Miami Heat: We need to have a chat about the ‘Culture’

The Miami Heat are known for this thing that we like to call “Culture”. It isn’t something that can be fabricated or faked, as you either have it… or you don’t.

The Miami Heat are infamously famous for a phrase that we as fans like to call “Heat Culture”. It isn’t just a phrase though.

It’s as real and as tangible as anything. It’s something that they can almost see, feel, touch, and taste inside of that building.

Heck, as fans, we can almost feel it ourselves. When you see a player make a play for the Miami Heat that makes you wish your team would play that hard or with as much controlled recklessness, that’s culture.

When you see a Heat guy sell out, giving up life and limb to make a play for his team, that’s culture. When something happens that isn’t supposed to happen such as let’s say, a team coming back from a double-digit lead late in the game to win it, which the Miami Heat have on a few occasions recently… that too is culture.

So, what is there to talk about if we are all on the same page here? That’s just it, we aren’t all on the same page.

What is the Miami Heat Culture? It’s the thing that always stands to separate them from the rest and especially the average.

If we all believe in this Culture, then we all must adhere to or have a similar understanding of what it’s capable of. In essence, the specific thing of reference for this chat is the fact that when a player comes to play in Miami, they either conform to that culture or they’re out.

Period. No questions asked.

No ifs, ands, or buts about it. That’s what happens for or to every player that successfully transitions into the Miami Heat’s organization.

I don’t care what their reputation is or was then or on their last team. If the Miami Heat acquired them and they manage to stick, they have made a commitment to always give it their everything on both ends.

That’s just part of the deal. So, there are two parts to this, as have been laid out.

Just for clarity though, what I mean is that if for one, Pat Riley and the crew decide to bring a guy into the fold, I trust that he will conform and if not already adept at the Heat way, wil fall in line with the Miami Heat way. Two is this.

If that player plans to stick around or manages to stick around, I have complete faith that we will always get every single thing they have in the tank at both ends. That doesn’t mean that a bad defender will all of sudden become a great defender, in example, but it does mean that said “bad defender” will try as hard or harder than they ever have in their entire career in that area as apart of the Miami Heat.

That’s what the culture is. It isn’t Steve Urkel’s transformation chamber, but it’s a standard for transforming.

We should all remember that. A player before playing with or for the Miami Heat, isn’t the same guy he was before playing with them or wherever he was before arriving.

Are we clear? Good, we should be.