The Miami Heat are a constantly underappreciate franchise, team, and organization. Well, newsflash for those sleeping on the Heat, you better wake up!
I can’t wait for the NBA season to finally begin. Most importantly, I can’t wait for the Miami Heat’s home opener against the rebuilding Memphis Grizzlies. After that, I’ll have two words for the national media!
STOP IT!
The disrespect shown to the Miami Heat Nation by the national media is just uncalled for. Just about no one celebrated the team’s acquisition of Jimmy Butler, nor did they celebrate how team president Pat Riley got it done.
He essentially traded a second-round pick in Josh Richardson and a headache in Hassan Whiteside, for a player that was just named to the All-NBA 3rd team, before he was traded to a team where he was forced to share the limelight with two other All-Stars in Philadelphia.
The Hoop Disconnective
On Monday, I was listening to ESPN’s The Hoop Collective with Brian Windhorst. They were doing a preview of each conference using the real plus-minus projections, as explained by analytics guru Kevin Pelton.
This is a person’s opinion that I value highly, so I was all ears and excited to listen to the episode all the way through, but I never did. At the 13:26 mark, Windhorst announced that the Miami Heat will finish sixth in the eastern conference, and within seconds he moved on.
Given the factors RPM uses (amount of games missed over the past three seasons) to determine its rankings, I’m not necessarily upset by the Miami Heat’s placement. What infuriated me is how we were dismissed like a bottom-feeding team.
After bringing up their position, Windhorst began to ask Pelton “How does Jimmy Butler…” before then quickly cutting himself off by saying, “Eh, I don’t know if I want to spend too much time on the Heat, but Jimmy Butler should bounce that up a little bit.” After that sentence, the show immediately jumped to an advertisement, meaning there was more discussed here about Miami, but the show’s producers intentionally cut it.