2013: A must-win year for the Miami Heat

Last June, LeBron James was able to finally breathe and celebrate the fact that he had finally won the NBA championship that he had been chasing for years. An NBA Finals win over the Oklahoma City Thunder did the trick and it was James who propelled the Heat to the title, showing that he was the best player in the game. Going into the 2012-2013 NBA season, all eyes were on LeBron and the Heat to see if they could repeat. Now it is playoff time, in the middle of the second round to be exact, and from what we have seen so far this season, if the Heat don’t repeat as champions it should be considered as one of the biggest failures in NBA history.

Chris Bosh will be a free agent along with Dwayne Wade and LeBron James in a few years. Matt and other NBA fans are just counting down the days before the dynasty is broken. By Richard Giles, via Wikimedia Commons

When I say that this season should be considered one of the biggest failures in NBA history if the Heat don’t repeat, I am serious. Just look at their roster, LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, Chris Bosh, the additions of Ray Allen and Rashard Lewis, Mario Chalmers, Shane Battier, Mike Miller and so on. There is no excuse whatsoever that this current Miami Heat team shouldn’t win the championship. There are at least four future Hall of Famers on the team and one or two more that have a chance to make it there. Throughout the course of an NBA season, there are some teams that fail to win even 27 games out of the 82 that are played by each team; the Heat alone had a historic 27 game winning streak at one point. They finished the season with an astonishing 66-16 record, giving them the number one seed in the Eastern Conference and the playoffs entirely. The record was six games better than the second best team in the league and twelve better than the second seed in the East, the New York Knicks.

If the Heat don’t win, it was be the second time in three years that the “Big Three” don’t win the championship and that is just wrong with the roster they have playing on the court. I believe that if they don’t win the title the next two years, which would give them the first, three-peat since the Lakers did it in the early 2000s, they might change the team up in 2014 once Wade, Bosh and LeBron all can become free agents. Think about it. Wade and Bosh aren’t getting any younger. LeBron will just be 30. This is where all the LeBron leaving Miami rumors surface. It’s still years away, and this probably isn’t the time to talk about all that. For now, Miami should be excited about their present crash course with destiny and we should just be thinking about this season and how it turns out. For Miami’s sake, I hope they win the title and live up to the high expectation they’ve created for themselves.