The Heat And The Burden Of Expectations

Commentary8 years ago3 min readGiancarlo Navas

What the fan base in Miami never gets credit for is how mentally insane they can be. Yeah, they show up late and leave early at times, but they care. A lot. And with this crazed fandom comes expectations. Expectations that could be somewhat unreasonable and oftentimes overhyped.

The general consensus among the Heat fandom is that this team is very capable of making the Eastern Conference Finals and pushing the Cleveland Cavaliers. But is that reasonable or even possible?

The Heat fan will give you a compelling argument. A healthy Chris Bosh playing alongside Goran Dragic, Hassan Whiteside, Dwyane Wade and Luol Deng is one of the best starting units in the NBA.  Off the bench, you have a change of tempo style, with a smooth passer and ball handling big Josh McRoberts (McBobs!!!), sharpshooting crazy person Gerald Green, the new hope (lol Starwars joke) Justise Winslow and washed all-star-but-can-score Amar’e Stoudemire. I didn’t even mention Chris “Birdman” Anderson, Josh Richardson, whatever Mario Chalmers has left and Tyler “Bumpy” Johnson.

But is that enough? Looking at FiveThirtyEight’s research on the topic the Heat are nothing but an ordinary team. Now, I find it kind of absurd to start doing statistical analyses of teams that haven’t played a meaningful minute of basketball yet. On top of that, the starting unit has barely played in the preseason due to Whiteside’s injuries.

The Heat are in this weird purgatory where nobody wants to say that they’re bad, but objective and informed people don’t want to say they are really good either. “Sleeper team” keeps getting thrown around, which is code for “I have no idea if this team might be good, but if I get the prediction right I am a genius.”

So here we stand at a crossroad. The Heat fan base is yelling, kicking and screaming at the top of their lungs saying how they are back — pointing to the talent they have and maybe the most trustworthy front office in all of sports to make this happen. Yelling at the critics who told them that a Big 3 and role players couldn’t win and reminding them they have been wrong about this team before.

Numbers and data aside, the fan base has enormous expectations. Heat fan is sick of LeBron making trips to the NBA Finals and it’s only been a season. When they sh** talk on Twitter, they want to back it up.

Last season was brutal, but there was an out. The injuries that paralyzed the team crippled (literally) any chance Miami had of making the playoffs. It was quantifiable and everybody knew. Right now? The team and the fanbase might not have that same excuse machine again.

So alas comes expectations. Riley went all in for Goran Dragic, mortgaging away a future he may not even be a part of. Giving up the only tradeable assets they had in exchange for merely a chance.

Next season there is a lot of uncertainties: Whiteside’s contract situation, the chase for Kevin Durant and the next chapter in Dwyane Wade’s free agent saga. This season may be the last chance to contend for a while if they whiff-out in 2016.

So once again, expectations are high and emotions are rampant, and they haven’t even played a single game yet.