This year, the Miami Heat are going to serve as a great test case for one of my favorite pro sports fallacies.
Analysts and fans have a tendency to discuss players and teams as having very distinct, very specific, and most importantly, very set strengths and weaknesses. In many individual cases, this is justified. Kyle Korver, for instance, is known as a spot-up, catch-and-shoot specialist. Last season in Utah, a staggering 93% of his FGs were assisted. No one is selling him short by pigeon-holing him in that regard, and no one expects him to spend the summer trying to develop a low post game. We know what Korver is good at. We know that’s not going to change. And so we feel we know what his future holds—at least for the rest of this season.
However, people also have a tendency to do this with teams. I believe that this is a much, much more dangerous game to play.
Consider the case of the Miami Heat. Last night, they were beaten by the Celtics in Boston to the tune of 8 points. I have heard far too many people declare this to be a precedent-setting indicator of how the East will play out. The Celtics will be the battle-tested, fundamentally sound, defense-first, cohesive unit; the Heat will be an overrated experiment with impressive pieces that simply don’t fit together; and ultimately, Boston will outplay Miami in the playoffs and reach the Finals.
This kind of thinking is, frankly, not sound.
Here’s what we have to remember at this point in the season: teams’ performance can change dramatically over the course of the year. The players learn how to read one another better. They discover over time what works and what doesn’t. (I don’t have statistics to back this up, but consider the Cavs’ first game with Shaq versus their last few before his thumb injury in Boston as anecdotal evidence.)
Beyond this, rotations are altered. Injuries happen. Trades are made.
In short, the teams playing yesterday and today will not be the same teams playing in March, April, and beyond—even if their rosters remain unchanged.
This is the difficulty with projections: we make them based on imperfect information. In the case of a team like the Heat, there simply isn’t much, if any, data available to tell us about what is essentially an entirely new team. We can analyze the historical performance of individuals, but there are no models that I know of out there that can describe how those players will adapt to one another over the course of an 82-game regular season.
This is why we end up with a vast majority of supposed experts putting the Celtics and Lakers back in the 2011 Finals. Those teams are, by and large, known quantities. There’s continuity. There’s history. There’s comfort with who they are and what they do.
But there’s also a tendency to discount the probability of decline. While it’s true that players in their youth and their prime tend to maintain a great deal of season-to-season statistical consistency, everyone eventually reaches a twilight period. This isn’t to say that players disintegrate overnight. But even a modest drop in production when facing foes in their prime can be the end of a season. Based on the collective age of their core players, the Celtics are much more likely to fall victim to this phenomenon than is Miami.
So while everyone (especially those with a grudge) dances on the grave of the Miami Heat, it should be kept in mind that they will never look worse this season than they did last night. It was, after all, the first full game in which LeBron, Wade, and Bosh played a significant amount of time together; Mike Miller (who will have a greater impact than I think most people realize) was out with an injury; they played on the road; it was the first game of the season (traditionally rusty for everyone); and they were up against a team whose key components have been playing together for several years.
Likewise, the Celtics will probably never look better than they did last night. Everyone on their roster was healthy; they played with the same system that’s been in place season after season; they were hungry and motivated against the East’s next generation powerhouse; they played at home against a team with one significant injury the need for plenty of time to figure one another out.
These things will change.
We should keep this in mind for tonight’s season opener for the Cavs, as well.
As more people peg Cleveland as a likely 8-seed in the playoffs, we have to keep in mind that those projections are based on assumptions. The biggest one of those assumptions, in my view, is the notion that the roster will stay intact. Yes, it would be a good story for the LeBron-less Cavs to return to the postseason in their first year without The King. But those in the front office know that the team’s only prospects for long-term success are to completely tear down and completely rebuild. Has that process begun already? In some sense, yes. It will be significantly further along if players like Manny Harris and Samardo Samuels are true diamonds in the rough rather than just serviceable, cheap roster fillers.
But long-tenured veteran players with value to potential playoff teams—especially if they’re burdened with large contracts—simply shouldn’t be part of the plan. Jamison and Mo are the prime candidates. And ultimately, I suspect one or both will no longer be in a Cavs uniform by March. This is not a bad thing for the team. In fact, it could be a great thing in the long-term. But it irrevocably affects whether or not the Cavs finish the season in the type of position—whatever it is—where the analysts are predicting.
So when the team tips off against the Celtics tonight, they’re going to look discombobulated because it’s a new season in a new system with guys playing roles that, in most cases, they are new to. In that sense, there will be plenty of room for improvement, and I suspect they will improve as the season goes on. But we should also remember that their improvement and their final position may ultimately be tempered, undermined, or reversed by whatever roster moves Chris Grant sees fit to make between now and the trade deadline.
The only outcomes I would consider gambling on would be these: by season’s end, the Heat will look much improved; the Celtics will be in comparatively worse shape than their season-opening form; and the Cavs, for better or worse, will look even more different than they do tonight. But I know none of these things for a fact. And that, ultimately, is why I will continue to watch.
-T
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