In the end, the Miami Heat—so full of bluster, dance moves, promise and pyrotechnics last July—went out with not so much a whimper (because even that takes effort), but more of a shrug, in a 105-95 loss. And as their aged, largely silent fans shuffled to the parking lot, heading home to face an uncertain off-season of oppressive heat and 5:30 dinners, they were probably wondering: We paid so much money for this?

LeBron “Coma-Toast” James has another one of his textbook Finals games, largely invisible in its most crucial moments, content with setting up people named Mario Chalmers, Juwan Howard and Udonis Haslem to shoulder the burden that he [...]

Oh my. You have to feel for Miami Heat soon-to-be-former coach Eric Spoelstra. He’s been a calming influence during what has been a relatively tumultuous, but successful, season. He’s managed to help LeBron and LeDwyane from trying to split the ball with an axe, and has keep a relatively unhealthy team winning a high percentage of their games. Then on Sunday, after losing to yet another talented, balanced squad, this time the Chicago Bulls, he told a group of reporters that the players were back in the locker room crying like little babies, which no doubt they were. (He has subsequently amended that statement to say he noticed “glossy [...]

As they travel around the country like an exceptionally tall, five-button suited, emo band—talking about their feelings and crying about perceived injustices—the Miami Heat are making themselves an easy target for people who like to point out their shortcomings.

LeBron James, in particular, has diminished himself to the point that Jiminy Cricket could stab him to death with a shanked toothpick. One week after I warned him about his single use of the “Idiot Defense”, he turned in another bravura performance of Scaredy Cat: The Musical.

My first thought when I woke up last Friday was that the media was making far too much of LeBron James’ “return” to New York, because in virtually every way measurable, he was never actually here in the first place.

Granted, someone at Nike had assured me before he’d signed his last three-year deal in Cleveland in 2007 that he would use his freedom to take his talents to New York, thereby enjoying a 30% escalator in his Nike deal.

But that clearly didn’t happen, and, he subsequently left both of our reputations in relative tatters. Sadly, if I had a dollar for every person I [...]

I’ve had some terrible bosses in my lifetime. One of them stole money from me, while another called me “sport” whenever he showed up to work drunk, which was quite often. But where I differ from LeBron “King” James—other than in every physical manner one can name—is that, regardless of how inept I felt them to be, or how poorly they managed the dog grooming salon or potting soil factory where I toiled (literally), I never initiated physical contact with either of them. That is to say, I refrained from “bumping” them to show my displeasure with their… bossiness. Even at an early age, I kind of got the [...]

Well, that didn’t take long. Four games in—a stinker against the Boston Celtics followed by three dominant performances versus the Philadelphia 76ers, Orlando Magic and the New Jersey Nets—and LeBron James had heard enough negative reaction from all citizens of the Planet Earth that he came close to uttering to the two words that the Fonz was never able to. And despite his pseudo-defiant Nike commercial, where he rhetorically asked, “What should I do?” you can tell that deep down he’s actually thinking, “Oh man, what the fuck should I do?”

Leading up to last night’s game, the NBA Finals had gone as nearly everyone expected: the Miami Heat have played better than the Dallas Mavericks, and they have behaved worse. Game One was a textbook Heat win and exemplified why this match-up is so difficult for the Maverick defenders. LeBron James and Dwyane Wade performed their “I go, now you go” routine and Dirk Nowitzki’s “I go, now…hey you’re a really old and streaky shooter” was simply no match for them.

Game Two was a textbook “Why everyone hates the Heat” loss. Their boorish antics toward the end of the second game, preening and prancing about, throwing fake [...]

It was deemed “Goggle-gate” by boyish Miami Heat coach Eric Spoelstra, and rightly so. There were goggles involved, and there was definitely a ’gate aspect to the kerfluffle that Dwyane Wade’s choice of doctor-prescribed eyewear had raised. Designed to alleviate his migraine symptoms, they were darkened to the point that he looked like a player in one of those halftime charity games where nobody scores and yet everybody cheers; or a character in a 1970s Disney movie about a blind point guard who singlehandedly wins the state championship and gets the scorchingly hot, sighted girl.

So the Heat sent some lackey (no offense, sir or madam) to [...]

There are many things that I can say about NBA commissioner David Stern, and almost every one of them is positive. He took what was the rinky-dinkiest of professional leagues and put the names on the back of the jersey ahead of the names on the front, creating a licensing mecha-Godzilla at a time when the more prominent sports associations were still selling foam fingers. His was the first league to really investigate globalization and demand that its referees not be fat pigs, while paying them well enough (except for Tim Donaghy, apparently) to not need a day job. He created the NBA dunk contest and, rumor has it, [...]

Forgotten in the drama resulting from the team’s down (and now decidedly up) season, and the media circus surrounding the actions of his teammates, coaches and team president, is the notion that, until the season began, everyone regarded the Miami Heat as Dwyane Wade’s team.

Of all the unknowns going into the 2010-2011 season, his steady hand was the one given: Wade’s the player with the championship ring in Miami, won despite being surrounded by a supporting cast of malcontent NBA travelers like Shaq (who needed Kobe Bryant for his three rings), Gary Payton (who had yapped and sulked his way off of his two prior teams) and Antoine [...]

It was as if the basketball gods had decided to have mercy on me. Either that or my incessant whining was too grating for them to tolerate, while they were busy continually torturing the Knicks for treating Bernard King like garbage back in the 80s.

Thankfully, just as I was about to have that quiet conversation I’d been dreading—“Did I say Heat? I meant, cast of ‘Teen Mom’”—things began popping off in Miami. And I’m not referring to that angry Esquire writer (more on him later) popping off on Twitter. (Okay, here.) But also popping, like, ligaments and other body parts.

It’s the definition of a soft opening. The Miami Heat is kicking off the NBA season tonight in Boston, versus the Celtics, instead of in “South Beach”, where the franchise’s love of towering flames would have made for great TV, and where three of the NBA’s ten best players could bask in the certain love of the home crowd.

But NBA schedule makers aren’t clueless. Having media outlets ripping a tasteless pyrotechnic display in a relatively tasteless city would start the Heat off on the wrong foot, and not be at all helpful in rebranding the team as less of a prefab Eastern Conference power and more of a Stand [...]