By now, you’ve heard: LeBron James and the Miami Heat lost another heartbreaker in the final seconds on Sunday, this time to the Chicago Bulls. It’s Miami’s fifth loss in six games, three of which have come down to the final possession. And each time it’s come down to the final possession, one way or another, LeBron James has failed.
The Miami Heat And Schadenfreude: Where The World Laughs And LeBron James Cries
Somebody asked me today, “What’s the deal with Miami?” The answer’s pretty simple, and the same as it was last week. They have no identity in crunch time, Wade and LeBron are too dependent on officials for help in the fourth quarter, Eric Spoelstra hasn’t been able to create chemistry among his superstars, and when they play good teams, all of those weakness get exaggerated.
Still, it’s kind of amazing that they’re this bad, isn’t it? Like, this seems like some sort of cruel curse or something. It’s terrible. You can feel their frustrations bubbling over. You know, not that I’m complaining...
Schadenfreude (n.) -- Delight in another’s misfortune
Anyway, rather than delve too deep into the Heat fray today (since I did that on Friday) here’s a little roundup of the chatter surrounding Miami’s dynasty-in-the-making today. First, there’s Tom Ziller over on our NBA page, who wonders whether maybe, it could be impossible for the reality in Miami to match our lofty ideas of what LeBron and Wade could be together:
Until Spoelstra finds a way to make LeBron and Wade into something greater in the half-court, Miami is destined to be a great team that exists within basketball as we’ve known it. And perhaps it can’t be done. Maybe Wade and James are too similar to work in concert within the strict confines of the NBA. I don’t think that’s the case, but maybe all of our hopes and dreams were too heavenly, and perhaps no genius could make this 2-D team three dimensional.
Then there’s Adrian Wojnarowski at Yahoo! Sports, who sees this as a growing rift between LeBron and Wade, where LeBron thinks this is his team, and Wade wants his control back:
He didn’t go to Miami to construct a partnership, as much as he did gather superior sidekicks. He’s going to keep trying because the solution will never be to bend to the I-told-you-sos that insist Dwyane Wade’s the closer on this Heat team. The Heat have two of the best five players in the world, and they still can’t play together when it matters most. Derrick Rose never wanted to play with James, but he welcomed the idea of Wade as his shooting guard. Wade must have some regret that he hadn’t gone home to Chicago in free agency and spared himself this most unhappy ever-after with the Heat.
Or there was ESPN’s Michael Wallace, who asks “How Did the Heat Become So Out of Tune?” and turned to a series of R&B classics to help explain the latest slump. It crested with this:
Another alarming trend continued Sunday, with the Heat failing to execute in the final seconds with the ball initially in LeBron’s hands. Both LeBron and Wade missed shots in the final 10 seconds. The Heat are now an NBA-worst 1 of 18 on potential game-tying or go-ahead shots in the waning seconds of the fourth quarter or overtime.
[...] We don’t know if LeBron was among those who shed tears after the loss. Spoelstra wouldn’t elaborate and team members said what happened in the locker room would stay in the locker room.
Miami had its last-second chances. And they again ended in misses. But allow me to borrow a line from Lesley Gore’s 1963 smash, “It’s My Party.” You would cry, too, if it happened to you.
Ah, yes. The tears that took over Twitter on Sunday. That all started with this:
And while we’re on the subject of the Heat’s tears, Kevin Arnovitz had an interesting look at the implications of crying in the NBA, while former D-leaguer and everyone’s favorite baller/blogger, Rod Benson, added his two cents, defending the Heat for showing emotion:
Think about it like this: Jay Cutler showed no emotion when he was forced to sit out and watch his team lose in the NFC Championship. People chastised him for not caring. So why do the flip the script and treat these grown men like little girls for doing the opposite? Take your pick: either it’s just a game, a job, a business, and it’s devoid of emotion, or it’s something more.
It’s something like love. When it’s great, nothing can make you happier, and when it’s bad nothing can be worse in the world. Don’t you wish every athlete had that? There are a lot of guys who will never have it. Some of them are the best players on your favorite team right now. Sorry to break it to you. You have to at least give it to the Heat for that.
And while we’re on the subject of melodrama, let’s not forget Dwyane Wade’s completely ridiculous quote. The one that may have a kernel of truth, but still encapuslates the self-absorbed attitude that has so many people rooting against the Heat. As Wade said, “The Miami Heat is exactly what everyone wanted, you know? Losing games. The world is better now since the Heat is losing.”
Of course, it’d be a waste of time to explain exactly why that’s so ridiculous, and the Heat playing victim here is even moreso. Besides, why waste time when the perfect rebuttal came from Stan Van Gundy?
“I do chuckle a little bit when they sort of complain about the scrutiny when they get. My suggestion would be if you don’t want the scrutiny, you don’t hold a championship celebration before you’ve even practiced together. It’s hard to go out yourself and invite that kind of crowd and celebration and attention, and then when things aren’t going well, sort of bemoan the fact that you’re getting that attention. To me, that doesn’t follow.”
That’s actually my favorite part about all of this. It may feel like the Miami Heat are a spectacle created by the media, being torn down by the same people that built them up. To some degree, that’s true.
But at the same time, LeBron, Wade, and Bosh were all active participants in that whole charade, and even the rest of the NBA watched this team come together with at least a little bit of envy. Nobody knew quite what to expect, but watching LeBron and those guys predict a succession of titles while the media pitted them against the greatest teams in NBA history, you can’t blame someone like Van Gundy for smirking as it all comes crumbling down.
Maybe it’s juvenile and cruel for the rest of the sports world to find this so amusing and refreshing. But remember when everyone found this so disgusting?
Yeah... I’m still not ready to forget.
You can choose who to blame for the Heat’s issues, but as far as the reaction from fans, the scrutiny that created a locker room full of tears, and why rooting against Miami has become the new national pastime... It’s not just Wade, or just LeBron, just Bosh, just the media, just Pat Riley, or just Eric Spoelstra. They all helped build this monster together. Don’t blame anybody on the Heat but all of them.
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