The Beginning of a Dynasty

[Check my Stats]

If the league turns to a hard cap, you may not see a dynasty, anywhere, for a long, long time.

 

Is this a bad thing?

[kingfish]

 

However, all of this is concerning the current season only. A dynasty could also depend on the new CBA, which I don't think many are going to consider right now. If the league turns to a hard cap, you may not see a dynasty, anywhere, for a long, long time.

This means the Heat will have a dynasty. Nobody will be able to stack their team like the Heat did. They already stacked their team before the new CBA.

[Real Deal]

Is this a bad thing?

Yes, the hard cap would suck for the NBA. I've already discussed that in another topic, though.

 

And Nene isn't going to take the MLE.

[Real Deal]

This means the Heat will have a dynasty. Nobody will be able to stack their team like the Heat did. They already stacked their team before the new CBA.

Three players can't beat teams by themselves. With a hard cap, the Heat will struggle to find role players. Right now, their role players are stepping up and hitting shots, playing defense, etc.

 

There's talk of getting rid of the MLE and LLE. The Heat would be cap-strapped as long as they have LeBron, Wade and Bosh. Bibby and Chalmers are both FA's in July, Big Z is retiring, Juwan Howard should retire, Dampier and Magloire are FA's, James Jones and Carlos Arroyo should be FA's as well, IIRC.

 

Miami may have screwed themselves by signing Mike Miller, Udonis Haslem and Joel Anthony through the 2014-15 season (with player options they will take). If a hard cap is put into place, those guys will hurt them in the books more than they help them on the court, especially Mike.

 

The salary cap isn't what hurts small market teams. The Milwaukee Bucks took Joe Alexander in the draft a few years ago, despite having an offer on draft night to move up the ladder and select someone else (could've been Eric Gordon). A year before, they fell for the hype and took Yi Jianlian, instead of Joakim Noah. While Bogut is a good center, they passed on CP3 and D-Will just two years before that.

 

Teams like the Spurs ended up drafting their dynasty...Duncan, Parker, Ginobili, and you can throw D-Rob into the mix if you want to include Duncan's first ring.

 

It's not the cap that kills the teams, it's the decisions being made.

[kingfish]

Three players can't beat teams by themselves. With a hard cap, the Heat will struggle to find role players. Right now, their role players are stepping up and hitting shots, playing defense, etc.

 

There's talk of getting rid of the MLE and LLE. The Heat would be cap-strapped as long as they have LeBron, Wade and Bosh. Bibby and Chalmers are both FA's in July, Big Z is retiring, Juwan Howard should retire, Dampier and Magloire are FA's, James Jones and Carlos Arroyo should be FA's as well, IIRC.

 

Miami may have screwed themselves by signing Mike Miller, Udonis Haslem and Joel Anthony through the 2014-15 season (with player options they will take). If a hard cap is put into place, those guys will hurt them in the books more than they help them on the court, especially Mike.

While all that may be true, there will still be those ring chasers willing to come to Miami for the vets min. The Heat dont need much besides the big 3. They need a Center who can defend and rebound, and a couple of shooters, and thats pretty much it. No need for guards because Wade and Lebron already handle the rock all game. Id say the Heat are in good position for the new CBA considering they already stacked 3 superstars. We said the same thing about this years team, that they didnt have enough help beside the big 3. It turns out the role players they have were more then capable of stepping up, at least so far. Jones, Chalmers, and Anthony are pretty much the bare minimum of what you could ask for role players.

[Check my Stats]

I want the new CBA to find a way for teams without superstars (like 75% of the league) to be able to contend along with those who did land a superstar thank to lottery luck. I don't know exactly how they can do this, but that is what I'd like to see done. That shit about Duncan, Kobe, Shaq, etc being in all the finals the last 13 years or whatever pretty much sums up what is wrong with the NBA's competition in my opinion.

[Dash]

One of the reasons why smaller market teams (plus Toronto) are worse off is because of cheap ownership and poor management. Take the Raptors for example, they "lucked" out in the lottery and got the #1 overall pick and they take Andrea Bargnani? The Bucks lucked out in the lottery and got a legitimate all-star center in Andrew Bogut and were unable to put a contender together. The Timberwolves are in the upper half of the lottery every year and make poor use of it every freaking time (except with Kevin Love). The list goes on.

