Tuesday, June 29, 2010

The Saga Continues

I heard on ESPN this morning that apparently, last weekend LeBron James, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh all met up together "to discuss potential landing spots" for the three players.

If this is true, it is in my mind a huge story.

And more than that, when you add in the way LeBron has spoken about "the team he goes to next", the Tom Izzo stuff when LeBron would not even return one phone call to his potential coach in Cleveland, and now this meeting of three young stars in the NBA in Miami on the weekend before free agency begins, it is just looking more and more clear that LeBron is not pining away to stay in Cleveland. He is definitely looking around at his options, and he is definitely interested, so this is not going to be the easy road for the Cavaliers that many supposed pundits were predicting just a few weeks ago, that much is clear at this point.

Anyways, when I first heard this story, my immediate reaction was basically "No way all three of those guys could play on one NBA team!" When Chris Bosh himself was asked about that possibility last week on ESPN Radio, he described it as a fantasy, as "PlayStation type stuff" to use his words. But then I started thinking about it, and I'll be damned if it does not make a whole lot of sense to me.

From a talent perspective, it does seem like it could be a little bit crowded on the floor with Bron, D-Wade and Bosh all in there. But then you think about the other great teams of the last several years, and when it comes right down to it, they've all got two if not three bona fide all-star type of players on their team. Whether it's been Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Nene, or Shaq, Kobe and Brian Shaw, or Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen and Paul Pierce, or Kobe, Gasol and Odom, there almost always seem to be three big players on each of the great teams of the past generation or so. The most recent Celtics team seems like the closest comparison, although even that threesome fails to capture the amount of talent and skill that would be the floor every night with LeBron, Wade and Bosh on the court, especially with Pat Riley at the helm. But despite what could sound like a lot of potential clogged lanes and ball hogging, the three players all do kinda play different positions, and in its own way I can almost see the three working together. D-Wade brings the ball down the court, LeBron steps out and takes that first pass, he dishes it off to Bosh on the inside. Bosh looks for the shot, finds D-Wade back out at the top of the key, who fakes the shot and instead throws the perfect alley-oop to LeBron who is streaking in from the opposite baseline from where he started the play. I really can see it, the more I think about it.

The other side of things is the finances, but strangely Miami is basically the one place where the money could actually work. Wade can be re-signed by the Heat and he can get a Larry Bird exception so his money does not fully count against the team's salary cap. The Heat could then sign Bosh and LeBron to multi-year contracts at or near the max, and the three players could unite in Miami -- one of the top few funnest cities in America by most counts -- and make a sick run for the NBA title. And don't even act like Pat Riley would not be out of retirement and coaching that team within how many seconds of the signings? 5? 1? 0.1? Lord knows that slick, pompous Riley must be fuming as he sees Phil Jackson -- who took the reins from Riley's Lakers team in the early '90s and has never looked back, winning 11 of 20 NBA titles while Riley has toiled in the Heat front office for the past several years -- winning year after year after year, all while assembling teams with clearly more talent than anybody else in the league.

Obviously nothing is set in stone yet by a long shot, and LeBron hasn't even begun fielding the offers he's going to be seeing in spades starting on Thursday at midnight. But the fact that LeBron has shown absolutely zero interest in helping his former team in Cleveland secure LeBron's services in the future, while at the same time making plans for a three-way powwow with two fellow NBA stars halfway across the country is to me very telling. LeBron isn't not interested in dealing with his free agency yet at all. He just doesn't want to deal with the Cavs.

I have a hunch that the next few weeks are going to change the NBA more than any few weeks in the sport's history.

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14 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Let's go Heat, Let's Go Heat, Let's Go Heat.

Can it happen? Let's hope so.

The papers down here are talking about the three of them taking LESS than the maximum so they can fill out the roster with more decent players, then they will try to destroy teams and shoot for the record for wins in a season then wrapping it up with an NBA title.

This will be the best free agency of any sport starting July 1. I can't wait to see which teams that have the cap room come up empty handed and have to fill in their rosters with the lower-tiered free agents.

9:09 PM  
Blogger john said...

