The 2010-11 Miami Heat: Introducing The Heatles

Always a fantastic run, the good, the bad, the ugly, the historically bad, the teams that we mock and the players we have great fond memories of, and some others that have fallen to the wayside. Tonight's episode the two thousand ten, two thousand, or or really today this episode two Caul. You be listening anytime that's to be tonight, today, today, tonight, tomorrow, last week's episode back to the Future. It's whenever you want to listen. Well, it's like inception, just a matter

of where you come into the story. Well, you gotta watch in the beginning or you don't get like the middle of the movie. You can't go into the exception the beginning, it's like, I don't understand what this is a lot of people watched in front to end and had no idea what the hell was going on. Anyone's like, oh, this is back when Joseph Gordon Levitt was in like every third movie and then like, okay, we need less Joseph Gordon and then he became Batman. He yeah, he

kind of did become Batman. Well, you know, I gotta say Five Days of Summer was probably my favorite Joseph Gordon Levitt movie. Okay, that's a pretty good one. I couldn't stand Zoe Diistionnelle's character, and then it kind of just flips at the end. I go, oh, now I get it. Yeah, but he was in Ten Things I Hate About You, Right, I like the eight things that they hated, but the last two things I wasn't a fan. Not too far, Yeah, too far? It was a bridge

too Yeah. I think he had an extra ten minutes for those. The two thousand ten, two thousand and eleven my Emmy Heat now a team that went to four finals in a row and won two championships. It's the first year we're dealing with because quite honestly, the two thousand ten year began with the Miami Heat changing the National Basketball Association the way we know it. Why because this is when the decision became everything that sports fans

wanted to talk about. Lebron James deciding, after hitting free agency for the first time, he wanted to leave the Cleveland Cavaliers and join the Miami Heat. And the decision, which was broadcast live on national television throughout the country.

What team was Lebron James going to? It enraptured sports fans everywhere, and it's still is gonna wind up being one of the top four or five stories of my lifetime in sports because the decision and the attention surrounding it, Lebron James leaving was really a watershed moment in both television and sports media. The way this team was constructed, the way it all came together, the hype of that year's free agency class as to what was going to happen.

Would these superpowers joined up, would they just change teams? Dwayne Wade, what was the future in Miami? I mean, all of those things came to a head, and I remember the rumors here on our airwaves of Fox sports radio Stephen A. Smith calling his shot for for days ahead of the decision, and the funny thing is one of the things I remember going into the decision was where was Lebron gonna go? Obviously, and Stephen A. Smith

had the story said it's gonna be the heat. But there was so much information going out there with people saying this is where he's going, this is where he's going, he's staying, he's this, it was impossible to figure out what insider had the right information. I remember Stephen A. Smith the time was telling everybody, no, I got this, He's going to the heat. It's gonna be I got it. I got it. But it was met with all right, we have a lot of stuff. We can't be wrong

about this. So it was almost like ESPN decided to make a conscious decision to say, we're not gonna broadcast, We're gonna We're gonna wait and the decision is gonna come out and we're going to go with it then because nobody went, but nobody knew because he was connected to what the clippers, to the bowls, to the nets, I mean, you just go down. Whether he was gonna just stay in Cleveland and be done with it, and it was gonna be this good moment, right. You got

all the Boys and Girls clubs representatives there. You know what's always lost in this is that several million dollars went to the boy and Boys and Girls clubs. It's kind of a good thing, right, For as much hate and vitriol his game out of this from Jim Gray hunt down the line, I mean, it worked out pretty well for for a bunch of kids, but from Lebron James, I mean, everybody remembers what they were doing that night. I mean, and when it came down, how quickly the

phone started blowing up. I was like, can you believe this? Coming off the two thousand ten season, Lebron's free agency was all anybody wanted to get into. He took meetings with every team. Don Nelson, who was running the Knicks back then, was in a wheelchair, and they wheeled him in, you know, to be able to present his side to

the Lebron James and and his contingent. And it was very soon after I think the Nets went and and and presented, and I remember hearing that during the Knicks presentation, Lebron and everybody just spaced out, like it's been enough. It was a big process and Lebron's free agency was

