What's the matter with… the Miami Heat? - The League of Ordinary Gentlemen

This guest post was written by our very own Kazzy! (TAFKABSK)

Many people believe that the Miami Heat “Dream Team” experiment is a failure.  They point to games like last week’s come-from-ahead loss to a practically-Derrick-Rose-less Chicago Bulls team and the ringless fingers of LeBron James and Chris Bosh  as evidence to bolster their case.  How did a team with so much promise fail so spectacularly?  Let’s take a closer look and see…

There is no doubt that Miami is a flawed team.  The Dream Team moniker is likely a mistake, as it so often seems to be (see: 2010 Philadelphia Eagles, 2002-2008 Yankees).  After the “Big Three”, they have exactly zero players who rate as above-average based on John Hollinger’s advanced metric  Player Efficiency Rating (PER). Coach Eric Spoelstra seems unable to come up with offensive sets that maximize the vast talents of his best players.  Key role players like Mike Miller and Udonis Haslem have missed time over the past two years.  And outside of Bosh and James, they have exactly one player between the ages of 26-29 (typically a player’s peak) averaging more than 20 minutes/game; his name is Joel Anthony… ever heard of him?

So… that sums it up, no?  The Miami Heat “Dream Team” experiment is a failure, demonstrating that amassing a trio of superstars with high salaries is too limiting on the broader construction of a roster to enjoy true success.  But all of this begs a far greater question…  Is the Miami Heat “Dream Team” experiment indeed a failure?  And is their failure predicated on the failure of their biggest start, Lebron James?

The Heat rank 3rd in the league in wins over the past two seasons.  They are primed for their second consecutive #2 seed in the conference.  The past two seasons currently rank as the 2nd and 3rd most successful regular seasons in the team’s 24 year history.  In 2011 they ranked 3rd in the league in Offensive Rating and 5th in Defensive Rating; in 2012 they rank 6th and 5th, respectively.  They lost the NBA Championship last year in 6 games and remain the Vegas favorites to win the 2012 ‘Chip (with the obvious caveat that Vegas odds are not a true handicap).  Measured only against the most extreme of expectations can one look at those numbers and conclude that the Heat are a demonstrable failure with just one postseason in the books.

But what about LeBron?  Surely the man who seems to do everything wrong on and off the court is justified in the criticism he receives, no?  Again, the numbers do not bear out this all-too-common narrative.  For the 5th consecutive year, James ranks first in PER and for the 4th consecutive year, he ranks first in Offensive WS (OWS), Win Shares (WS), and Win Shares per 48 minutes (WS/48).  He lost the MVP last year, despite besting winner Derrick Rose in all of these categories; Rose ranked 9th in PER, 6th in OWS, 5th in WS, and 9th in WS/48.  For those of you who prefer more “traditional stats”, LeBron led Rose in points, FG%, rebounds, steals, and 3PT% and trailed Rose by just 1.5 assists per game, despite Rose being a full time point guard.  (Rose won primarily because of the narrative constructed around his individual ascent to elite status coinciding with the Bulls ascent to the top of the league juxtaposed against LeBron’s individual traditional stats taking a slight dip as he teamed up with two All-Stars on a team that failed to dominate as expected.  Without that, there was no statistical backing for his win… but that is another conversation for another day…)

LeBron’s efforts this year are particularly impressive: if the season ended today, he would have the 13th highest PER of all-time (trailing only prior seasons by himself, Michael Jordan, Shaquille O’Neal, Wilt Chamberlain, and David Robinson), despite playing a condensed schedule in a season with a limited off-season and little-to-no practice for most teams.  This last point is often ignored, but should not be understated: last year’s Heat team played 82 regular season games over a 170 day season; this year’s team will play 66 regular season games over 123 days.  That works out to .48 games/day last year, compared to .53 games/day this season, an increase of more than 10%.  So, basically, LeBron is having a historically great season under historically challenging circumstances.  Add this to an unrecognized MVP caliber season last year and we are calling a guy a failure despite the fact that he is doing things on the basketball court rarely, if ever, seen.

So, to the original question… what’s the matter with the Heat?  Honestly, not much.  Their second unit is weak.  Their coach can’t seem to figure out an offense that utilizes three of the best offensive players on the planet.  Yet they remain the odds on favorite to win the Championship, are a dominant team, and are likely the team any of us would pick to win it all with a gun to our head.  The only way they and their best player can be considered failures is by applying expectations of perfection mixed with a healthy dose of Hateraid.  The perception of the Miami Heat and LeBron James as failures says more about our current culture of sports analysis than it does about the relative successes of these entities.

(Note #1:  This article was written before the Heat won back-to-back games against Charlotte and New York.)

(Note #2:  All stats courtesy of www.basketball-reference.com unless linked elsewhere.)

Tagged as: Chicago Bulls, Joel Anthony, Lebron James, Miami Heat