How the Miami Heat have scorched back into NBA competitiveness

This image is a derivative of 2013 Miami Heat 1 by Michael Tipton (CC BY-SA 2.0)

From 2003 through to 2016 the Miami Heat played host - for a time, simultaneously - to two of NBA’s greatest-ever players, Dwyane Wade and LeBron James. 

Over 13 seasons, the Heat qualified for 11 post-seasons, and, most importantly, won themselves three NBA championships. 

Ultimately, James decided to take his talents back to Cleveland for another title run, before his current Los Angeles sojourn, while Wade returned for a season and a bit of farewell basketball in Miami after a brief stint in Chicago, predominantly in an off-the-bench role.

After these two future Hall of Famers left South Beach, the only leftover from those Championship teams was head coach, Erik Spoelstra, who stayed around to pick up the pieces of a franchise who was stripped bare of talent and draft stock as a result of years spent in the competitive window. 

While the Heat never completely bottomed out, they qualified for just two post-season campaigns in their post-Lebron world, never topping 50 wins and never posing any kind of legitimate championship threat.

In the absence of talent, salary cap room and access to the cream of the NBA draft crop, the Heat had no choice but to get creative, and with coach Spoelstra at the helm, the franchise knew it already had the perfect candidate for the job.

In fact, it’s been Spoelstra’s creativity and ingenuity that’s fuelled Miami’s excellent 6-3 start to the 2019-20 NBA season, and which figures to keep the Heat in the conversation all year where the Eastern Conference is concerned. 

Ironically, in his early coaching career, Spoelstra faced great criticism for getting in the way of what James and Wade were capable of doing together on the court, with many questioning whether he was capable of helping LeBron land his maiden NBA title.

Here was a barely 40-year old coach, with minimal NBA experience, coaching two of the most transcendent talents the game had ever seen. 

That he was able to hold his nerve, convince both Wade and James that he was the right man for the job and ultimately win multiple NBA titles was the first crowning achievement of his glittering coaching career.

His second crowning achievement was not letting Miami lapse into an NBA basket case in the aftermath of the two stars' departures, fashioning together rosters, which, while no means Championship calibre, gave nightly headaches to opposition teams. 

We’re currently in the midst of Spoelstra’s third act of NBA coaching genius and one which has Miami on the cusp of challenging the likes of the Milwaukee Bucks, Philadelphia 76ers and Toronto Raptors for Eastern Conference supremacy. 

And, while nobody was doubting the tactical acumen of Spoelstra entering the season, many had queries on just how ready to compete this Miami team would be. 

After all, this was a franchise whose sole off-season acquisition of any note was Jimmy Butler, and while many teams would kill to add a four-time all-star of his calibre to their roster, just how Miami would shoe-horn this enigmatic personality into their line-up was very much up for debate.

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In addition, Miami was also entering the season without the services of both their premier big man, Hassan Whiteside (traded to Portland), and Josh Richardson (traded to Philadelphia in the Butler sign & trade deal) who'd led the team in scoring last season while also functioning as their best perimeter defender. 

Ten games in, however, and many of the fears regarding the composition of the Heat roster have been put to bed. 

The genius of Erik Spoelstra lies in his refusal to bend to conventional thinking, and instead focus on a plan which suits the talent at his disposal.

This season, Miami’s defining point of reference has been the emergence of Bam Adebayo at the centre position. He’s been a revelation in 2019, averaging 12.8 points and 9.3 rebounds per night, playing lights out basketball on both ends of the floor. 

Offensively, he's prompted memories of a young Dwight Howard, while defensively producing the kind of numbers Utah's Rudy Gobert would be proud of, with Miami conceding just 96 points per 100 possessions when the former first-round draft pick out of Kentucky U is on the floor. 

As for the rest of the team, it’s all about Spoelstra’s imagination and communication that's made Miami one of the league's most surprising stories over the first couple of weeks of play.

This is a roster which has nine different players receiving - on average - more than 20 minutes per night and refuses to lock themselves into any kind of iron-clad starting five. 

Incredibly, the only two players to have started every game along with Adebayo this season are Myers Leonard and Kendrick Nunn. 

In Leonard's eight previous seasons in Portland, he'd started just 42 of a possible 393 games, yet is already proving vital in Miami, providing both size and floor spacing. 

As for Nunn, he's been a pure NBA revelation this season as a 24-year old rookie who has seemingly emerged out of nowhere. 

Nunn fits the obtuse Miami narrative perfectly. 

He’s the Heat's nominal starting point guard with the team's highest usage rate at 25.3%, though his primary function hasn't been playmaking but rather putting up threes (he's second on the team behind Goran Dragic in both attempts and makes) while most importantly, he's been charged with providing the template of precisely what Spoelstra wants his team to be; a team that plays at breakneck speed on offense, and which transforms into a defensive leviathan without the ball. 

Miami are currently playing at the tenth fastest pace in the league, with the likes of Nunn tasked with burning out opposition starters before the Dragic led-second unit comes in for something resembling a more measured offense. 

Most importantly, however, this Heat team is combining their outrageous speed with a point of emphasis on defense, which is so often the forgotten ingredient of teams who pray at the altar of such a high-octane approach. 

Miami is conceding just 100.6 points per 100 possessions, which is the fourth-best mark in the league this season, tucked in behind only the Utah Jazz, LA Lakers and Orlando Magic who are all teams who play at a much slower rate. 

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Playing at such a high tempo - coupled with their defensive intensity - is precisely why Spoelstra is rotating so many guys through the team, while it is also a chief reason as to why Miami is such an excellent rebounding squad with a +1.6 edge on the boards, which is the eighth-best mark in the league. 

Speed and athleticism are pillars of this Miami team, as too, is the sheer size Spoelstra likes having out on the floor - be it the likes Adebayo and Leonard, or through players such as Kelly Olynyk, and the precociously talented Justise Winslow, whose production is seemingly finally marrying up with his potential this season. 

Incredibly, Miami’s blistering start to the season has coincided with prized recruit and recipient of a four year, $141 million contract, Jimmy Butler, playing just six games thus far. His production, however, in those games is extremely encouraging, with Spoelstra replacing much of the 'main man' nonsense which had increasingly infiltrated his game in recent years, preferring instead to prioritise his defensive tenacity which was what initially made him a star in Chicago.

Through six games, Butler is leading the team in steals per game (2.8) and assists (5.5) while only Adebayo (67) has had more trips to the free-throw line than Butler's 50. 

In another coaches hands, it is highly questionable whether so much would be able to be extricated from this particularly peculiar Heat roster, which, on face value doesn't present as a dizzyingly successful NBA team.

However with Spoelstra at the helm, the limits of where it can go seem tied to how far his imagination can take them.

Miami's foundation is built upon speed, unpredictability and an emphasis on grounding opponents down. 

It is a recipe which will keep them in playoff contention all throughout season 2019-20, with a roster upgrade or two at the trade deadline perhaps propelling them into the Championship conversation. 

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