ESPN’s Jalen Rose and Doug Collins Talk Miami Heat
By Wes Goldberg
As editor of AllUCanHeat.com, I had the privilege of joining “real” reporters in a conference call with ESPN NBA Countdown’s Jalen Rose and Doug Collins. There were many writers from around the country asking Jalen and Doug questions, but I’ve filtered out the Miami Heat-related topics for your enjoyment.
Q: I’m going to go parochial here with the Heat. What do you expect from them this year?
"Rose: I’ve got to see how many games Dwyane Wade is going to play, just like everyone else. He has a few different phases to his career and that’s what happens when you become a veteran. You reinvent yourself on and off the floor. He’s been really mature and handled himself like a leader and a champion off the floor, but on the floor early in the career, it was drive to the basket, contest and/or block shots, one or two spectacular dunks a game, Finals MVP champion.Then there was what I consider, I guess, The Flash versus Flashes stage where you’ve got LeBron. First year he plays 76 games. This past year he missed 28 games. Four Finals, two championships.Now can he be that guy again that the team can rely on to play over 65 games? I don’t know health wise if he’s going to be able to hold up, and because of that, that’s what’s going to make it a tough season for the Miami Heat, especially based on the recent success they’ve had."
What do you think about Chris Bosh as a No. 1 option offensively at this point?
"Rose: When you look down at the stat sheet, I think he’s still going to be 18 points, shoot a high percentage, cause matchup problems for the opposing four. He’s shown that he can be an All Star level player, whether in Toronto, and/or a champion in Miami, who’s clutch. He makes big shots at the end of the games. But the difference is the wear and tear that’s going to happen with him now having to play closer to the basket, doing more post ups, and grabbing more rebounds. That’s the biggest decrease that I’ve seen in his game is that as he’s shot more threes and basically it was because of their system that was successful for that team, that took him away from the paint, and he got less rebounds.So he’s going to be in there trying to get more rebounds and be more of a physical presence, and it’s going to be good. I think he’s going to be able to live up to the fact that they need him to score buckets, but they’re going to need a lot more points from that roster than he’s going to be able to deliver, I think."
Do you feel [the Southeast Division] to be kind of an up for grabs situation, that there’s Washington, there’s Miami, there’s Carolina, literally any number of teams that could really jump in there and take it?
"Rose: Absolutely, but I want to grade Miami on a curve for a second. They’re getting graded on having Pat Riley, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, and going to four straight Finals, okay. The other teams in this division still have a lot of work to do, and they did add Luol Deng, and I don’t think that they’re going to be an Eastern Conference finalist, but don’t be surprised if the Heat are a playoff team.Atlanta, I love Al Horford. He’s going to back in the lineup. You put him back with Millsap, they’re a team no one really talks much about. They can also be in the playoffs again.Lance Stephenson is now with Charlotte. Put him with Al Jefferson, Kemba Walker, they’re quietly putting their team together, who’s going to make three point shots for that squad.And Orlando, they’re dealing with Oladipo’s injury, and I really like Vucevic and Tobias Harris. It is a division that’s up for grabs, but don’t be surprised when the smoke clears if the Heat is not a lot closer to the top than people really realize on paper."
Editor’s note: This next one was my question
LeBron James basically transformed the Miami Heat franchise, obviously the players, the roster, everything from the organization, top down. What’s the toughest thing for the Heat, the players on the roster and the organization as a whole going forward while that shadow of LeBron’s departure hovers over the franchise?
"DOUG COLLINS: Well, the thing about it is you know with Miami, the blueprint is in place. You know, Pat Riley has been there, Erik Spoelstra has been there 20 years. They call it the Miami way. This is the way we do things.The big thing for Erik now is he’s got to find the best way for this particular team without LeBron to win basketball games. It’s going to be a different offense. It’s going to be a different defense, and you’ve got a lot of different dynamics. Last year, so often LeBron was the point guard, so now you’re asking Mario Chalmers and Norris Cole to assume those duties of being the point guard and running whatever kind of offense that Erik feels they need to run to be able to be successful.Chris Bosh has gone from being the third guy, a spacer shooting the ball and not being in the post much, shooting threes, to now being the No. 1 option, being in the paint more, scoring on the block, going back to a lot of the ways that he played in Toronto.The big question to me is going to be Dwyane Wade. Last year he missed 28 games and the blueprint looked like it was working until into The Finals, where it looked like he didn’t have a lot left at that particular time. How are they going to manage him this year? What role is he going to play? We know that when he’s healthy, he’s still a dynamic player.You’re adding Josh McRoberts, when he’s healthy, to be a starting power forward. Chris Bosh is a center. Who’s their bench going to be?The Miami way is in place. It’s now going to be what do we have to do in the absence of the best player in the NBA to find a way to win on both ends of the floor. How can we maximize our bench? How can we maximize our starters? But to me at the end of the day it’s how effective are Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh going to be, and everybody has got to play off them.I didn’t mention Luol Deng. I think it was an excellent acquisition in that deal. We know what kind of player Luol is, but it’s going to be a totally different team, and how long it takes them to come together is going to be very interesting."