going to change the National Basketball Association. And so when it was announced the decision was coming up July seven of two thousand and ten, everybody's watching TV and watching Jim Gray ask one question for an hour to Lebron James. When he finally comes up with the I'm taking my talents to Miami line, which has become lampooned and and a part of sports history. South Beach, Baby, it was a big whoe. He's really going to the heat. He's

really going to the heat. It was a tremendous night for basketball, and in the end, it turned out to be one of the worst nights for Lebron because all he did was get all kinds of flak because he was leaving his hometown team. He got a lot of flak for that, for going on television for an hour and making a decision in which he presents as it's a big night for boys and Girls Club, But yeah, it is. But it's also a night where you decided to take control of a storyline for an hour when

you already knew what was going on. You're the kid with the hats going to college. It was the beginning of the polarization that Lebron James had going forward in his NBA career, because up until then, it was boy Lebron is fantastic, and you had a little bit of detractors. And there's a few things that happened with Lebron that you were like, I don't know. You remember he had the whole situation where the one kid from college dunked on him during the summer and Lebron's people tried to

hold onto the video. Absolutely, you had stuff like that going on with Lebron James, but still overwhelmingly Lebron James was next. We are all witnesses going to the finals, uh and and but getting swept by the San Anto Neo Spurs. But Lebron James decides for the heat and this is where he became polarizing, but at the same time became even more of an icon than he was before he got global because of the news cycle he was able to grab and what he's held onto really

since that moment, I changed the game forever. In this moment where we didn't know that it would become as prolific a style of making a decision of how to rebuild and reformulate teams, find your friends and team up and change courses of many franchises with the stroke of

a pen. So the Miami Heat have pat Riley who was running things, and Eric Spoelstra, a young hen coach that nobody knew if he was going to be any good, and suddenly they had to fit things around because Lebron and Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade decided they wanted to team up and play in Miami. They wanted to play together because they were all tight, something that came up probably at the Olympics. Hey, you know, it would be

pretty cool if we all played together. I don't think it was well thought out by Lebron and Wade and Boss, which are gonna get to coming up in a few minutes, but it was something that still was a work in progress. Had to figure things out as they went. I don't think they thought they'd get the backlash. I don't think they thought it was gonna be as difficult as it was, that there would be as many people that would say, Oh, I think you're a superpower, now I want to see

you lose. They announced they want to play together and pat Riley I loved him taking all kinds of credit for you know, we had to fit these people under the salary cap and figure things out, and it's whoa, whoa dude, you didn't do anything but answer your phone when Lebron called in Today we all figured out we're coming here to the heat. I mean, we got to

That's all you did, pat Riley, was do that. Yeah, I mean the only question at that point was was Lebron James also giving him a list of guys he wanted him to go get, and then you figure out the rest of your roster and that becomes uh an arduous task as well. We'll get to in a moment. Now. He had to make some trades. He had to make

some moves. He had to trade four first round picks to the Calvs and the Raptors in order to get Lebron James and Chris Bosh and that kind of made them stuck a bit because that hurt when they got to the NBA Finals, something we'll get too later on in the podcast. But having to trade away all these assets, they didn't have a lot to go get the other players to fill out their team. It was can three guys basically win a championship. I remember when they decided

to come. The Heat had four players, and they're going into the summer going all right, who are you gonna get? Who's around? We're start making phone calls. Who wants to come play? Well, it's like the Lakers heading into right Lebron James go figure it's him again, going all right, I got my core and I got my one guy. As Anthony Davis comes over and I got coused by I like him. All right, what else we got? Who else are we got? I mean that's like Ocean's eleven

trying to fill out. You're the rest of you, guys. We need one more. I think we need one more. Let's go get one more. The roster that they had to put together was just Okay, we're gonna piece meal things, and that's the best thing we're gonna do. Will you? Mario Chalmers, Hey, we love him. We got Donna's hassle, m Eddie Houses on that team. Juwan, how Howard? I mean they were calling guys up, going hey, just come

