Don't give Heat the Championship Already

Attention NBA fans!

Don’t assume that the Miami Heat will automatically win a championship next year now that they have signed LeBron James and Chris Bosh and re-signed Dwyane Wade. Don’t assume they will be the best team in the NBA. Don’t assume they will be the best team in the Eastern Conference. And, don’t even assume that they will be the best team in their own division.

The Heat very well could end up doing all of that, but don’t just act like it’s a given. In fact, it’s still a long way off.

There are two reasons why the Heat might not be destined as the next NBA Champions:

1) Who will the Heat get to fill out the roster?

Signing James and Bosh and re-signing Wade means that the Heat has spent almost all of their cap room. All that remains on their roster besides those three are Mario Chalmers and their recent draft selections, all which came in the second round. The Heat must fill out the remainder of the roster with what little cash that they have remaining. This means that they will likely have to fill out their rosters with cheap D-League players and has-been veterans looking to choose a championship possibility over money. If the Heat were to fill out their roster with D-League talent, i.e. players who haven’t been good enough thus far to even make the Clippers, Nets or Timberwolves, and past their prime players, than I personally don’t think James, Wade and Bosh would be enough to raise a championship banner. If this is what the Heat plan on doing than I don’t even think they’ll be better than the Orlando Magic, who play in the Heat’s division. The Magic are stacked from one to 12, something the Heat likely won’t be. Not to mention the Heat would likely have to go through the back-to-to champion Lakers to win a ring, which won’t be easy to do because the Lakers core will be returning.

However, the Heat has already made two good decisions since James announced he was signing with them. They have gotten rid of the contract of bust and troubled player Michael Beasley, trading him to the Timberwolves for a future draft pick and signed sharpshooter Mike Miller, who would make a good addition to almost any NBA roster.

2) Can James, Wade and Bosh mesh on the same roster?

It’s pretty much been proven that a team needs two stars to win an NBA championship. In recent years we’ve seen it with Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen in Chicago, Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant in Los Angeles, Bryant and Pau Gasol in Los Angeles, Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in Los Angeles, Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler in Houston, Tim Duncan and David Robinson in San Antonio and many others. Only twice have we seen it with three stars: Larry Bird, Robert Parrish and Kevin McHale in Boston in the ‘80s and Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen in Boston three seasons ago. Keep in mind that McHale was merely a sixth man and the Boston “big three” of late were arguably past their prime and put their egos (what little they seem to have) aside.

I personally think that Wade and Bosh could play on a team together very nicely. However, I’m not confident that James can set aside his massive ego and numbers to do it. It probably won’t take us very long to find out.

If the Heat can surround James, Wade and Bosh with championship-type role players and if the new “big three” as I’m sure they will be dubbed can get along than the Heat should win a championships or championships rather easily. However, these are two big questions that must be answered first.