Maybe you will tell me I’m wrong. Maybe you’ll tell me there is as much dislike and distaste in your heart now as there was almost three years ago, when three freshly signed members of the Miami Heat declared, before they ever had played a second together, that they were on the precipice of winning seven or eight titles in a row.
Maybe you feel as you did two years ago, when you and a large percentage of the basketball-watching populace north and west of South Beach adopted the Dallas Mavericks, rooting for Texas in a way that made an even larger percentage feel queasy and uneasy, but feeling it was all worth it in the end.
Maybe.
But I don’t sense the Heat are anywhere near as reviled as they used to be. Maybe I’m wrong. I hope I’m wrong. Because I miss it. I do. I miss all the anger, all the venom, all the bile that used to be lobbed at LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and the other kids like so many slings and arrows.
I miss feeling as if we had a basketball version of the Yankees, a team that could be equally beloved and loathed, a team that could inspire fierce devotions and even fiercer damning. Don’t you remember that first year together, the way every move the Heat made was followed and furiously chronicled?
Don’t you remember how the very existence of the Heat made for some very strange, and very uncomfortable, bedfellows? Forget the nation lining up behind Dirk Nowitzki and the Mavs; the Heat actually made the country rally around the Celtics, of all teams. Think about that.
And now …
Well, when the Heat faced an elimination game against the Pacers, there were plenty (your humble narrator included) who felt Indiana could win the game, but as foolish as that prediction turned out to be, it was a clear-headed and unpolluted choice: The head said the Pacers could win as a matter of basketball; it wasn’t the heart hoping the would as a matter of principle.
And now, down a game to the Spurs in the Finals? There may be people outside of San Antonio hoping the elder Big Three steals the title from the younger version, but that seems to be borne far more out of admiration for a tough, veteran team and their magnificent if ornery coach than out of any blind hatred for the Heat.
And how did that happen?
I think it started in Game 6 against the Celtics last year, which really was the last time the Heat had the entire universe stacked up against them. LeBron was so over-the-top brilliant that a lot of basketball fans probably felt guilty they ever let their distaste over The Decision blind them so; that was a performance for the ages.
Maybe it was the realization, a few weeks later, that a player such as LeBron should be a champion at least once in his lifetime and if it had to come, let it come against a team such as the Thunder who (we were sure) would have many more chances to win.
LeBron has become far more likeable, too, distancing himself from The Decision, growing in stature. And the Heat’s winning streak seemed to capture that segment of a lot of hearts that beams at historical achievement.
You add it all together, factor in Wade’s diminished status and Chris Bosh’s diminished stature and the fact it’s hard to hate guys like Shane Battier and Mike Miller and Mario Chalmers and even the Birdman … well, you may not want the Heat to win, but you don’t want them to spit up all over themselves anymore, either, the way you did as recently as last spring. And I miss that.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’ve just overlooked it. Maybe still its there.
In a weird way, I hope I am.
Whack Back at Vac
Tom Cooney: When George Steinbrenner pays a creep like Howie Spira for dirt on one player and is suspended three years, what should happen to MLB when it pays a creep like Anthony Bosch for dirt on 20 players?
Vac: It probably is a wise thing to remember that whatever Bosch has to say, it’s not exactly going to come as a result of a fit of conscience.
Craig Wilson: After seeing Victor Cruz’s quote that he wants to start a reality series and “squeeze in a few workouts,” I think we should let him play this year for the tender and see if he still has the same focus as in the past.
Vac: I keep waiting for this to resolve itself as we know it should and as we know it must. And I am still waiting.
@DGQuint: Lookalike of the week — Hal Steinbrenner and Bob Benson. #MadMen
@MikeVacc: Actually, the way Benson screwed up the Manischewitz account last week calls to mind Hank a little bit, no?
J
erry Jacobs: Pete Rose is suspended for life, but the MLB “drug cheats” can resume their careers. What message does that send to our kids?
Vac: It does seem these two extremes should be able to find a way to meet in the middle somewhere.
Vac’s Whacks
Every time I hear Jon Hamm’s voiceover on a Mercedes commercial I keep waiting to hear him say, “That’s what the money is for!”
* I’m never quite sure who finds the Mets’ periodic lapses into Chico’s Bail Bonds-level baseball hijinks more offensive, Ron Darling or Bob Ojeda, but it’s great TV listening to both of them stew whenever it happens.
* I think I can speak for a lot of regular Yankees watchers when I say in regards to Vernon Wells: OK. Now I understand.
* Put it this way: If the Rangers ever had a year in which they imploded as spectacularly, as completely and as inexplicably as the Penguins just did against the Bruins, they would find a way to fire the coach twice.