Playing Like a Super Star: It's not just in the numbers

You knew I would get to this eventually.  I just had to, there's so much to write about here.  Really.  The Miami Heat are now 10-8 after a much needed win against a dismal Washington Wizard's squad.  10-8.  That puts them smack between Chicago (9-6) and Indiana (8-7), 5th overall in the Eastern Conference, which is exactly where they were last season 5th in the Easter Conference.  We're talking about a team that replaced Dorrell Wright, Michael Beasley, Quentin Richardson, and Jermaine O'Neal with LeBron James, Chris Bosh, Mike Miller, and Zydrunas Ilgauskas.  Okay, so Miller has yet to play a game, Haslem is out for the season, but really?  This is the team we were itching to break the 1996 Chicago Bulls' 72-10 record?  I mean, sure they can win 63 of the next 64 and do that...  Seriously though.

You can gripe all you want about how Miami doesn't have that defensive minded point guard they need (read: George Hill), how they don't have a real center that can live off of crashing the boards (read: Tyson Chandler), etc... What does it ultimately come down to though?  The Miami Heat aren't a good team.  Don't get me wrong, they are a team with awesome players, this is the makings of some broken roster on some version of an NBA basketball game or another, but the difference between reality and the video game is that you can't "manufacture" team play.  If I know specifically what crossover leads me to an easy dunk, and I can hit cutters with anybody, sure, I'll average 10 assists a piece for both LeBron and Wade, heck, I'll have Udonis Haslem and Mike Miller averaging 20 points a game each.  Chris Bosh will average 25 ppg on 80% shooting.  I can do that all on a video game.  So far though, as we've seen, the lineup of random PG, Dwayne Wade, LeBron James, Chris Bosh, random C isn't working, but it should, right?

Outside of Chris Bosh (who's really just put up a lot of flashy numbers on a really bad team), no one can deny the mercurial talents that are Dwayne Wade and LeBron James.  They've consistently led mediocre teams into the playoffs year after year, and in 2006 (with the help of Shaq) Wade got a ring, and in 2007 James stunned the world by taking a less-than-mediocre Cavaliers (when Zydrunas Ilgauskas and Drew Gooden are your 2nd and 3rd leading scorers you are less than mediocre) to the Finals.  So you figure, when you put the perennial All-Star starting SG, SF, and PF together on one team you get awesomeness right?  I mean, it sort of worked with Boston, right?  or maybe we were just expecting awesomeness to just by bringing three awesome players together?  Well, look at how Carmelo Anthony and Allen Iverson ended up.  Sure they both averaged 25 ppg but Denver was still a pretty dismal team.

I think because of how good these players are, and how bad of a team they were on, and how far they took those bad teams (that and the fact that those teams, save maybe the 2006 Miami Heat, arguably, were never good with these players), we often overlook what it takes for a star of any caliber to help his team succeed.  The same scrutiny that Kobe Bryant endured sharing a starting lineup with Smush Parker and Chris Mihm.  In order for the Heat to succeed, they can't be just doing whatever it is they've been doing, i.e. chuck LeBron James/Dwayne Wade the ball and hope something good comes out of it.  Certainly not having any confidence in Mario Chalmers/Carlos Arroyo/Zydrunas Ilgauskas/Joel Anthony doesn't help, but frankly, they need more of an option than "give the best player on the floor the ball".  While Phil Jackson has been gifted with stellar talent like Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan, why do his teams win?  Because Kobe/Michael "taking over" is more of a last resort than primary plan of attack.  We can argue all we want about both LeBron and Wade needing the ball in his hands to be effective, but at the end of the day 2 points is 2 points right?  It shouldn't matter if it's LeBron James or James Jones that scores 30 so long as Miami comes out with the win, right?  That's they're job as basketball players, to win.  We all believe that Wade and LeBron are a better pair than Iverson and Melo, why?  Because we still think Wade and LeBron do more than just score, and they've shown that they can (albeit in flashes, because they've been asked to score so much). 

Where am I going with all this?  First, the Heat need to understand what they are good at.  Does this mean moving without the ball?  Gasp! What a novel idea?  Ball movement?  Who would've thought!  Between LeBron and Wade there are enough handles where it shouldn't matter who the PG is.  If neither one wants those duties then you have to be willing to work within the system you have and not just hang around the triple threat zone waiting for your turn to go off.  Ultimately what it boils down to is this, as good as you are, as the star of your team, you're not going to win if you don't make your teammates better.  It's an intangible that's hard to measure or sometimes even point to, but ultimately, your team, your system, which is based around your star, has to make your other players play better than they would otherwise.  Sure Erik Spoelstra is doing his job in trying to motivate the team, but the person who ultimately does that is the best player on the team.  A lot of people criticize LeBron James for passing the ball to Donyell Marshall at the end of Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Finals in 2007, I don't, it was the right decision at the time.  That's what role players are there for, to fill a role, what the star does, is make their jobs easier for them.  Kelly Dwyer called LeBron out saying that if he's not going to get the bulk of the offensive possessions then he should be shutting down the opposition, hitting the glass harder, etc... and I completely agree.

The Miami Heat can totally get away with winning by just having better players on their roster, but until their stars get the rest of the team to step it up by example, just being awesome (on paper) is only going to get you so far, and that certainly isn't far enough to win a championship.  What do all these great championship stars have in common?  They lead by example.  Kobe Bryant will get in your face and basketball you to death, Tim Duncan lets Pop do that, and if Timmy's gonna get railed by the coach that means nobody's safe, because if the best PF of all time is going to listen to his coach, you figure everyone else should listen to him too, and right there I've accounted for 9 championships in the past 11 years.  Miami, you can sit on your laurels and just be a collection of awesome players, or you can have (one of) your stars emerge as a driving force that pushes the team to greatness.  It's more than just basketball, it's more than just the stats, the numbers are nice, but the rings are nicer.