And then for Jalen, as a player coming out of this, what’s your perspective? How do you deal with this? Just everything in general from the lack of media circus to maybe lower expectations now?
"ROSE: This is where your pride and professionalism kicks in, in particular for Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade. They want to prove like, wow, LeBron was a leader and the MVP, that they weren’t just living off his fumes. That’s what’s going to drive them. I can be a first option if I’m Chris Bosh. I can put up the numbers that people feel like I wasn’t able to put up because I was sharing the basketball and sacrificing myself for championships.And for Dwyane Wade, already one of the top two guards that the league has seen, can he go back to being a guy that was blocking shots, getting steals, being active, playing multiple games a year?It’s hard just to imagine on paper to have a maintenance plan with LeBron James that called for him to miss 28 games, and unfortunately he got fatigued come Finals. I can’t imagine how that could go stronger this year without LeBron James on the roster."
Is there any scenario in which you could see Miami competing with Chicago and Cleveland in the East?
"COLLINS: I don’t see it unless there’s a major injury to one of those teams. I think I just look at Cleveland, I think they’re going to be one of the most dynamic offensive teams in the league. I said the first exhibition game they played, I think LeBron took seven shots, had two buckets, Kyrie didn’t play, and they had 122 points. So they’re going to be a team that can score the ball. I think the question is going to be for them as a champion. Can they become a top-10 defensive team? I think it’s going to be vital for Varejao and Tristan Thompson to stay healthy. They’re their two big guys that they’re going to ask to give them some size. They’re going to be a great rebounding team. And I think at the end of the day, LeBron has a chance to lead the league in assists, and I think once again, he’ll become a first league all defender, and so I think that they’re going to be awfully tough to beat.With Chicago, polar opposites. Right now a team that is built on their defense. Can their offense come up to snuff? Can Derrick Rose and Pau Gasol give them extra points at all and make the game a little easier for them to where they don’t have to grind out every game every single night?I’ve got a lot of respect for Miami. I just – when I look at their team, I say, you know what, there’s still a lot of questions with Norris Cole, Mario Chalmers being your point guard, still a lot of questions about how many games Dwyane Wade is going to be able to play at a high level because of the injury to his knee that he suffered, can Chris Bosh be back to that No. 1 option, Josh McRoberts and Luol Deng filling in, what kind of bench play they’re going to get. I know they’re going to be well prepared. I know they’re going to compete. I know they won’t beat themselves. I just don’t see them being in the class of those other two teams."
As a coach, what do you think about running an offense through Chris Bosh? Is that viable?
"COLLINS: Well, I mean, the thing about it is, I think when you look at their team, that’s the way they’re built now. It’s interesting to me because we played them in the playoffs the one year, and Bosh was a little bit more of an integral part of their offense. I thought that first year where they ran out of timeouts, they got him the ball at the elbows, they ran some isolations for him, they started games running plays for him, they got him the ball in the paint a little bit more, and I thought as time went on he became more of a home run hitter, where he was depending so much on that three, a little bit what you’ve seen with Kevin Love in the preseason in Cleveland. I think Jalen and I did a game the other night and 22 of his 45 shots, Love shot it in from the three point line.Chris Bosh is going to be a guy, you’re going to go back, throw the ball in the post to him. It’s sort of interesting, but you go back to one of his quotes last year in the playoffs, he said, I don’t play down in the post anymore; I don’t take all that pounding. Well, that’s where he’s going to be right now and we’ll have to see how he plays."