By BRENDAN HALL
After winning 21 games during a 22-game stretch this season, the Miami Heat looked nearly unstoppable, climbing to the top of the Eastern Conference and reassuring the predictions of analysts all across the sports world. However, after losing four straight games, the Heat’s biggest strength, the Big Three, are also their biggest weakness.
Without Lebron James, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh the Miami Heat are nothing. Behind those three players the Heat is composed of below-average role players who can barely fill their role and aging veterans chasing a championship ring.
The Miami Heat average 101.3 points per game, tenth in the league, and the Big Three are accountable for 69.3 ppg combined. That means between the other 10 players who are consistently in the rotation, they only contribute an average of 3 ppg.
The Heat’s Achilles Heel is the threat of injuries to their star players. Wade’s career has already been diminished by knee injuries and all it takes is one play to re-aggravate it. Wade and Lebron each account for just over 25 ppg, a fourth of the Heat’s offensive output. If one of them were to be ruled for the season, or for the playoffs, the heat would have no shot in winning.
The proof is in their current four game skid. After James suffered an ankle injury in a game against the Los Angeles Clippers on Jan. 12, he sat out the next game where the Heat suffered their worst loss of the season against the Denver Nuggets, 130-102. Bosh sprained his ankle in the following game, one which Lebron sat out again and the Heat also lost. In the most recent game of the slide, Lebron returned but Bosh sat out.
These games only prove that the Heat are only a contending team when all three players are active; if one them sits out, the other two simply cannot make up the slack and the bench is not anywhere near talented enough to step up and fill the gap.
The Heat are stuck between a rock and a hard place; they do not have the supporting cast to fill in for their stars but the Big Three’s contracts do not leave any room for trade.
All the Heat can do is pray that the Big Three stay healthy because, if not, all hopes of an NBA title go down with them.