Discuss the Miami Heat’s “Paper Championship” Season

Few teams have lived up to the term “paper champions” as famously as the 2010-2011 Miami Heat have.

The organization unveiled its current incarnation to the world in a preseason victory parade. The trio of Dwyane Wade, LeBron James, and Chris Bosh made their way through a spectacle of a pyrotechnics show, sign flashing “Yes. We. Did.” It was as if they believed the convergence of three super powers could make the future prologue, when William Shakespeare so eloquently noted such a thing is reserved for the past.

Fittingly, the Heat’s season ended in the very definition of paper champion—with the Miami Herald printing a Macy’s ad congratulating the Heat on an NBA championship following their Game 6 Loss.

If they had studied the Dallas Mavericks (and Shakespeare) a little better, they would now that history sets the table for the present. Against a quality team like the Mavericks, and with the Heat’s relative inexperience as a team, that table laid bare.

But what has been described by many as an abject failure by the Heat is really their own prologue. Wade, James, and Bosh have been in the league for some time, but have little experience playing together. Each are also just now coming face to face with the full brunt of failure for the first time.

Each of the three has had their playoff shortcomings in the past, but in each case these faults were mitigated some by the reasoning of injuries or poor teammates. This is the first season they have had the burden of these expectations—overwhelming favorites.

Because the Miami Heat, on paper, are the most talented team in the NBA. And while there are some foolishly calling for the Big Three to be disbanded, in their first year together they reached Game 6 of the NBA Finals with two of their five best players (Mike Miller and Udonis Haslem) at far less than 100 percent.

The Heat will be back. They will endure. After all, it was only a year ago after a first round exit that the same Dallas Mavericks that defeated them were slated for their own demolition. If history has shown anything, it’s that continuity and experience, mixed with talent, eventually rules the day. The past, they say, is prologue.