here and play for whatever. Mike Miller was a big acquisition for them that you know, we're gonna get Mike Miller. That's a big thing for us. It's oh, these are the guys, these are the guys. Championship. Yeah, you want to you want to come play and potentially win and hang out in South Beach. That was the team that was going to wind up taking the court for them. They had four second round picks to Shaun Butler's one

of those picks, Dexter Pittman's one of those picks. But it was gonna be these three and what else can they put together? This was the Miami Heat team that change the way the NBA works because now everybody wants to be super teams and join up together. But going into the season, now, how are they going to make it work with a really, really thin roster. The backlash was immediate and the hate watching began for Lebron James

and company. Well, the other part of it was their big introductory press conference, which was when all the fireworks are going off and Lebron James said, We're not here to win one championship, not to not the not four, not five, not six, not seven, And it's, oh, my god, dude, what are you kidding? Are you? This is but this is feeling good, feeling not thinking that saying that was gonna come back to haunt them be something that we

talked about. Oh, here's the guys, I'm joining a team and he's gonna win eight championships with the Miami Heat. I love the bravado in the moment. I thought it was one of the great w W E heel kind of turns right, he's doing it for the Miami Heat and their crowd as they're all excited, right, building the perfect beast, the Summer Heat Welcome Party is what it was called. And they were introduced as the Three Kings, right, and they came up on their little risers and the

whole thing. So when he gives the speech, Mike, all right, they're playing to the home home fans. But it was almost the al right, the threat, the calling out of every other NBA team. So yeah, you get a little bit of the the w W E heel with the mic skills. So this is how the Heat go into the eleven season. Coming up next on the podcast, Dwyane Wade crying after the first few games. What was the rest of the world looking at besides Lebron James at

the NBA season began all that more? Right here, on the Special Teams Podcast, The two thousand ten two thousand eleven Miami Heat. Continuing on with the Special Teams Podcast as we look back at the Miami Heat, who changed the NBA forever, as they get set to make their debut after a long offseason of anticipation. What was the

rest of the world talking about. Well, Lady Gaga wore the meat dress, and I'm just thinking, boy, when I was younger, if I could wear a meat dress, It's like, if it's cooked me that I could actually, But you know, wearing a meat dress was pretty risque even back then for her. You've never worn a meat dress. Now you could go the opposite, Uh, wear a vegetable dress, like like like broccoli. You wouldn't let it get that close

to your body. Ten wat dress. The top movies of two thousand and ten you mentioned one a couple of minutes ago. Inception, a movie that drove people crazy. Oh is the thing gonna spin at the end? Is it falling over? Is it staying up? Is it falling over and staying up? Inception was on everybody's mind. How about your favorite TV show premiered Sons of Anarchy? Yes, and The Walking Dead? Both premiered. I was very excited about

both of them. Not a Walking Dead guy. The thing is, I stopped watching The Walking Dead, and that's been a big piece of of social currency, is when did you stop watching the Walking Oh that's pretty because people don't watch it. It was when did you stop? Well? I stopped watching the beginning of the second season of Negan. Oh, that's a good time to stop. That's pretty good. I like that that that's that. That's a cool guy that

stopped watching then. I mean it is cool. I mean Andrew Lincoln is the on in law of Ian Anderson, of Jethro Tull, not running down his nose? Do you know any other lines? But what other rock song could you say? Snot running down his Nose? I mean, that's a good one. I'll give you that. But Sons of Anarchy. I still miss Sons of Anarchy. I mean I I still missed that. I I walked around with I had the T shirts that they wore, and then the TV show had the Sam Crows shirts. I had everything. The

Apprentice kept going the league. It's always sunny in Philadelphia. Yeah, and now they're on like seasons. Always say, if it's still making money keep going. So that's what people were talking about in two thousand and ten, and then early November, the Miami Heat tipped off for the first time and they started nine and eight out of the gate as

they really had to figure things out. And in the middle of this is when Dwyane Wade had his quote meltdown crying after a game, saying, oh, now everybody could be so happy the Miami he'd have problems and I remember that vividly, saying, oh, dude, you gotta be more mentally tough than that. You just decided a month ago to have a press comments where you're set, or have a an event where you're saying not two championships, not three, not four. No, you want to do that. You can't

