthy conflict within the team" and LeBron's take included the words "This is who we have". This came after last week's loss to Dallas where LeBron appeared to bump his coach. Neither statement even came close to saying "We've sorted whatever it was out" and the guess is that Spoelstra is now on borrowed time.

LeBron and Co. want to win now and for there to be no apology/explanation after a shoulder bump, player-only meetings and crisis talks means this smoke leads to a fire somewhere. If seventeen games into a season the players want their coach fired under these circumstances, it shows a remarkable degree of immaturity. Immaturity can be exemplified by any or all of impatience, shortsightedness, arrogance or an unwillingness to accept responsibility.

Red Flag One: Those seventeen games comprise 4% of their five-year term. Impatient? Check.

Red Flag Two: If they don't see the holes in their roster that are causing their failure to thrive then they may be guilty of shortsightedness. If they see those holes and think their extraordinary abilities can cover them then that's a degree of self-confidence bordering on Arrogant. Shortsighted? Arrogant? It's either one or the other.

Red Flag Three: Bosh isn't performing to his potential while LeBron and Wade seem at odds with being able to play together, settling into what looks very much to be a "My Turn, Your Turn" approach with which neither is comfortable. That they are ostensibly blaming the coach for their failure to gel together perfectly so early shows a degree of unwillingness to shoulder the responsibility. Avoiding responsibility? Probable check.

Or perhaps the coach does stink. But if so, surely that same self-confidence and talent could be used to prosper despite his inadequacy; or they would have chosen to sign for a better coach? It turns out the easiest target is also the guy with the hardest job: balancing the egos of superstars.