"He Said / He Said" - Do you want to see the Heat win the title?

@3SNDeLlav                                @3SNdot  

We know that our 3SN team is very much split on their desires to see the Miami Heat win an NBA title. After a big Game 6 by LeBron and the Heat, it's time for our experts to make their voices herard. We asked DeLlav and Dot to clarify and defend their positions on the Heat winning a championship.

Why @3SNDeLlav wants to see LeBron James and the Heat win a title:

You love to hate us! We love that you hate us.

Look, I understand he is a the "villain" of the NBA but LeBon James made the NBA more interesting than it already was. I used to think the NBA was very plain but LeBron joining forces with Wade and Bosh gave even the most fair-weather fan a reason to watch the game more then before. If the Heat lose gave 7, then I am not even going to watch the NBA finals. I don't care about Oklahoma City or Boston. It will be such a boring finals to me because there will be no real story line. I often refer to the Heat as the "nWo" of the NBA and it is fun to root against them and LeBron James. Everyone loves to hate the Heat. I am not a Miami Heat fan by any means, or even a LeBron James fan. That being said, I believe LeBron James takes more criticism then anyone else in all of professional sports. Yes, he does need to learn how to be a closer BUT nobody can deny that he is the best player in the NBA.

Another reason I want King James to get his ring is because I want Cleveland to be punished for acting the way it did when he made the "decision". Yes, LeBron embarrassed Cleveland on national TV, but going out to the streets of Cleveland and making a ruckus just because your hometown "hero" left is ridiculous. It is embarrassing.  Fans will often say, "well if LeJerk didn't do that then we wouldn't have done that", but that is a pathetic excuse. Just think about this, would any of you be proud to represent those kinds of fans in that kind of city? I sure wouldn't. LeBron regrets leaving Cleveland. It is obvious. This was evident last year when head coach Eric Spolestra said players were "crying" in the locker room following an early season loss last year. If it wasn't LeBron James then who was it?

He has been through a personal hell, and even though he shouldn't have embarrassed Cleveland the way he did, winning a ring would take a lot of that pain away.

Why @3SNdot does NOT want LeBron James and the Heat win the title:

"Not one, not two, not three..." Yup, it's going to be zero,
at least it would be if I have it my way.

The answer to this question is quite simple for me. By bailing on his team in Cleveland and joining forces for the self-proclaimed "Big Three" in South Beach, LeBron James nearly changed the way the NBA operates. If he and the Heat had won the title last year, then you might as well have cut the league in half. That's because EVERY team in the league would then work to make an "All-Star" starting lineup and just play glorified one-on-one, which the NBA has become too much of already. If the Heat win, then there will still be a rush on the "Big Three Strategy" in upcoming years. If the Thunder win the title (or if the Spurs had), then that rush doesn't happen, not only because the Heat's Big Three lost, but because the Thunder (or again, the Spurs if they had come out of the West) are a TEAM!!!!! You still have a superstar in Kevin Durant, you still have a great secondary scorer in Russell Westbrook (though I hate the number 0). But, you have the true rule players in the team beyond those top two. You have Serge Ibaka, the defensive juggernaut. You have Derek Fisher, the seasoned veteran who knows all about having a role to play. You have James Harden, a great talent who is somehow a sixth man. The Thunder are a TEAM, and I want to see a TEAM win a championship.

(Oh, and quick side note, the original Big Three of the "Boston Three Party" actually still play like a team. They move around, run pick and roll plays and not just isolations 90% of the time like the Heat. Pierce tried to do too much in game six and look at the result)

Beyond that, and sort of along the same lines, I am not a fan of the attention that the Heat have gotten since "The Decision" nearly two years ago. Any LeBron James layup is automatically the #1 top play on SportsCenter. Rajon Rondo's great tip pass in game 5 was #3, but in every replay showing the top play, they showed only the Dwayne Wade block that led to Rondo's amazing tip. Guess why. When the Heat go down 3-2, all of a sudden nobody gives the Heat a chance. Then they win and they're unstoppable again and the Celtics are too old again. When the Heat aren't even playing (meaning it was the Thunder and Spurs night), there is more time dedicated to the Big 3 than to the true series of two true teams. It just becomes aggravating and annoying after a short time.

In a way, I do almost want to see the Heat win so that everybody will finally SHUT UP about the "team" in South Beach. I'm glad now that Bosh is back so that there are no excuses about missing one piece of your team. But I wasn't going to buy that argument anyway, not when LeBron takes half of your team's shots and James/Wade have 3/4 of the team's points. I've said all along that the Heat are like Kentucky was in the NCAA tournament. Their talent can cause games where they will win by double digits without any difficulty. But, when a game is close, they fumble and can't pull it off. And no, LeBron is not "clutch" until he makes some big shots down the stretch. A 45 point performance with a 20+ point lead and much of those points coming off of ticky-tack fouls does not do anything in showing a clutch card in LeBron's back pocket.

So I'm sorry, LeBron. Even though I was mentioned in the same sentence as "King James" in the Ellwood City Ledger ten years ago, I don't want to see your name with the title of "NBA Champion" next to it. ....well, at least not with this "team."