cry and be upset when you're nine and eight. You got a lot of backlash. Anytime you want to stand up and say hey, I'm great, this is me, you're gonna have people sling arrows at you. And the Heat weren't ready for it, which is why I say it wasn't that well thought out. It was one of those things that happened and they had to figure it out as they went along. People might have liked the novelty

of it. But if you're looking for competition, you're sitting there and going, all right, if I'm a fan of one of these other teams, I hate this because a my team didn't think of it, and they if my team was in the running, they weren't able to get it done. The thing that bothered me most. And look, all these years later, never faulted Lebron for the decision, never faulted him for the not two, not three. Always thought it was nice, like I said, a whole w

w e heel thing. But then once the crowds are actually against you, don't cry about him. You said it up this way. All the rumors that started at that point with the heat struggling, where Eric Spoelstra is gonna be fired and pat Riley is gonna come down and coach the team, right, that Lebron didn't like Spolster, the very famous, the very famous video of him just blowing him off walking by in the huddle, and it was by Erik Spoelster is getting fired. Man, It's just a

matter of time. And really, are you gonna trust Eric Spoelstra with all these guys that are basically coaching the team. You needed somebody who was gonna come down and and command respect, and Spoilster was not the guy or well, because the other part was I think for many NBA fans that had watched this thing come together, pat Riley as much as front office pat Riley wanted some credit.

Don't tell him. He didn't want his slick back hair back on the sideline, right, So people were waiting for the coup at mid season just so he could finish the job. Right, all right, Spoilster, you you do the hard work here. These guys will start playing together, and then I come down from the rabid look. I saved the season and I made these two for stars like it was a hero moment in the waiting. But what saved him, and I think saved NBA history from being different,

is that once December hit, that was it. The heat go on a big run. They go fifteen and one in the month of December and they never looked back. I mean that was that. That was where everything starts coming into focus and the slotting of the superstars became a little bit easier. It wasn't well, it's the three

of us. It was okay, this is becoming Lebron's team, and Wade's gotta be okay being the one A and Chris Bosh has to be okay being way over here being the three right, it was, it was going to be the three of them, but you knew it was gonna morph, and it morphed to Lebron's team with Wade

playing the supporting role. And that's something that people don't take into account when they talk about the greatness of this run, is that Dwyane Wade on his own team that he already won a championship with when they beat the Mavericks being okay taking quote a back seat to Lebron on welcoming him in, allowing him to take over and to be Lebron without that, if he's fighting Lebron for control of the team or who's gonna be the

alpha on any night, it's gonna fall apart. And you know, we saw it with Shack and Kobe in l A. They fought each other and they only made it a few years. But in the modern NBA they made it further. Because Dwyane Wade and Lebron were friends and Wade was okay seating the spotlight to Lebron. He made this thing happen. Yeah, one for those guys showing up, but too for knowing when he needed to be player b. That's when Lebron also coined the heatles. Yes, so everybody comes to see us.

They were selling out everywhere. It's us coming into your town and it's wherever you were doing. Hey, where are the Heat? Remember it was all those ads for bad teams. Hey our it went from the our season. Our Clippers season ticket package includes a game against the Bulls and Michael Jordan's two. Hey, we got the Heat coming in next month. But that was what it was, appointment television. Every night that Heat played, it was a story. And the NBA, how often do you get stories every night?

Two games season? You're exciting time they played, whether they won by fifty, they played a close game, the rare times they lost, they were the big story. Yeah, because they played a lot of close games in this first couple of months of the season. And that was one of the detractors, like, well, you got three superstars. You got these superstars, and you can't blow these bad teams out.

They trade from Mike Bibby at the deadline, and that turns out to be a pretty big move back when Mike Bibbee was still Hey, Mike Bibby is not bad, and he might be a big addition because they needed more shooters, and that's what the Heat needed. They needed guys that could make shots, that could contribute more offensively, because look, we mentioned it a few minutes ago, we're gonna talk about a lot later. You gotta have those support players to win the NBA finals, and the Heat

were still trying to mix and match. They were a great regular season team. They want up finishing second in the Eastern Conference. They won fifty eight games, they finished second to the Bulls, and it was boy, here come the Heat, and they were expected to roll through the playoffs. But winning championships, you need those support guys to come through. You can't just rely on your stars. That's the one thing people forget about the NBA, whether it's the Warriors,

Dynasty or anybody else. You need those players who are gonna play big support roles when the games get big. That back end, you got Haslam, you got Miller, and you got a lot of guys who were, you know, just a guy on the back, a lot of Jags that really didn't have any particularly uh crafted set of skills to help the Big Three finish what they were doing.

