Perry the GFK wrote:

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Doesn't matter anyway! I'm a Pistons fan and even I'm willing to admit no East team can even win more than a game or 2 in the Finals against the superior West, if that.

It's hard to tell if you're being facetious, but that's what people said two years ago.

Perry the GFK wrote:

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Shaq is about half as good as he was 2 years ago. He's a lazy old oaf. I highly doubt he'll make it very far into the regular season without an injury that sidelines him for the majority of the season... again. He's still good, but Dwayne Wade can't carry the team to another title without Shaq in decent shape, at least I don't think so.

The Heat probably doesn't need him for the majority of the season. They just need him for the playoffs. He may not be as spry as he once was, but that just makes him the third or fourth best true center in the league. And they still have Alonzo Mourning backing him up.

I think it's kind of funny people are thinking that Boston is going to be so great with Garnett and Allen at 31 and 32 years old, but that Shaq can't play at 35. Center has always been a position that guys can play effectively longer than the others. A South Florida paper printed a quick chart of how some of the great centers have fared in the season in which they turn 36 years old (Shaq turns 36 in March):

Player	Season	Min.	FG%	Rb.	Pts.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar	1982-83	32.3	.588	7.5	21.8
Wilt Chamberlain	1972-73	43.2	.727	18.6	13.2
Patrick Ewing	1998-99	34.2	.435	9.9	17.3
Moses Malone	1991-92	30.6	.474	9.1	15.6
Hakeem Olajuwon	1998-99	35.7	.514	9.6	18.9
Robert Parish	1989-90	30.3	.580	10.1	15.7
David Robinson	2001-02	29.5	.507	8.3	12.2

I see no reason why Shaq can't continue to put up around 18/8 and lets face it, unless Houston makes the finals Shaq isn't going to see a center that can D him up one-on-one throughout the playoffs. Howard? They don't even let Howard play Shaq much less D him up solo. I think the key old man for the Heat is actually Jason Williams. The Heat is a much different (better) team when Williams is healthy and in my opinion can match up with anyone in the NBA.

I predict a slow start for the Heat while Wade recovers but then they will do enough to make the playoffs, or as I like to call it, the real season.

Reading that bumped thread in Rants reminded of this thread (I had posted "Shaq blows" to piss off Jeffs).



If we were voting on the most wrong threads in the history of the Prexus Sports Forums, my previous post would certainly deserve a nomination. I not only called the Heat/Shaq situation completely wrong, I also managed to throw in a jab about Boston's chances this year.



Oh, where to start on the Heat's failures this year? This will probably get long so you can stop reading now if you don't care.



First of all, Shaq. I think Shaq is actually taking too much blame for the Heat's dismal season this year. He's sucked, thats for sure, but blaming it all on him is too easy when so many things have gone wrong. Gadinz was right when he questioned Shaq's conditioning. Perhaps ten years ago this wouldn't have been so much of an issue, but it's a different game now. The NBA is more about speed and shooting these days and it feels a little like the game has passed Shaq by. Teams no longer care that they don't have someone who can D him up one-on-one. They'd rather have a smaller fast guy that beats his ass down the court every time.



But most of the Heat's problems have to be pinned on Riley, both as a GM and a Coach. The offseason moves did not work out. Spending the entire 5 mil exemption on Smush Parker may have seemed like a bad idea at the time, but it seems ludicrous now. They let James Posey and Jason Kapono get away as free agents without acquiring anyone to fill the outside shooting void. He went for a quick fix with the Minnesota trade (Davis/Blount for Walker/Doleac and a pick) which seemed like a good idea at the time, but Davis is a ballhog who shoots too much and he's a free agent after this year. He would make a nice addition to a team that needs scoring off the bench, but the Heat has too much trouble with their starting lineup to worry about scoring off the bench and next year he'll be gone Essentially Riley traded a future pick for an extra year of an inflated salary (Blount's 3 years remaining vs. Walker's 2 years). It also bears mentioning that Doleac, who never got any playing time behind Shaq and Zo, would be a useful player now that Zo is done.



I think another big factor has been Wade's recovery from two offseason surgeries. I see this time and time again in multiple sports: People think that 2-3 months recovery means a player is ready to go when in actuality it often takes a full season to recover. I don't expect Wade to be completely back to form until next year.



So now, Riley the GM has given Riley the Coach a mix of old guys that are often injured and young talent that he yanks for three games whenever they make a mistake. It's hard for a young guy to develop confidence when a missed shot might get him benched indefinitely. Riley is just not a good coach of younger players. It's why he surrendered the team to Van Gundy when the core was Wade, Odom and Coran Butler and why he took back control when the core became Shaq, Jason Williams, Antoine Walker and Alonzo Mourning. When he has the players available, he switches lineups and combinations incessantly and doesn't allow the team to get any sort of rhythm.



Now for the bright side: First of all, I need to mention Daequan Cook. It looks like Miami got one of the steals of the draft in this guy. He's a 20 year old that already has NBA caliber offensive skills. The local beat writer has coined a good nickname for him: All-Day Quan. He can hit from anywhere on the floor. He is currently top 5 in scoring among rookies which isn't bad at all for a 21st pick.



And now for the really bright side: I don't need to describe to most of the fans here how many teams in the NBA tend to languish in mediocracy: good enough to almost or barely make the playoffs, not good enough to advance in the postseason, and not bad enough to get a franchise draft pick. The talent level in the NBA is so high that franchise changing players are usually gone in the first 5-7 picks (and even some of them don't work out). Most teams consider their first round pick a success if they can get a capable starter. 2nd round picks often don't even make the team. The Heat has won big (The NBA Championship) and now with the second worse record in the NBA they look like they are going to lose big. They are going to have a hell of a lot of ping pong balls in that machine when they decide the draft order and should be able to get a great young player to pair with Wade and Cook. By the time Wade's contract needs to be renewed, Shaq and Blount will be off the books giving the Heat a total projected salary commitment of around 2 million dollars (plus whatever they need to pay future rookies). The present sucks, but the future is looking better with every loss (currently nine in a row).

Miami Heat update: The Heat lose again! I was kind of bummed when they broke the 15 game losing streak, but they got right back on track and are are now 0-3 since that slip-up. In fact, they have now passed Minnesota and have the NBA's worst record. Do I dare to dream of Michael Beasley in a Heat uniform? The talent level in the draft seems to go at least 6-7 deep, but Beasley is just a class apart, the consensus number one. And there are several shitty western conference teams with much tougher schedules than the Heat is looking at in the East. But I'll just have to count my blessings that the Heat is still on course for a franchise talent to pair with Dwayne Wade. Worst case scenario right now would be be a winning streak that puts us late in the top ten and they grab Hibbert from Georgetown. Riley likes those Georgetown centers.