Miami Heat: The Top 5 most impactful moments in franchise history
A career cut short:
As you can see from the picture above, Chris Bosh is in a suit and that is just wrong. He is still only 35-years-old and should be on the court. Unfortunately, since 2016, he has dealt with blood clot issues, which cut his career short.
What happened with Bosh had quite a diverse impact on the team’s current goals and the future of the team. When Bosh was ruled out for the season, the Heat were in a fortunate situation, in which they captured the third seed and were one game away from reaching the conference finals. If he was available during that Toronto Raptors series, we may have had the first Dwyane Wade vs LeBron James in the playoffs.
On the other hand, this also indirectly impacted the future of the team. With him being injured for so long, the team was able to simply remove his contract from the cap. This led to the then big signings of Dion Waiters and James Johnson.
Winning the first title:
The first title always means a lot to a franchise, especially when the franchise has not been around for that long. It sets the culture, a standard for the team, and establishes a reputation for everyone else.
Winning a title means a lot to players on the team and players looking to join a team. It can be what changes a player’s mind when making a decision about what team they may be looking to join.
What this also changed was the status of Dwyane Wade. After this series, he was a champion and not only that, he was the guy that lead them there.
Hiring a video coordinator named Erik
In 1995, the Heat made one of the best decisions they could have possibly made and they did not even know it then. Who would have thought that a slight change in staff then would make such a massive difference now?
We all know what kind of impact this has had on the team. Erik Spoelstra, a two-time champion, has made himself known as one of the top coaches in the league. Although during those title runs, the team did have tremendous talent and great role players, part of that success has to be given to the coach.
Fans think it is easy to win games when you have a talented roster, but that is not the case. It takes real skill to be able to coach those players and to win games. There are many different ways that Spoelstra impacted the team that contributed to them winning.
Those were the honorable mentions and made it tough to narrow it down to just five, so they had to be mentioned. Without further interruption though, here are the top five most impactful moments in Miami Heat history.