Throwing Brian Shaw, Lamar Odom, and Nene in with the rest of those names does a serious disservice to them. Lamar Odom was a sixth man who came and went as he saw fit, Brian Shaw averaged 22, 12, and 10 minutes per game in the three lakers championship runs, and Nene has played his entire career on the Denver Nuggets, so I'm not sure who the hell you were talking about with that one. Stick to baseball and poker.

11:39 PM  
Blogger john said...

Jesus, I didn't even read the last part. Phil Jackson was still winning titles with Michael Jordan until 1998. Reilly stepped down in the early 90's and was succeeded by a procession of inept coaches. But other than getting 0% of the facts correct, great post.

11:45 PM  
Blogger Hammer Player a.k.a Hoyazo said...

John: learn to read, you schmuck.

Don, nice comment. Hope your team gets their players and the Lakers' reign of terror finally comes to an end.

12:00 AM  
Blogger john said...

You made a comment that said that teams have succeeded with two, if not three bona-fide superstars. You then went on to name one team with three bona-fide superstars, one team with a 6th man as a "bona-fide superstar", one team with a 7th man as a "bona-fide superstar" and one team with a player that has never played on it. You then continued on to claim that a coach that was coaching a different championship team until the late 90's took over the "reins" from a coach in the early 90's. Your post was full of factually incorrect statements, although I will grant you that the general theme of it was correct - those three players probably could work together. Seems this has nothing to do with my reading comprehension, and a lot to do with your lack of basketball knowledge.

12:05 AM  
Blogger Hammer Player a.k.a Hoyazo said...

John, you realllly need to check your reading comprehension.

1:02 AM  
Blogger john said...

Fact: Nene has never played with the San Antonion Spurs. You could have selected Manu Ginobli or Michael Finley here, although neither of them were superstars either. At the very least, you should have chosen a member of the team.

Fact: Brian Shaw averaged 14 minutes per game in his three championship seasons with the lakers. Probably should have selected Derek Fisher or Robert Horry, but again, they were not bona-fide superstars, there were only two. But at least you chose somebody on the team, so that showed some improvement.

Fact: Lamar Odom is a 6th man. You would have known this had you watched more than 4 minutes of the NBA finals. Again, this team has two superstars.

Fact: None of the aforementioned players were anywhere near bonafide superstars at any point in time during their respective teams championship runs (or lack thereof, in the case of nene). You should have just left their names off entirely and gone with the two actual bona-fide superstars from the teams. Naming players that never played on the team, or role / bench players makes you look like you don't know what you're talking about.

Fact: You should have spelled the word "reigns" and you should have said, "taken over the reigns of the nba from Reilly's Lakers," as both men coached the Lakers in the 90's, and it was almost impossible to decipher the depths of your stupidity regarding basketball when you just got done mentioning that Nene was a bona-fide superstar for a team he has never played for, and after a recent post in which you claimed to have watched a grand total of four minutes of a game 7 in the NBA finals.

It's difficult to have an opinion on a sport you never watch. It would be akin to somebody trying to tell you that poker is all luck even though they haven't played a hand of poker in their entire lives. It's ok to not know everything about everything.

1:40 AM  
Blogger Hammer Player a.k.a Hoyazo said...

"taken over the reigns of the NBA", huh?

Is this Waffles?

Muhahahahahahahahahahahah.

Btw, now that you've learned how to get pwned publicly, can you at least learn to comprehend what you read?

1:46 AM  
Blogger john said...

Yea, Nene was a beast for those spurs. You're an idiot, and worse, you're arrogant.

1:49 AM  
Blogger Hammer Player a.k.a Hoyazo said...

Ginobli is who I meant btw. But I like Nene better so I think I'll just keep it there.

2:00 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

I would have to agree that this is beyond huge. But just because they "reportedly" had this meeting, doesn't mean they'll all play on the same team.

If it does and they all want big money, that likely leaves Miami and Chicago as the only real possibilities here. I still got a feeling LeBron goes to New York
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4:19 AM  
Blogger Hammer Player a.k.a Hoyazo said...

FYI AP and the Miami Herald are refuting this story. I'm not surpsied; it's just so big, I don't even believe it.

5:48 AM  
Blogger Loretta8 said...

why didn't you mention the 90s Bulls teams with 3 bona-fide superstars in Jordan, Pippen, and Bill Wennington?

3:50 AM  
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6:16 PM  

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