Coming up next on the podcast. While they roll through most of the playoffs, a disappearing act that nobody saw coming with Lebron James beset them in the NBA Finals, we break down what became a theme for Lebron james career.

Coming up next on the Special Team's podcast, two thousand, two thousand eleven, Miami He So we're into the NBA Finals here on Special Teams, taking a look at the two thousand, two thousand and eleven Miami Heat team that changed the face of the NBA, despite the fact they did not win it all, as the Miami Heat are able to get through the playoffs without a lot of difficulty awaiting them. The Dallas Mavericks and what you're gonna see over the course of these six games are two things.

Number One, the Mavericks had a deeper team because you need those kinds of players who are gonna come off your bench or be your shooting guard that's gonna have a big game that you're not expecting, and that's how you win championships. You can have the star power, but you need the people coming off the bench. You need the the role players to play big in the NBA Finals, and this is where things fell short for the Heat because they didn't have that. They had three great players,

but there was nobody else. You could say, Hey, you know what, Mike Miller had a huge, huge, huge, get No, they didn't have that, and that's why the Mavericks are the champions. We talked about this across all sports, right, you need that that extra extra man just step up. Not that superstar, maybe one of those Lou Williams. I gotta get Lou Williams and wherever I can, but those that sixth man who can come in and take over and let your guys take an extended breather because you

don't lose any momentum from your first unit. And when we looked at this Heat team, they just didn't have it. Occasionally Miller would get hot, but in the finals, not so much. The Finals, which were known in the end for the exclamation point on Dirk Nowitzki's career, started pretty poorly for him. Miami wins Game one and Dirk tears attendant in his left middle finger. So now they lose Game one and suddenly he's got a really serious finger injury.

You get to Game two. Miami was up huge, They were up fifteen points midway through the fourth quarter, and Dallas comes back to win. They go on a huge run with six and a half minutes left to go, and you heard to a man following the game, the huge Mavericks come back. How do you come back against this team that was taking a stranglehold on the series. They were upset with six twenty left to go. They were pissed that Miami was celebrating and dancing after a

big shot. Lebron and Dwyane Wade were doing their thing on the sidelines, and players said, you know what, that really got us upset, and we decided to focus more and we came down and we wheeled into that lead, wheeled into that lead because we didn't like the heat celebrating prematurely. Dwyane Wade blew it off after the game. But in the end, this turned out to be the real turning point of the series, because when you let a win get away, momentum leaves at some point and

goes to the other team. Every final series has its own rhythm, has its own uh cadence, and its own rolling waves. There's a time in every series where momentum forever leaves the losing team and goes to the winning team. Sometimes it's Game two, sometimes it's Game I've Sometimes this Game seven, when you have a fifteen point lead and you blow that lead with six minutes left to go, the Mavericks tie of the series, and momentum was on

their side the rest of the way. I always find it funny in these types of professional environments that's something seemingly innoxious of a couple of guys clowning on a bench could be the alright, we gotta focus now. It's like no, no, no, it's like the extra incentive our composer. No, but that's it, finish the job. But for the for the Mavericks, all right, that really cheesed us off. Man, Now we knew it was our mission to claw back, Like why why did you need to get clowned like

your professionals playing for a championship. And you always hear these tales in in the moment or years later as we do the reviews here on special teams that you know, oh yeah, that was the thing that really solidified us as a team, and it bonded us together, Like the follow up is why, why does that take that You gotta best just seven? And for a guy like Jerk Nevitsky, that's it. That's the home park, right, A lot of points, a lot of great times. So Game three, Miami finds

a way to win. Game four, Dwyane Wade misses a free throw that could have tied the game with twenty seconds left. He fumbled the inbounds, passed down three with seven seconds left when he could have hit a three to tie the game, and the Mavericks tie the series back had two games at peace. This is now what we're going to focus on because this was the first of the Lebron James disappearing games eight, nine, and seven.

