Miami Heat: Before the ‘Big 3 Era’, there was ‘The Redeem Team’

Though the Miami Heat would win a title in the 2005-06 season on the backs of Dwyane Wade and Shaquille O’Neal, they wouldn’t do so in a league-altering fashion until the 2011-12 season. That was the year that the Miami Heat’s Big 3 would win their first title.

Coming together in the season prior, they would lose in the NBA Finals to the Dallas Mavericks, their one and only NBA title in franchise history, fueled by Dirk Nowitzki, and the one that cemented him as one of, if not the single greatest, European players ever.

The Miami Heat’s Big 3 Era was not only a league-altering move because it saw three of the best players in the world come together to play on the same team or not even just because it was the period that saw LeBron James, arguably the best player in league history, learn to become a winner in the NBA but because it changed the way that NBA teams were constructed.

The Miami Heat won titles before the ‘Big 3 Era’ but they weren’t rockstars. That era, however, was likely birthed by what took place on ‘The Redeem Team’.

It was no longer shameful or against the code to stack the deck and in fact, it’s encouraged at this point in the league’s existence. But before all of that, the very scenario that many think led to the Big 3 even coming together in Miami was the 2008 USA Olympic Team or—The Redeem Team.

And all of that will be detailed in an upcoming documentary that includes Dwyane Wade and LeBron James as producers on the project.

Attempting to recover from a shocking United States basketball defeat just four years earlier in the Olympics, this journey would set the stage for what was to come for the Miami heat. Here is a quote from a release on the upcoming project from the official website of the Olympics.

"LeBron James and Dwyane Wade were among the players who tasted defeat in Athens before winning gold in China, and they executive produced the film which features never-seen-before footage from the Olympic archives as well as new behind-the-scenes material from NBA Entertainment.There are also new interviews with those who were part of this iconic basketball story – including James, Wade and Coach K – with the documentary offering an original and fascinating portrait of team building which heralded the launch of a new era of Team USA men’s basketball at the Olympic Games."

This will be a wild ride to get to see unfold, that can be certain. And what else is almost certain is that if not for what took place with that 2008 Olympic bunch, the Miami Heat’s Big 3 may have never come to fruition.