It’s now mercifully over — this exhausting third consecutive Heat season of pushing the boulder up the hill, this six-month road-to-nowhere odyssey that felt as exasperating and unsatisfying as the previous two.
And the hope, at least here, is that this era of Heat basketball, built around a core that’s rich in skilled supporting players but lacking an elite centerpiece, also is mercifully over.
We have implored the front office and ownership to break up at least part of this nucleus each of the past two years and sell high on players, before Jimmy Butler forced the team’s hand. But the brain trust twice decided against it, convinced this group was better than the rest of us thought and hopeful there could be a 2023-like playoff run.
This year, there wasn’t even a play-in run.
As it turns out, ownership and Pat Riley were simply a year or two late to realize what much of the fan base suspected many, many months ago: This group simply isn’t good enough. This incarnation of the Heat felt like a sitcom that stayed on the air two years too long, relying on stale lines (“we have enough!”) and characters who overstayed their welcome.
There are four significant power brokers in the organization – Riley, Erik Spoelstra and owners Micky Arison and son/CEO Nick Arison. ...
...[Jackson then poses questions to each of the four stakeholders]:
To Erik Spoelstra...It’s not unfair to question why he gave a long leash to veterans who hardly put up a fight against Indiana, Charlotte and Toronto in late-season games, while operating with a short leash with Ware.
...
But there’s one area that’s never discussed that I find curious about Spoelstra — not as a coach, but as an executive if his personnel power grows whenever Riley decides to retire to Malibu.
This will never be answered, but the question is whether Spoelstra recognized this roster’s grave deficiencies and pushed for major changes last summer. (That’s an answer that’s unknown.) Did the Heat need to lose last year’s first round series by 200 points, instead of 122, [lol] for everyone with a voice in personnel to realize that this nucleus was going nowhere?
[That IS the major question for me as well. The key quote from Spo this season was "we believe this roster has a high ceiling." I mocked him by re-branding the team as the "Hi-Cs". I took from that quote that that was his true opinion also. Whether it was or was not, it was horribly wrong as Jackson states.]
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