Before opening the 2006-07 season Tuesday night against the Bulls, the Miami Heat will raise the banner proclaiming last season’s NBA championship, and its players will receive rings emblematic of ultimate success in professional basketball.
Excuse the rest of the NBA if it yawns, which would be no surprise to coach Pat Riley.
Perhaps not since the 1994-95 Houston Rockets, with Vernon Maxwell and Kenny Smith as the starting backcourt, have more observers thought less of a defending champion’s chances to repeat.
In the NBA’s annual poll of general managers, the Heat got less than 15 percent of the vote to win the 2007 title, behind the Spurs and the Mavericks.
Preseason publications and columnists have picked the Heat to win again as frequently as choices for the Cavaliers, Bulls, Pistons and Nets in the East and generally behind three or four Western Conference teams. Most network TV analysts, almost all former players, picked against the Heat.
“I think Miami will be so-so during the season, maybe surprise in the playoffs,” Lakers coach Phil Jackson said. “They’ll be cruising a little bit, and knowing how hard it is for [Shaquille O’Neal] to get 100 percent in shape, I think it will be a struggle.”
The Heat’s 52 regular-season victories were the fewest for a champion since the Rockets. They went 2-12 against the other division winners and 2-14 if Dallas, which had the league’s third-best record, is included.
So the widespread disregard of the Heat’s prospects “does make a little bit of sense [after] how we came on,” Riley acknowledged after practice Monday. “We weren’t the favorites. We came in and stunned somebody.
“The obvious thing is they think we were lucky. So be it. I can understand that they think we were a one-hit wonder, that we got it all together and Dwyane Wade carried us alone and it’s not going to happen again. We’ll see what happens. These guys are not overly sensitive. They could care less what writers think, what TNT thinks. [But] if I were an opposing player or coach, I wouldn’t be making statements like that.”
There are many other issues this season, such as:
– The effect on the Pistons of the loss of Ben Wallace.
– Whether LeBron James is ready to lead the Cavaliers and challenge Michael Jordan’s legacy.
– The Western Conference battle between the Spurs and the Mavericks.
– Whether Amare Stoudemire can get healthy and help the Suns get in on the tussle in the West.
– The fate of stars who might get traded, such as Kobe Bryant, Allen Iverson and Kevin Garnett.
– Just who from among the Raptors, Magic, Knicks, Hornets, Bobcats, Sonics and Rockets is ready to break out.
Oh, yeah, and the defending NBA champions.
Fluke? Favorite? A team to fear?
“I don’t care what anyone says,” Miami forward Antoine Walker said. “We’re going to be tough to beat in a seven-game series.
“We’ve got Shaq, who still loves to play the game. We’ve got a rising young star in D-Wade and a great supporting cast who know how to play the game.”
So why don’t we all see that?
Well, O’Neal turns 35 this season and averaged 13.7 points in the Finals, scoring just nine in the final game. But O’Neal retains his pride.
Asked if he’s reducing his role as other centers did late in their careers, he said: “None of those guys played the game I played, including Wilt [Chamberlain]. Double-, triple-teamed for 15 straight years, practices, exhibition games, preseason, All-Star Games. No one’s had the career I’ve had. No one!”
Wade has been talking about feeling like he’s 60 games into the NBA season after a summer with USA Basketball, though he said Monday he was tired of those questions and wouldn’t answer them anymore.
Concerns also have arisen about his off-court schedule. One Miami columnist wrote last weekend that Wade “announced that in between Converse, Gatorade, Lincoln and T-Mobile commercials and magazine photo shoots . . . he plans to participate in as many games as time permits.”
That appeared to be sarcasm.
Gary Payton, 38, looks like the starting point guard as Jason Williams recovers from knee surgery.
Riley said most of the regulars were not in condition or were injured as the Heat went 2-5 in the preseason and lost by double digits to the Pistons, Spurs and Rockets.
The whole notion of mailing it in had another Miami columnist pretending to contact the NBA to say the Heat was calling in the season as the team was out of stamps and couldn’t mail it in. And this from the hometown media.
“We resent that,” Riley bristled. “We’re not going to mail this in. No way.
“There’s a perception out there by other people simply because Shaq said something one time during the regular season about if we finish in the top four, let’s go. That simply is not our philosophy as an organization or a team. We do care, and I think our players will show that.”
It is why Riley perhaps will be more important than ever to Miami.
Speculation was rampant he’d go out on top and leave, but no one really ever does. At 61, he’s back, and it’s unlikely anyone else could successfully coach O’Neal at this point in his career.
Riley came up with another terrific message for the season, saying of the championship, “You can either defend a championship or disgrace it.”
He acknowledges being less demanding and hysterical now and even has allowed that the Heat is a “rise-to-the-occasion type of team” and “might not be an everyday-occasion type of team.”
Riley does treasure the championship. Not only because it came 18 years after his last one and with many doubting he could push a team to that height again, but also for the lessons it taught.
“It’s validated all those things that you teach as a coach,” Riley said.
“Never, ever stop. Don’t stop playing. We didn’t stop playing until we ended up winning it.”
Days after the Heat did, Riley left for an African safari to hunt wildebeests with a bow and arrow. He snagged one and mounted the trophy bull for his wall.
Riley’s Heat goes after the Bulls on Tuesday night.
The question is whether the Heat can stay in the hunt again.
