Why Everyone Hates the Heat

Just 8 Championships to go guys!

I hate the Miami Heat. Many people do. Most of those people also hate LeBron James, in fact he’s the main reason they hate the Heat (well, that & their bandwagon fans). Why though? What turned everyone against a player & team that prior to a year ago they had no problem with (unless of course you are a Kobe lover, or Dallas fan)?

The Heat, & their fans, have reacted all season as if the only reason people don’t like them is jealousy (as a spurned Bulls fan I can say this is one reason), despite a wealth of evidence otherwise. It’s not just the total lack of class that was The Decision & the following pep rally, it’s the fact that those involved, most notably LeBron refuse to acknowledge their mistakes. It was months before LeBron even admitted that maybe The Decision was a less than brilliant idea, but by then it was too late after he’d tried for months to hide behind it raising money for the Boys and Girls Club (if he really cared he would’ve just given the money out of the millions he makes from his contract & endorsements). Then he once again showed an inability to handle the consequences of his actions by hiding in the locker room during the player intros of his second return to Cleveland (a game the Heat lost, providing the best moment of the season up until the Finals). Finally he & Wade demonstrated a disturbing lack of maturity with their mocking of Dirk’s illness before game 5. Wade put forth the excuse that they did it because they knew the media would blow it out of proportion (LeBron gave no comment, seeming to realize they’d screwed up, or maybe he was still to busy trying to figure out where he went during the 4^th quarter of game 4). This then begs the question why do it in the first place? Why set yourself up to look like childish punks? Wade seems to think he was somehow pulling some witty little trick on the media that made them look foolish, the fact he doesn’t realize that his stunt had the opposite affect goes to the core of why people can’t stand the Heat.

Prior to this season Charles Barkley and Dwyane Wade have always seemed tight. Over the years they had done a series of amusing T-Mobile commercials together & Sir Charles had always been complementary of Wade’s game in his TNT analysis (he also routinely referred to LeBron James as the best player in the world). Barkley, along with a number of other greats, called out LeBron after The Decision saying they would have never joined a rival the way LeBron had (one could point out that Barkley did in fact demand a trade out of Philadelphia in the early 90s & later joined Olajuwan’s Rockets in the late 90s). While this criticism was not entirely fair either way it seems like something Barkley would have gotten over during the course of the season considering his appreciation of LeBron’s game & friendship with Wade. Yet when asked who he was picking to win the series before game 5 of the finals he said, "Listen, if the Miami Heat were playing the Washington Generals I would pick the Washington Generals. It's something about that team that annoys me. They just a whiny bunch and I can't root for them." That’s what it comes down to, that’s the reason people haven’t let go of The Decision, the pep rally etc… The Heat’s stars are a juvenile bunch that complain about people not liking them (Even last night LeBron said, "All the people that were rooting me on to fail, at the end of the day they have to wake up tomorrow to the same lives they had before. They have the same personal problems they have today." Classy.) without ever taking the time to look at why that is (or hiding behind the “It’s because we’re so good,” angle) or how they could fix it.

There are three things the Heat need to do to get people to stop hating them (granted some people will always hate them, such as everyone is Ohio). First they need to try acting like adults. They may play a game for a living but that doesn’t mean you should mock your opponent, particularly when he’s outplaying you. That SHOULDN’T be that hard. Secondly they need to stop complaining about people disliking them, that’s part of the game. People hated Russell, they hated Kareem & Magic, they hated Bird, they hated MJ, they hated Shaq, they hated Duncan, & a whole lot of people hate Kobe. Guess what? Those guys dealt with it & they won a bunch of championships anyway. This also SHOULD be fairly easy (then again LeBron’s psyche has appeared somewhat fragile as of late so maybe it won’t be). The last phase is the most important, primarily because in the larger scheme of basketball it’s the only one that matters. This phase is winning.

Despite making the finals this was actually their greatest failing. Before this season Jason Terry tattooed the Larry O’Brien, or championship, Trophy to his arm. This would seem to be an act of ridiculous overconfidence, but then he came up big in games 5 & 6, the Mavs won the championship, & now that tattoo has gone from being absurd to completely bad-ass. Had the Heat won the title many of their PR problems would have disappeared. LeBron would have been able to say, “See, this is why I came here,” & we all would have looked at the mess that is Cleveland & admitted, if only to ourselves, that he did make the right decision (some people would still have always cried out about how he had to join Wade & Bosh to win, but these people are silly &/or ignorant, no one has ever won alone, except Hakeem but even then only because Jordan retired). With a championship even that pep rally could have been mildly justified, instead it will always be both a cautionary tale of overconfidence & absolutely hilarious. I’ll admit even if they had won many people would still have hated the Heat (I certainly would have) but at the very least they would have been forced to respect them.

Watching the Heat defeat two very good teams in the Celtics & Bulls was not something I enjoyed (particularly as a Bulls fan & someone who picked against the Heat in both of those series), however I had to appreciate the way the Heat played. Their defense was relentless, their offense was unselfish, & their hustle lasted all 48 minutes (& an extra 5 in their 2 overtime wins). Watching them close out the Bulls on an 18-3 run I could only be amazed at their greatness, they were unstoppable. Then for the first 90 minutes of the finals they dominated & one was left amazed that in their first year together the “Big 3” were going to win a championship with what was essentially a bunch of scrubs (Chalmers, & when healthy, Haslem & Miller are the only other players they’d actually like to play). Then they collapsed.

Or at least it seemed that way. In truth the Mavs simply played fantastic the rest of the series & were the better team (as seen in their plus/minus in the clutch this season). They had the most efficient/clutch scorer in the series (Dirk had 62 fourth quarter points, the same as LeBron & Wade combined), the best rebounder/shot blocker (Chandler), the superior bench (Terry & Barea/Stevenson were huge), the better coach (up until these playoffs Rick Carlisle was the most underrated coach in the league), & the better fans (Dallas went 2-1 in Miami, that’s not an accident). Yet many people are reveling more in the Heat’s failure than the Mavs accomplishment, of course when you say things like, “The games will be the easy part,” that’s what happens (easily the stupidest thing LeBron said or did the last year, besides not showing up in the 4^th quarter throughout the finals). Now instead of being obligated to recognize that the Heat are a fantastic team people are free to ridicule them as a bunch of overhyped bums (their having reached the finals with essentially 5 serviceable players not withstanding).

It should now be clear to LeBron, & the rest of the Heat, that winning will in fact be the hard part. They have been humbled on the largest stage. Their best player all but vanished in their biggest moments (besides scoring only 19 4th quarter points in the series his game 6 plus/minus was minus-20, Wade, Bosh, & Chalmers were all at least plus-3) & ultimately they all seemed to disappear late in game 6. The question now is where do they go from here? Will they continue to be a “whiny,” self-important bunch that feels they deserve to be loved regardless of their actions, that is overly concerned about the media, & that proclaims their own greatness before the first game is played? Or will they act like adults, stop craving approval, & focus solely on winning? The answer to this question will decide not only if Miami, & LeBron, are ever widely loved again, but their entire legacy within the game of basketball.