 

Its true that small market teams have a huge disadvantage but we could see more of them in contendership if they were smarter with their draft picks and trades/free agent signings like the Blazers and Thunder.

[Built Ford Tough]

I think the Bulls present a problem bigger than the Celtics do. Chicago can run with the Heat. Garnett, Pierce, Allen...three guys all having to defend much younger superstars and all-stars (sorry Bosh)...it's a difficult task, and when you lose a massive contributor on the defensive end (gave the numbers already, Perkins did as much as Garnett when one or the other was out of the games), you can't rely on help as much, which is what the older players have to do.

 

If Memphis gets into the Finals, which would be astounding, I think they could give the Heat trouble (assuming they get there).

 

Dallas finally has a defensive anchor, but I don't have a clue who they will use to stop Wade. Marion can do whatever against LeBron, but the Matrix isn't who he was back in his younger days in Phoenix, so that series would become a shoot-out.

 

The Thunder have the goods.

 

However, all of this is concerning the current season only. A dynasty could also depend on the new CBA, which I don't think many are going to consider right now. If the league turns to a hard cap, you may not see a dynasty, anywhere, for a long, long time.

 

I actually think that the Bulls won't be too much of a challenge simply because I can't see Derrick Rose beating the Heat by himself, and that is pretty much what it would take considering Boozer is playing like a scrub, Deng will get locked down by LeBron (while also playing exceptional defense on LeBron, but he will likely be a non factor offensively), they have no offense from the 2 guard spot and, as good as Noah is, you won't win a series with him likely to be the 2nd most productive player for you offensively.

 

They can win the series, I'm not going to say that it will be easy and the Heat will win in 4 or anything like that, but I do think that the two teams who had what it takes to beat the Heat are already out of the playoffs. Of course, I'm talking about the Celtics and the Lakers.

 

As for the CBA comment, I did take that into consideration, but I'm going under the assumption that the league will eventually cave and will settle for more of the players' demands. I don't forsee a hard cap coming into play nor do I see the abolishing of MLE's and LLE's. Even if a hard cap does come into play, I would imagine that it will be high enough that the Heat will have no troubles filling the rest of their roster with solid role players and end of the bench guys, especially considering you will still have those guys who are going to go ring chasing and Miami will be the number one destination for ring chasers.

 

Even if the Heat are forced to fill out their roster with nothing but minimum players, is that really much different than what they have on their current roster, a roster that looks likely to win it all this season? Their best bench players are Mario Chalmers, James Jones and Joel Anthony and all three of them make a miniscule amount of money (Chalmers because of him being on his rookie deal, but still). Its not like their best players outside of the big three are guys like Mike Miller, who has been a huge disappointment or Udonis Haslem, who of course has been injured. I'm sure they will still manage to get the capable shooters and solid defenders like Jones and Anthony are even if there is a hard cap that is lower than what I expect.

 

I will admit that this could definitely put a halt to a potential dynasty. The two biggest factors I see in the Heat not becoming a dynasty are a severe injury to LeBron, Wade or Bosh and the potential rammifications that a new CBA will have.

 

Lebron will always be the better all-around player than Durant (maybe even the best of all-time) but that doesn't automatically mean he'll be the better overall player. I.E. Iguodala might be the 2nd best all-around player in the league and I don't think he's even a top 15 player. It depends largely on how Durant excels as a scorer in his prime and if he can develop a defensive game, which I think he definitely can especially with the defenders on his squad already.

 

Anyways that is my 2 cents. FWIW I have found myself to be defending Lebron quite a lot this season and I do agree that Durant has been overrated like crap this year too (don't think he's a top 5-8 player just yet).

 

The difference is that LeBron is an elite scorer, elite defender, elite playmaker, etc... while Iguodala, as well rounded as he is, is only elite defensively and you could argue that he is even below average when it comes to actually scoring the ball.

 

I just don't see how Durant is going to take his scoring game to such a high level that it is going to make up for the fact that LeBron is so much more well rounded, while being more than capable of averaging of 30 points on 50% shooting. Give me the elite all around player in almost every facet of the game over a guy who is an elite scorer and elite defender while being average in other aspects of the game (such as playmaking) like the Durant projection you seem to be illustrating.

[Check my Stats]

Heat will be fine. Even if the new CBA is crippling, they can trade Bosh no problem and just keep Wade/LBJ and they will still dominate. Bosh's role really isn't that difficult to fill since he isn't really being used as much more than a stretch 4.