WHERE ARE THE MIAMI HEAT BAND-WAGONISTS NOW?

During the summer when Pat Riley pulled off the incredible task of getting Lebron James and Chris Bosh to leave their respective clubs in Cleveland and Toronto respectively and join Dwayne Wade in Miami, a whole lot of basketball fans – those who were not annoyed by the way in James left Cleveland – jumped on board the Miami Heat bandwagon.

The experts were predicting 72 or more wins for Miami as well as the Larry O’Brien trophy for the 2010/2011 . As far as they were concerned, who was going to stop Miami? Surely not the two-time defending champions Los Angeles Lakers who very quietly got even better in the off-season when they signed Matt Barnes, Steve Blake, and Theo Ratliff or the defending Eastern Conference Champions the Boston Celtics, who added Shaquille Oneal and Jermaine Oneil to their roster in the off-season.

As the bandwagonists are seeing now, however, you dont even have to be that good to beat Miami who 17 games into the season are 9-8 after their most recent loss to the Dallas Mavericks. Ha. 72 wins! Miami has so far this season failed to beat a team with a winning record!

At the time of writing, the Lakers are 13-3, San Antonio, 13-2, New Orleans 12-3, Dallas 12-4, Orlando 12-4, Boston 12-4, and Utah 12-5, for the teams with the best records in the NBA so far this season. If the playoffs were to start today, Miami at one game over .500, would be the fifth seed in the East. They would be playing without home-court advantage, something so critical to success in the post season.

People tend to forget that names don’t make teams. On this Miami Heat team, there is only one leader who ever won anything and that’s Dwayne Wade. James and Bosh together have won absolutely nothing in the NBA save for a couple of MVP awards that James has been awarded over the past two seasons. But MVP awards mean nothing when it comes to winning championships. Just ask Steve Nash, who despite being the leader on the Phoenix Suns for the past few years looks almost certain to end his career without an MVP championship.

Now I am not saying that the same fate could befall James and Bosh et al. All I am saying is that for those who are expecting Miami to win it all this year might need to start thinking again. Already Boston has proven that their size is too much for Miami. The presence of Shaq and other ‘bigs’ like Kevin Garnett and Big Baby is a big problem for Miami. And this is without the intimidating presence of Kendrick Perkins who is to return later this season.

Already, we are seeing where Bosh is not the presence inside that he was thought to be. He is struggling on the boards and everyone knows that if Miami are to be better they have to start out-rebounding teams. Bosh has not shown that he is capable.

And that is just in the East.

If by some miracle Miami is to make it out of the East this year, the Lakers with Gasol, Odom, and the returning Andrew Bynum, will present an even sterner challenge for them getting their hands on the NBA trophy this season.

For their sake and the sake of their thousands of fans, I am hoping that that player-only meeting that Miami had after their loss to Dallas would have helped them find solutions to their inability to win this season given all their star power.

72 wins is definitely not on the cards for this season, lets hope that Miami can get 52.