Miami Heat: Comparing the new Big 3 to the original Big 3

Ways the new Miami Heat Big 3 compares and contrasts to the original Big 3: Compares – Elite defense

People seem to forget about how great the original Miami Heat Big 3 was on the defensive end. Throughout their four years together, they were a top-six defense every season.

LeBron James almost won a Defensive Player of the Year award, and both Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh were great defenders, too. This current Big 3 has a chance to mimic that success.

The Heat have been known for their defense in recent years, and it is projected to be even better this season. Bam Adebayo has a real shot at winning DPOY.

Add Jimmy Butler and Kyle Lowry into that mix, and the Miami Heat are going to be a force to be reckoned with this year. Expect their defense to be as good, or even better than the original Big 3.

Ways the new Miami Heat Big 3 compares and contrasts to the original Big 3: Contrasts – Scoring load

When the Miami Heat formed their original Big 3 back in 2012, everyone knew that James, Wade, and Bosh would take on the majority of the scoring. For this new Big 3, that simply is not the case.

It could be easily argued that this current Heat team has better depth than the original Big 3 team. They may not be better overall, but the depth is there.

Butler, Lowry, and Adebayo are not score-first players, whereas James, Wade, and Bosh were at the time. This means that the scoring is going to be much more spread out this year than it was during the original Big 3 era.

This isn’t a bad thing by any means, in fact, some could argue it’s a good thing. This current Big 3 will just have a lot of responsibilities in other areas of the game.