A week ago, the media outcry would have had you believe that the Miami Heat's season was in tatters. Players were crying after games (everyone assumed "players" referred to Chris Bosh), were demanding to get more touches (everyone knew this was Chris Bosh), and were losing games. Of course, the Heat have since beaten the Lakers and blew the Spurs off the floor. Now, the same members of the media that less than 10 days ago were saying the Heat should be looking toward next year are saying they are favorites to win the Eastern Conference.
Stop the madness! During a 82 game regular season, every team (save for rare examples such as the '95-'96 Bulls) will go through ups and downs. Before ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, and ESPN The "Ocho", there was less of a tendency to overreact to each and every hot and cold streak. But now commentators need something new to talk about each day on PTI, Around the Horn and ESPN.com. And hardly anyone wants to hear about things such as how a team is improving their reaction to the pick and roll or is changing their substitution patterns. So instead, in an effort to cater to a low-brow audience, the media resorts to over-reacting to the results of each game. The Heat add LeBron James and Chris Bosh to Dwayne Wade--they're the best team of all time! The Heat start out the season slowly--they're complete failures! The Heat start winning games--they're great! The Heat lose a bunch in a games in a row--they suck! They beat the Lakers and Spurs--championship time! (Another case in point of overreaction to small sample size is when Bill Simmons claimed during last year's playoffs that Rajon Rondo was the best point guard in the NBA. Rondo then went on to be the Celtics achilles heel during the Finals, with Kobe ignored him on the perimeter and played free safety.)
The Heat are still the same team today that they were a week ago--a flawed championship contender. They have one transcendent player, one great player, one good player, and a bunch of players that range from mediocre to terrible. They have the best point differential in the league (+7.2) but have had a tendency to falter against good teams in crunch time with LeBron bombing unwarranted threes and Wade offering unwarranted help defense. From here on out, lets try to pay attention to their whole body of work and evaluate them accordingly, and leave alone the knee-jerk reactions to every new streak.
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