In this game, eight points, nine rebounds, seven assists. On the sunny side, you could say close to a triple double, but really eight points for Lebron James in an NBA Finals game. He took eleven shots. And at the time it was boy, I don't get what happened to Lebron in this game, But as the series came out, it

became a theme. These last three games, Lebron James completely disappeared, and it was the beginning of the how does Lebron James do this in the finals, and it was a question that dogged him for years because he did a little bit with the Cleveland Cavaliers and happened here. Was he gonna just keep disappearing at big moments during his NBA career. Game five was the Jason Terry game. All right.

This was the exclamation point for the Dallas Mavericks. He gets benched by Rick Carlisle for bad play, comes back in late and runs Miami into the ground. He scored or assisted on eleven points. In the fourth quarter. He had a big three with Lebron James in his face to clinch the game. Again, Lebron played this game as a facilitator and that hurts Miami. Anytime Lebron is more facilitator in a go for the juggular type game, teams

are gonna take that. During the regular season, if Lebron plays facilitator, it's boy, it's one game out of eight. Two other guys can beat you. If he has a game with fifteen points, but he has eleven twelve assists, he played facilitator. Other guys did it. But in the NBA Finals, Lebron James is not gonna win games where he plays facilitator and scores ten or twelve points or like he did in Game four with eight, nine and seven,

do it. And that's always the question in the background of like what are the conversations in the locker room? Is is he hearing things? Right? He always said he had you know, zero dark three and didn't hear what was being said about him, And even at in this early stages was I'm just locked in, but you know, you hearing the whispers that you took over the team and that maybe folks are a little bit disgruntled about it or there's some unrest, so it's like, all right,

let somebody else do it. Then it's just the psychology of it never made sense, like you're are you this way? Like like this is who I am. I want to show you. I want to win, Like Magic Johnson, I can score thirty a game the first three games, but I can dish out fifteen assists in the rest of the games with It's it was very strange because I don't know what happens to him and what happened to him in the final Remember talking about this on the radio after going I don't get this is not the

Lebron James that we have grown to see. This is Lebron James who takes over games in the fourth quarter and doesn't shrink from those moments, right, the guy that takes on his wide Drexler persona and puts his head down and dribbles into the lane and runs over anybody in his way. So it's just that that type of mentality that we've seen so many times, where he'll take over a quarter a game. Why in the middle of

a series is there this flip of the switch. Even though in Game five he had a triple double, a seventeen, ten and ten, it's still underwhelming for him. I mean, still, it's not the kind of game you would get from Lebron. And it was very, very strange. He only took two free throws, but he's got to get to the free

throw line. Lebron James for many times in his early career, I'm gonna settle for the jumper because it looks pretty rather than take the ball to the hook because I want to hit that jumper and put my hand up and go back down the floor. It's like I felt like he wanted to win a certain way. And then you get to Game six of the NBA Finals, and this was it for the Heat. Their backs were to the wall, and you know what, Lebron James sort of disappeared again. You know, twenty one points in Game six,

just four free throws. They were facing elimination and they get worked by the Dallas Mavericks who hit a ton of threes. They played a lot of zone in that game, and that hurt Miami. And it was stunning to watch the end of this game because I vividly remember seeing every time they passed the ball to Lebron hot potato and he would set it to somebody else. It was like hot potato basketball. And I'm I really, it's like I'm watching the meltdown in front of me. I'm just

a this is a three game meltdown. He wanted on James, Yeah, he wanted nothing to do with the ball in the fourth quarter. As you say, hot potato, just the facilitator mode in overdrive. That the average just three points per game in the fourth quarter in the series for the series as a whole, down nine points a game from this sin from his regular season average. In the time

when it was it was showtime. This was your go, make your mark and go take on and start going to where you're you're thinking about the repeat and two and three and four and everything from before the season and said, uh, shrunk away. In the biggest moment it was after this series, pat Riley said, I gotta have a talk to Lebron, talk with Lebron about getting more out of him. Even pat Riley when he asked to sit here a gay boy, I gotta go take on our big star who came here and and and you know,

got us to the NBA Finals. But he had the conversation with Lebron about giving him more and it worked out. The next two years, the Heat wound up winning the

