Miami Heat’s Dwyane Wade has missed 58 games over his last three seasons, which averages out to nearly 20 a year. During that time, he was playing alongside former teammate, and current Cleveland Cavalier, LeBron James, while enjoying the freedom that came with that, as well as the bail-out shot-making provided by Chris Bosh, which further lowered his volume. Going into this summer, the 32-year old lobbied for the return of his now superior teammates, not only for wanting to reach team oriented goals such as another championship, but also give his body a break here and there as he’s done since he was in his late 20’s.
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When LeBron decided to return to Cleveland, a bit of Wade’s world must have crashed from a basketball perspective. He’s now the only wing on the roster who can create his own shot (a skill that’s bound to decrease to boot) and despite seeing Bosh re-sign for $118 million and Luol Deng signing for $20 million over two years, the pressure and limelight is once more upon him. He’ll be asked to take more shots, handle the rock for extra possessions, set up others, and maybe more importantly, participate defensively.
For those who’ve followed Wade in recent years, it became apparent he hid himself plenty behind LeBron, feeding off James’ ball-pressure and gambling for steals as a result of that. While Deng is a fine defender in his own right, he works best within a team scheme which won’t really help Wade in minimizing his effort on that end.
This begs two questions: Why did the Heat go all in for Wade, Bosh, and Deng? What are they hoping to achieve going forward?
The first one is easy.
They still see themselves as a playoff team, and have every intention of going as far as they can which, admittedly, likely isn’t far. They knew that re-signing Bosh to $118 million, as well as giving Wade $31 million over two years, that they wouldn’t be a huge cap space player anyway, and they value Wade’s legacy to the point that they wish to see him retire in their jersey. There’s not only logic to that notion, but integrity. Pat Riley could have let Chris Bosh sign with Houston, which was widely expected would happen, and he could have saved money by not going after Deng. Losing LeBron would sting for any team, and no one would have said a peep if Riley had felt the team couldn’t overcome such a loss, and started a re-building process instead. To his credit, Mr. Hair-Made-Of-Silk never gave in to defeatist ideologies and the Heat can now once again present a line-up consisting of three All-Stars, albeit some more limited than others.
Hoops Habit
The second question however, is considerably more difficult to answer.
As admirable as Riley’s intentions were, throwing a combined $169 million after his three main players is an awful lot of money for a core that’s not going to compete for a title in the near future, despite his personal beliefs. Even with Josh McRoberts (at an additional $22.6 million over four seasons) added to the mix, the Heat won’t be stronger than Cleveland or Chicago, and maybe even Washington and Toronto. Playing the 2016 market in two years when Wade is 34 also seems like a stretch, as no big star would want to sign up long-term just to play with Wade in the winter of his career, while seeing a 32-year old Chris Bosh launch long jumpers. Even Luol Deng, should he want to remain with the Heat, will be 31 by then.
Now, critiquing Bosh for shooting jumpers might seem irrelevant given that his role is likely to change this season, with LeBron now gone. Only, Bosh has not carried an offense for four seasons, and while it’s easy to assume he’ll just regain that mentality with the snap of his fingers, it’s anything but.
Four NBA seasons have come and gone with Bosh getting used to being the third option, the bail-out guy, the mid-range shooter, the guy left open. Going from that to being an expected 22 and nine as his best days in Toronto, borders on unrealistic. Bosh will have to increase his volume, have the ball in his hands considerably more, still reserve energy for defense, and remain an overall efficient player. That’s a ton of expectation for a guy who’s been a 17 and seven guy the last four years, and crew comfortable with less defensive attention being thrown his way. If Bosh experiences hardship in lifting his game back to where it once was, more pressure would fall onto Wade which is a problem we covered above.
The most difficult part of Miami’s trio is their lack of shooting. While LeBron was never a Steph Curry-type shooter, he did knock down 38.5 percent of his shots from long-range in his last three seasons with the Heat, and defenders were never that keen on sacking off of him, even when their coach screamed at them on the sidelines. Opponents consistently feared LeBron shooting the long-ball, as he very much so is a rhythm shooter. If he drains his first couple of jumpers, the entire dynamic of his game changes, and he’ll kill you long bombs, mid-range pull-ups, step-backs and every other hyphen terminology out there.
Luol Deng? Not so much.
Deng did progress as a shooter over the years, but he’s made just over 31 percent of his three-point makes over his last two seasons and has never been known as an overall efficient scorer. He, Bosh, and Wade combined for 140 triples last season with Bosh being the best marksman at 33.9 percent on the year. If those percentages don’t change, Miami’s spacing will be among the worst in the league from downtown, which is an area where they already took a hit, losing James Jones, Shane Battier, and likely Ray Allen.
But not all is bad in Miami.
Bosh and Deng will form a formidable defensive duo, as both are long and agile. Deng’s ability to cover perimeter players the one minute, and switch onto defending a big man in the post moments later, will at the least mimic LeBron’s versatility on that end of the floor, and give Bosh some room to free-roam on occasion.
Wade is still a large question mark, but should he somehow stay healthy for a solid 65 games (yes, we’ve reached a point where 65 games out of Dwyane Wade is a good thing), he should be able to use his length to bother shooters. He won’t ever become the aggressive in-your-face pressure defender as he once was, but he remains a high IQ player who understands how to position himself. His lapses on defense in recent years was as mentioned partly due to James’s presence, but his physical woes didn’t help matters. A healthy Wade will look more like than an average defender than a good one, but as long as he doesn’t become a liability, it’s a win for Erik Spoelstra.
Going back to Miami’s long-term outlook, it’s clear they’ll try re-tooling in two summers. It’s fine in theory and there are legitimate benefits in not tanking, especially for free agents looking for a new gym, but isn’t it just keeping around two players for the hell of it, who maybe won’t be there anyway in 2016, just to be a middle-of-the-pack team?
A 34-year old Dwyane Wade isn’t your average 34-year old player. He’s got very bad knees, he doesn’t have a reliable jump shot to stay relevant as an offensive contributor on his own accord, and his game is built off getting to the rim and being punished by the trees. Giving his recent inability to stay on the floor and visible decline, would anyone really be surprised if Wade decided to wave goodbye in two years?
As for Deng, would the Heat dare commit to him long-term in 2016, knowing that potential cap increases will also increase his asking price? There’s a legitimate possibility that neither Wade nor Deng will be members of the Heat by that time, and then what? The Heat would have missed out on two potentially high draft picks just to stay somewhat relevant, and would undoubtedly have lost one of them to Philadelphia as they have top-10 protection in both ’15 and ’16 on a pick they owe.
Overall, the Heat represents one of the more intriguing cases of short-term roster re-construction currently in the league, as every element of their team is currently fluid. Well, except for Bosh and his paycheck which should be pretty safe for now.