Speaker 1: Welcome to Special Teams, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Greetings and welcome Inside the Special Teams Podcast. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jason Smith. The esteem man on my left is Mike Harmon.
Speaker 1: We are Fox Sports Radio hosts. Our show is on
Speaker 1: five nights a week, ten pm to two am on
Speaker 1: the East Coast, seven pm to eleven pm on the
Speaker 1: West Coast on over four affiliates. It is our pleasure
Speaker 1: to bring you the Special Teams Podcast, where we take
Speaker 1: a look at special teams from individual years in sports history.
Speaker 1: Always a fantastic run, the good, the bad, the ugly,
Speaker 1: the historically bad, the teams that we mock and the
Speaker 1: players we have great fond memories of, and some others
Speaker 1: that have fallen to the wayside. Tonight's episode the two
Speaker 1: thousand ten, two thousand, or or really today this episode
Speaker 1: two Caul. You be listening anytime that's to be tonight, today, today, tonight, tomorrow,
Speaker 1: last week's episode back to the Future. It's whenever you
Speaker 1: want to listen. