Season Preview 2010 – 11

Whether the Heat are a smash success in Year One won't depend on highlight reels, unless the sports TV shows suddenly develop an appetite for stops, steals and blocks.

You know: ratings-challenged, pass-the-remote-control defense.

It's certainly not our intention to bore you over the next several paragraphs, but be warned, the following is not about "The Decision" or whether Miami will win 70 games or any of the vortex of intrigue stuff that's currently consuming Miami.

From the first day LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh pulled on the same uniform, defense became the buzzword within the organization. Since each player is a proven 20-point scorer, offense is a given. And because they instinctively share the ball, we'll even assume this season won't lapse into a tug-of-war over whose "team" it is.

But what about shutting down the other guy? Can Miami make it hard for the other team to score points and, by extension, keep up the offensive pace of the Big Three? That's what championship teams are made of. That's what Pat Riley sold successfully to the Lakers of the 1980s (along with no-rebounds, no-rings) who, like this Miami team, were stuffed with stars. Defense will make or break the Heat in the interim, until Riley finds a way to surround his three-man core with a better cast.

"That's going to be our focus," James said. "Maybe the fans and the media won't be focusing on it, but we will."

The encouraging news, aside from defense being embraced by the Big Three, is that defense has been a Heat hallmark the last few years. While dumping salaries in preparation for last summer's free-agent haul, the Heat survived and even reached the playoffs with defense (and a helping of Wade, too). Certainly, the Heat's tendency to slow the tempo had something to do with Miami allowing only 94 points a game last season, second only to the Bobcats.

But defense was Miami's only chance to save face during the salary-dumping process, and defense served the club well, keeping Miami in most games and allowing them to even prosper, to a degree, in a weak Eastern Conference. Once Wade bought into the concept, his teammates followed and made the job easier for Erik Spoelstra, a first-time head coach who needed to make a mark for himself.

When the Celtics traded for Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen two years ago and teamed them with Paul Pierce, the immediate response was scoring wouldn't be a problem for the suddenly rejuvenated Celtics. Well, Boston won a title that year with defense, which was overlooked among the fuss. And defense helped Boston return to the NBA Finals last summer. So much for the idea that offensive superstars can't or won't concentrate a fair amount of energy and effort on the other end of the floor.

But Miami didn't trade for a KG, and on the current roster, only James and Wade ever made the All-Defensive team (both made it twice, with Wade being named to the second team). Bosh was a member of some atrocious defensive teams in Toronto.

What the Heat could use is a Bruce Bowen-type, someone handed the responsibility of doing the dirty work and being a tough guy and enforcer. But only Udonis Haslem comes close to that definition. Does Joel Anthony become that player? Mike Miller? (Just kidding.) And with the possible exception of Anthony, there's no shot blocker anywhere. You hardly expect such senior citizens as Juwan Howard and Zydrunas Ilgauskas to get enough minutes to be a defensive presence, let alone make a defensive impact.

Defense will come into play when the rivalry between Miami and Orlando hikes up a few hundred degrees. Sure, the Magic will certainly scramble to find ways to play the Big Three straight up. Just the same, who's going to do anything against Dwight Howard, except collect fouls?

The topic of interior defense might crop up a time or two in games against the Celtics (KG) and Lakers (Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol), perhaps the only other teams standing in the way between Miami and the Larry O'Brien trophy.

In reality, until the Heat luck into a Ben Wallace-type down the line, defense will be conducted by committee, each player doing his part to cover for one of the few Heat concerns this season.
"It's about how we perform as a team," Bosh said, "despite all the attention given to individuals."
We'll remember that when Orlando is spoon feeding Howard in the low post, and Kobe is licking his lips.

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Miami Heat’s Championship DNA?

Not everyone will consent with their methods, a four-part series — Inside the Heat: Championship DNA probably won’t endear them to the masses in places like Boston, Chicago, Orlando or even Los Angeles.

But their sheer disdain for any reasonable limit to the expectations they’ve placed on themselves is both refreshing and frightening at the same time.

They’ve already created a cottage industry out of their own hype — ESPN.com’s “Heat Index” launched Monday and it’s only a small piece of the massive coverage plan various media outlets have in store for this team.

Some people would argue that touting your “Championship DNA” in October is wildly presumptuous.

I’m having a hard time reconciling the words of both Dwyane Wade and LeBron James, each of whom has tried to cover the expectations in recent weeks by claiming that the hype, and the subsequent backlash, surrounding this team is media generated as opposed to an inside job.

That’s nonsense.

These guys didn’t have any problem embracing the hype in July, so don’t pass off the responsibility for it all now. There’s nothing wrong with chasing championships. I don’t think anyone, not even their biggest critics, and begrudge them for that.

It’s just that there seems to be so much sizzle riding the back, at least for now, of so little substance.

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Do You Believe in Magic?

We do things differently around here. And that means watching preseason NBA games. That’s right. Our eyes are on the prize from the moment training camp begins, even on the preseason games.

And after watching the Orlando Magic demolish the New Orleans Hornets to christen their new arena, the plush Amway Center, we have to ask, what happened to the buzz surrounding this Magic team?

A year ago this time they were the crew most of the pundits assumed would step into the void at the top of the Eastern Conference, surpassing both Cleveland and Boston for supremacy on the other side of the aisle of Kobe Bryant‘s Los Angeles Lakers.

Dwight Howard had assumed his position as the league’s most dominant defensive force and his supporting cast was as good as it had ever been, led by a healthy Jameer Nelson, a recharged Vince Carter and an anxious Rashard Lewis, who never seemed concerned with proving his worth.

For a long time last season those pundits looked wise. The Magic shook off some early season uncertainty and by the playoffs they were back to looking like the team that had fallen to Bryant and the Lakers in the 2009 NBA Finals.

They mowed down to the Bobcats and Hawks in the first two round of the playoffs, toying at times with a Hawks team that won 53 games and owned one of the top four playoff seeds in the East.

Then, inexplicably, some eight games into their postseason run the power went out in Orlando.
A nightmare matchup against a hungry Boston team, the same one (sans an injured Kevin Garnett) they’d eliminated in the East semifinals in Game 7 a year earlier, exposed the Magic’s flaws. We all promptly shoved them aside and watched the Lakers and Celtics battled throughout an epic, seven-game series for the Larry O’Brien trophy.

Instead of the Magic reloading this summer and checking into a penthouse suite in the East, they watched as the Miami Heat put together a dream team of their own and the Celtics reloaded for another run at the Finals.

But that doesn’t mean we should just discount the Magic, does it?

Clearly, the Magic have more going on than just trying to restore the luster the franchise enjoyed as recently as two years ago. Whether or not this crew is up to the task remains to be seen.
Using each of the past two seasons as a guide, The Magic would appear to be in the perfect position to upset the favorites and find their way back to the Finals to see if they can finish what they started in 2009.

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Who’s Next?

NEW YORK (AP)—The Lakers’ Kobe Bryant will earn another ring and Oklahoma City’s Kevin Durant will snatch the MVP award away from LeBron James.

Those are among the opinions of NBA general managers who voted in the ninth annual NBA.com GM survey, which was released Wednesday. Los Angeles was decided on by 63 percent of the respondents to repeat as champions, with 33 percent of the vote going to James and the new-look Miami Heat.

Durant, the MVP of the U.S. victory in the world basketball championship, received 67 percent of the MVP vote. James, the two-time MVP, was picked by only 4 percent.

Top pick John Wall was the overwhelming favorite for Rookie of the Year, claiming 68 percent.
The GMs picked Boston—a unanimous choice in the Atlantic—Chicago, Miami, the Lakers, Dallas and Oklahoma City as division champions.

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Worlds Sexiest Female Athletes

Top ten sexiest and most attractive female player, athletes, celebrities in the world today. From swimming to cycling, beach volleyball to softball, NASCAR to F1, tennis to golf, football to basketball, soccer to baseball, we name the top male sports sex icons today.

1. Maria Yuryevna Sharapova - is a Russian professional tennis player. At the end of 2006, she was the world’s highest-paid female athlete. Sharapova has won two Grand Slam singles titles. She is the reigning U.S. Open champion, having defeated Justine Henin in the final of the 2006 U.S. Open. Two years earlier, she defeated Serena Williams in the final at Wimbledon.



2. Stacy Keibler - In the year 1999, Keibler entered a contest held by WCW to find a new member of Nitro Girls dance troupe, which she won. Initially a Nitro Girl, Keibler would perform dance routines every week on WCW’s flagship show Monday Nitro under the name Skye. However, this didn’t last long as she soon accepted a larger role and became a valet using the provocative stage name Miss Hancock (originally Miss Handcock), briefly serving as an associate for the tag team of Lenny Lane and Lodi dubbed “Standards and Practices”. Despite wearing business suits, her character would often climb on top of the announcers table and start dancing sensually, much to the announcers’ and fans’ delight. It was also during this period that she began using what would become her trademark ring entrance.



3. Shannon Elizabeth - Elizabeth appeared in several low-budget films, including the notorious Jack Frost and Dish Dogs, before being cast in 1999′s American Pie, which was a major box office success. Elizabeth subsequently appeared in several major Hollywood films, including Scary Movie (2000) and Tomcats. Elizabeth starred in the UPN series Cuts until the show was canceled in May of 2006. In August 1999, she appeared nude in Playboy magazine. In 2000 and 2003, she was featured in Maxim magazine.



4. Candice Michelle - Candice Michelle came to WWE as a contestant in the Diva Search 2004. Although she wasn’t one of the final ten contestants to make it to the televised event, WWE hired Candice anyway and placed her on the RAW brand under the gimmick of a makeup artist. Initially, Candice Michelle’s role was limited. She was never given an angle on RAW and she rarely made television appearances unless to participate in one of the program’s occasional lingerie pillow fights or bikini contests that were held between Christy Hemme, Maria Kanellis, Stacy Keibler, and herself.



5. Anna Kournikova - Anna Sergeyevna Kournikova was born on June 7, 1981 is a retired Russian professional tennis player and model. Although she never won a major singles tournament, she became one of the best known tennis players worldwide. At the peak of her fame, fans looking for images of Kournikova made her name one of the most common search strings on Google.



6. Nicole Vaidisova - Vaidišová is an emerging star in women’s tennis who has been playing since she was six years old. She is a student of Nick Bollettieri and is said to consider her serve her biggest weapon.[1] As of May 14 2007, Vaidišová is ranked no.7 in the WTA rankings. On August 9 2006, she moved up in the rankings to no.9, becoming the 12th-youngest player in Tour history to crack the Top 10, at 17 years, 3 months, and 2 weeks of age.



7. Shana Hiatt - Shana Hiatt is a model and presenter who has appeared in several magazines. A former Army brat rose primarily in Tabernacle, New Jersey, she is best known for hosting the first three seasons of World Poker Tour on the The Travel Channel. While Hiatt was a non-player prior to her job with the World Poker Tour, she is now an avid online poker player who occasionally plays in casinos.



8. Sania Mirza - Sania Mirza was on born November 15, 1986 is an Indian tennis player. She was born in Mumbai but brought up in Hyderabad. Coached by her father Imran Mirza, she began playing tennis at the age of six, turning professional in 2003. She was the highest ranked female tennis player ever from India, with career high rankings of number 31 in singles and 24 in doubles. She is now ranked 48th in singles and 38th in doubles as of April 9th, 2007.



9. Danica Patrick - Danica Patrick began gokarting in 1992 at Sugar River Raceway outside of Brodhead, Wisconsin and went on to win several national championships. She moved to England at the age of 16 in order to advance her racing career. She has also earned a GED. Focusing primarily on road racing, Patrick raced in several developmental open-wheel series while in Europe, including Formula Ford and Formula Vauxhall. A big achievement was finishing second in England’s super-competitive Formula Ford Festival, the highest-ever finish by either a woman or an American in the event.



10. Martina Hingis - Martina Hingis (pronounced: hing-GISS) was born on September 30, 1980 in Košice, Czechoslovakia, now Slovakia is a former world number one Swiss tennis player. Known as the "Swiss Miss," she has won five Grand Slam singles titles (three Australian Open, one Wimbledon, and one US Open). She has also won nine Grand Slam women’s doubles titles, winning a calendar year Grand Slam in 1998, and one Grand Slam mixed doubles title. She spent a total of 209 weeks as World No. 1 and set a series of "youngest-ever" records before ligament injuries in both ankles forced her to withdraw from professional tennis at the relatively early age of 22.

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Moving On Without LeBron

Mo Williams, 27, healthy, and has three years and $26 million remaining on his contract with Cleveland Cavaliers . But none of that mattered much to him this summer after he watched LeBron James(notes) leave the Cavs to join the Miami Heat. Williams said he was so disheartened by James’ exit that he considered walking away from the NBA.

“That’s how bad it got,” He said. “I contemplated it. I really sat down and envisioned life after basketball. …I really saw myself not playing at all.

“It just didn’t make sense to me. It doesn’t make sense to me.” He continued.

Williams played alongside James the past two seasons, serving as the Cavs’ starting point guard and second-leading scorer as they finished with the NBA’s best record two years in a row. Cleveland’s regular-season success, however, didn’t translate to the playoffs, where the Cavs fell short of reaching the NBA Finals both times. Still, Williams felt comfortable in his role next to James. He was named to the All-Star team in 2009 and remained hopeful that, together, they could deliver a championship to Cleveland in the 2010-11 season.

Those hopes all but disappeared on July 8 when James announced he was leaving. By the time of James’ televised special, Williams had heard from enough people around James to know his days of playing next to the two-time reigning MVP were over – even if Williams didn’t want to admit it.

“As anyone tied to the Cavs, you want to be in denial,” Mo said. “ You never want to say, ‘Yeah, OK, LBJ is gone.’ ”

Williams didn’t hide his disappointment; even tweeting in the hours after the announcement that he hoped James would change his mind. Williams also publicly expressed his regret for how James broke the hearts of Clevelanders and for the earlier firing of Coach Mike Brown, who had lost James’ support.

“I had to get it off my chest,” William said.

Williams said he and James remain friends, but he’s also tried to use the past two months to move on.

“You get back here to Cleveland, get around the new coaching staff, start a few workouts, get around the young guys and basically accept the fact that we are not what we once were,” he said. “We don’t have the No. 23 jersey hanging in the locker before every game now.”

James wasn’t the only key figure in the organization to leave in the off-season. Brown was fired and eventually replaced by Byron Scott. Former general manager Danny Ferry parted ways with the franchise, and his assistant, Chris Grant, was named the new GM. Assistant GM Lance Blanks left to help run the Phoenix Suns. The Cavs didn’t make any headline moves, acquiring role players in guard Ramon Sessions(notes) and center Ryan Hollins(notes), while trying to preserve future roster flexibility. Veteran forward Antawn Jamison(notes) is still on the roster, but both he and Williams could eventually find themselves on the trade block as the Cavs continue to rebuild.

“This summer was very, very stressful for me,” Mo said. “I really lost a lot of love for the game this summer.

“You play this game for one reason. You play to win games and win championships. I couldn’t understand why a lot of things were happening to our organization, to a really good basketball team. I couldn’t really understand it. And when you don’t understand things, it can really stress you out.”

Williams is slowly adapting to the new Cavaliers, who, along with their new coaching staff, will have a new offense that will be heavy on pick-and-rolls. Scott might play Williams at shooting guard with Sessions or Daniel Gibson(notes) running the point. In addition to being relied upon to score more, Williams inherits additional leadership responsibility with James and veteran center Zydrunas Ilgauskas(notes) gone.

“It’s crazy because ever since [James left], everybody I see, they approach me and say, ‘Hey, you’re going to be able to play your game now,’ ” Williams said. “ ‘You are going to be able to show everybody what you got,’ or ‘you’re going to be able to do this.’ I was happy with my role. We were winning basketball games. I was coming home every night a winner.

“Who can’t love that? That is what playing a role on a team is all about. Everybody can’t be the star. I was perfectly comfortable being that piece.”

How long will it take for Williams to grow comfortable with his new role? Not even he knows. But after two months, he also understands it doesn’t make much sense to sit around pining for his departed teammate.

“We just got to go to work, man,” He said. “At the end of the day we still have to move forward because the only people who feel sorry for us are the ones who have the Cavs uniform on and whoever is in the stands rooting for the Cavs. That’s it. Everybody else could care less.”

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Why Shaquille O’Neal Play for the Enemy?

Just after the Los Angeles Lakers won last season's title, Kobe Bryant(notes) let slip a little comment ("I just got one more than Shaq. You can take that to the bank. You know how I am, I don't forget anything.") That proved what a lot of people had suspected for years — the Kobe/Shaq feud isn't over. As much as they'll be buddy-buddy at All-Star games or before their teams play each other, these two want nothing more than to destroy each other and prove that they are the best player of their generation. No matter what they say or how they act, that's always going to be the case.

In fact, the fact that that enmity will never die is the very reason the Boston Celtics took a chance on Shaquille O'Neal(notes). No, really, it is. Just because Kobe Bryant mentioned Shaq at his postgame press conference, the Celtics inked the well-traveled big man. Seriously. The Boston Globe's Gary Washburn has the proof.

Of course, this could be all a part of Kobe's master plan. It probably went something like beat the Celtics, rile up Shaquille O'Neal, have him convince Boston he'll help because he wants to beat Kobe one last time, then Boston signs Shaq and realizes he's not quite as good as he used to be and his presence in the locker room destroys the fragile chemistry that the Celtics have built. Just like that, there's one less contender for the Lakers' third straight title. It's a genius move, and it's one that only Kobe Bryant could conceive. And while it's totally far-fetched, it's kind of not that far-fetched. Only moderate distance-fetched, I'd say.

That being said, if Shaquille O'Neal is as dedicated to besting Kobe Bryant as the Celtics' brass thinks he is, Boston's getting a great deal. Less than $1.5 million for a motivated Shaq is totally worth it, even if he only plays 20 minutes a game. Sure he might struggle mightily against hyperathletic teams like the Heat and Magic in the Eastern Conference playoffs before Boston even meets the Lakers in the finals, but those are just minor details.

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