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What came first? The chicken or the egg?
That’s the type of question facing the Miami Heat and its two most important figures in franchise history: Dwyane Wade and Pat Riley.
Only instead of poultry, the topic is NBA championships.
The question: What do you need to build a championship team first? A commitment from your star player, or a supporting cast in place? Wade says the team should have a supporting cast first, while Pat Riley believes he needs Wade to commit to Miami first.
Let the debate ensue.
Maybe if this was the NFL, I would go the route of building a core of players that can win games on their own, and then worry about acquiring that superstar rookie or free agent that can be the difference-maker on my team.
But in the NBA?
This is a player’s league. If you don’t have a superstar in the NBA, you won’t win anything. It’s that simple. The Detroit Pistons are the only team to have had legitimate championship success without having a Hall of Fame type of player lead them. However, Rasheed Wallace was no joke in his prime, Ben Wallace was a defensive MVP, and Chauncey Billups may have been the best at his position at that time. But no matter how you view them, those Pistons were the exception to the rule.
The fact is, the Miami Heat do need a commitment from Dwyane Wade in order to justify moving forward with the franchise. It is gong to be really hard for a player to commit to the Heat if said player doesn’t know whether or not Wade will be with the organization a year from now.
Just look at what happened with LeBron James last week. In an effort to get Trevor Ariza, to Cleveland, some have reported that LeBron felt the need to let Ariza in on whether or not he planned to resign with the Cavs. That just goes to show you that even a role player like Ariza wanted to know the direction of his team’s personnel moves, nevermind a player of superior status, the type of player Wade is hoping the Heat sign.
When you account for the economy in all of this, you have to understand management’s reasoning for wanting a commitment from Wade before they go all willy-nilly on free agents. Team’s don’t want to commit dozens of millions of dollars to players that, if were left to lead the team by themselves a year from now, might not make the playoffs. But if the team can get a commitment from Wade, knowing that no matter what they do, having Wade will at least assure them basketball relevancy (followed by financial success), then they can commit millions of dollars to secondary players.
But I also understand Wade’s reasoning. He doesn’t want to sign with Miami only to see them get content with making the playoffs instead of going the extra mile to win the NBA title. That’s all fine and dandy. But what he will soon realize, is that once he becomes a free agent, he can’t demand that from anybody.
If Wade decides to leave Miami because they won’t commit to building a championship team before he commits, the team’s hoping to sign him next summer won’t sign other players before they go after Wade. They are going to try to get him first! Maybe once he realizes that, then he will reevaluate whether or not he really wants to stay with the Miami Heat.
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