Bloggystyle -- The Greatest

When Miami traded for Shaq last year, packing Odom/Butler etc. for a clearly over the hill fatso, I was positive it was a mistake. I was certain the Heat wouldn't come close to winning it with Shaq, and as he got progressively worse, so would the Heat. Then, in a few years when Shaq's gone, they'd have Wade and nothing else.

So I admit I was surprised at how efficient the Heat were this past season. Haslem was a decent role player, Wade got ridiculously better and it doesn't really matter how that happened, Ed Jones was ok and Damon Jones decided he was going to make some triples consistently. Throw in Dooling hitting close to 60% in the playoffs, and the Heat damn near got to the Finals. They would have been mauled by the Spurs, but they would have proved this doubter wrong.

With the Pistons likely not getting any better, and with Lawrence Brown taking his charade to the Apple, the Heat, who were 3 minutes away from the Finals, had just as good a chance this season to get to the Finals by standing pat. They've accomplished that by resigning Haslem and Shaq.

Instead, it appears the Heat are going to run on their own sword. Everyday the Heat are getting closer to trading for Antoine Walker, Jason Williams and James Posey, while they would give up Eddie Jones, a dreg to be named later, trade exceptions and draft picks.

In otherwords, they're adding 34 shots per game while giving up Ed Jones's shots. I'm too lazy to look up how many Eddie shot this year but it was 13 max. More importantly, the individuals who took those 34 shots shot a FG% of 42%, 41% and 35% respectively. Outside of Posey, their defense is garbage.

I can understand moving Jones and getting Posey in return. That's basically a fair swap. But the Heat would also be adding two other players in Toine and Williams who shoot poorly, dominate the ball, and have never taken kindly to playing reserved roles (did Toine in Dallas not happen?). With these moves, No Homo Juelz Santana, the only possible result is that these guys would be handling Wade's balls and taking shots from Wade/Shaq. I'm definitely no fan of Dame Dash Jones, but how much sense does it make to put a worse shooter at 1 and throw Toine into the mix at 3 on a team that creates so much space with Shaq?

Meanwhile, Shaq signed today for 5 years/100 million, effectively hamstringing the Heat's cap until he retires. Pundits can keep pretending Shaq is bigger than the 20/10 he averages these days, but the simple truth is that Shaq will not make clutch free throws, he will not average more than 20/10, and he will be gimpy by season's end. Shaq will only continue to get worse, just like he has over the last 3-4 years.

In the end I'll be glad when these moves happen, because I don't like the Heat, and because the ruined chemistry of the team with these trades will eclipse all the goddam talk about the Anthony Mason signing that pundits credit with turning the 00-01 Eastern Conference Finalist Bucks into a non playoff team in 01-02.





No homo Juelz Santana: are those the types of mugs you want to ball with?