5 NBA teams that should start tanking now
By Adam Cox
2. Miami Heat
Name a Miami Heat player. Goran Dragic. Hassan Whiteside. Starting point guard and starting center, respectively. Who’s next? Udonis Haslem is still there. Justise Winslow looks to be turning into a good player as a starting small forward. I’ll give you a couple more: Dion Waiters and Luke Babbitt. They start for the Miami Heat, a team which is 4-9.
Just as important for the Heat as who starts and who plays is who is no longer there. LeBron James is long gone. Dwyane Wade signed with the Chicago Bulls during the offseason. The Miami Heat career of Chris Bosh is over, if not his NBA career.
The days of the Big Three in Miami are gone.
Last season’s attempt to give it one last go with Wade and Bosh got the team to the Eastern Conference semifinals, but without Wade and Bosh there is no hope to make it that far this season. There is probably little hope to make it to the playoffs, period.
Dragic and Whiteside are nice complements to players like Wade and Bosh but you don’t build a team around them. Perhaps in time the Heat will be able to say Winslow is their centerpiece, that he is that franchise player around which the Heat will build and hang their fortunes. Maybe Winslow already is that player. If so, rebuild around him instead of surrounding him with spare, leftover parts.
With the Big Three the Miami Heat were focused on winning now. The organization surrounded them with veteran, complementary pieces. However, once the stars are gone the pieces are no longer viable. Tank now, win later — that is the Heat’s most viable strategy at this point if they want to get back to winning.