Forget the Hysteria, Three don't make a Team | Thebigtip

Finally, after an eternity the wait is over. The NBA can continue on its way after LeBron James made ‘The Decision’ to join fellow All-Stars Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami for the next 5 seasons. Predictably, it’s led to people calling the season over, its led to people predicting a dynasty, and most of all, its led to seemingly millions of new Miami fans. I better not start on that one though or I’ll be at it all day.

On the face of it, everything seems unstoppable. After all, there’s arguably three of the best five players in the league. How can they go wrong? Before we get to the main reason, a quick look at how Miami played last season.

Miami’s offence was mainly based around isolation for D-Wade, which is understandable considering that his support was...well...there was that one time...you get the point. What it does mean is that coach Spoelstra has to completely revamp the offence, because let’s be honest – an isolation based offence with three All Stars in the team can only end in tears.

Revamping an offence is a tough task for any coach, let alone a young, inexperienced one like Spoelstra. When you take into account that he isn’t the greatest coach to begin with, and general thoughts on him can be summed up in the following picture (from the excellent Brain on Funk blog), it’s going to be a tough task to say the least.

So now on to the main problem for the Heat, and the first part is obvious enough. It’s the lack of support in general around the newly formed Big Three. As good a trio as they are, the last time I checked you can’t win a title without a full roster of players. As I type this Miami have only point guard Mario Chalmers under contract, as well as being rumoured to sign Mike Miller on a five year-$30 million deal. That’s five players out of 12, with minimal salary cap room left to sign the last seven to fill out the team for 2010/2011. That will mean the Heat bench will be filled out by minimum-level salaries and possibly minimum-level talent. Even though there will be a few veterans lining up to take those spots, the extra few players are obviously going to be a big problem to fill out.