NBA Championship. But this year, this was the year that, even though it ended poorly for them and Lebron disappeared, this change the NBA really forever because you watch teams go from hey, now I want to go play with my friends and and and we can go get together and put three stars here and three stars here and three stars here, to the point where now players are signing one and two year contracts because they want to

be able to play with one guy here. And now I'm gonna go play one guy one year with one guy over here, and that's the way the NBA is now, and it's it's it's just not even ten years ago that this seismic sea chain turned the NBA from a league where, hey, you have a lot of talent spread around the league too, there's only a handful of teams that can really compete because we're all teaming up now and we're we're we're deciding that when a player wants to move on, I gotta move on to this team

that already has an established dark because now I want to win. Anytime players get older in their careers, they I've I've done what I kind of made my money.

I want to win now. Think about the way the super teams that we recall the Celtics and Lakers, right, there are a couple of things that happened where guys get traded, changed leagues, and then draft and you roll through and it became those super teams for years and then long gap Celtics team blip on the radar, and then you have this change and every year it becomes the one in two year deals because the salary cap keeps coming out, but also the idea of I don't

want to be stuck, right, we see teams jettison coaches very quickly. There's no programs, you know, we laugh about the term program in the NFL or wherever else, like used to be a college only term. But now it's all right. Is a guy gonna really get to stick around and build some vision or is it all right? Show up? We have to win right now. Some players they know it's they can look and read the tea leaves as soon as they do that first week of practice.

All right, this is a one year deal. I'm gone, And then trying to sync up contracts because that was part of this game as well, because you got Bosh and Wade and Lebron from the same draft class. So it worked out just beautifully. So that was the year for Miami Heat. How about somewhere are they now? Are

some of the guys from this team? All right, let's have a little bit of fun, right Carlos Arroyo, he played with this squad for a bit, uh and professional basketball players play internationally, showed up in the in the States, played for the Heat for a while. He was the guy that got cut when Mike Bibbie came along, and just six point two million dollars took the veterans minimum to come hang out. Uh. He's a co owner of a team, the Balanceesto Superior Nasal. Yeah. I bet them

a lot on line. I put a lot of money on them. Yeah. So you know he was at home. He was started the Puerto Rico team that beat the US in the two thousand four Olympics as well, so he had some run. Uh. Joel Anthony Center on a u n LV. He was in the league until seventeen. They called him the Warden, which is always good. Uh, he's a cast around with the warden. He's now playing in Argentina, and I won't just do a disservice by trying to pronounce that one. Now, you said it right, Argentina,

You got it right, Okay, good. I was gonna go through the entire the club Athletico San Lorenzo de la Madro, Dexter Pittman, the Center. He's playing in a japan B league. The Rising Zephyr Fukiyoka. I like the Rising Zephyr, the Rising that sounds like the name of a radio communications company that owns a lot of things, Rising Zephyr. They own all these stations here in Sioux Falls. That's pretty good. Jerry Stackhouse played seven games with this team. I just

thought i'd mentioned Jerry's while we were Uh. And then we've got Bob McAdoo, the legend was one of the coaches. Uh. And you're a guy David Fizdale, fizz getting his big start before he went and screwed up there got to the head coaching job with the New York Hey. Hey, hey, hey, hey, so there's o Look Miami Heat. Even though they didn't win, they changed the NBA forever. This has been Special Teams.

I'm Jason Smith, He's Mike Harmon. Hit us up on Twitter at how about a Frescup Mike at Swollen Dome. Any ideas of teams you would like us to go through in the coming weeks. Absolutely welcome and we will talk to you next week. Before you go, rate and review the show. Whether you're listening on I Heart Radio, I Heart radio apps, Apple, whatever it is, give us a rate, tell us you like it. We will love you forever and ever and ever. Special Teams is a

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