Jamal Mashburn
There’s a fake award I like bringing up, which I call the “Chris Bosh Third Wheel That’s Disliked By Fans” award, which goes to the Heat’s third most important player that apparently isn’t scoring as many points or grabbing as many rebounds as Heat fans would have liked. It’s named for Bosh because he’s the most high-profiled player to have claimed the award, as his time with the Big Three was a roller-coaster of emotions for a segment of Heat fans. The current winner is Luol Deng.
And Jamal Mashburn was the inaugural winner.
Mashburn’s time with the Heat can be looked at in a far different context now that we saw Bosh’s role get redefined in the Big Three Era. An All-American at Kentucky, Mashburn was one of the young cornerstones (along with Jason Kidd and Jim Jackson) that were supposed to help turn things around for the Dallas Mavericks. And while things didn’t go according to plan, it certainly was no fault of Mashburn’s. He finished the 1994-95 season sixth in points per game (24.1), before having an injury derail his progress the following year.
As things fell apart in Dallas, Pat Riley swopped in and traded for Mashburn and placed him alongside Alonzo Mourning and Tim Hardaway. Looked upon as the missing piece to the Heat’s championship hopes, Mashburn helped the Heat win 61 games in route to the franchise’s first Eastern Conference Finals appearance in 1997.
However, Mashburn’s production dipped from his 19.9 points per game he averaged his first three and half seasons with the Mavericks, to 15.8 ppg in his three and a half seasons in Miami, as touches and shots weren’t the same as they were in Dallas. In 2000, his time in Miami ended when he was traded to the Hornets in a package for Eddie Jones. Mashburn got the last laugh when his Hornets swept the Heat in the first round of the 2001 playoffs.
Even though expectations for Mashburn may not have been lived up to with the Heat, he still finished his time with the team 13th in points per game, and 18th in points (2,835). Maybe our perception of him would have been different if we had the hindsight of the way Bosh and Deng had to adjust their games to supports two bigger personalities. Mashburn was a truly under-appreciated talent on some very talented Heat teams.
But he still shouldn’t have passed that ball to Clarence Weatherspoon.
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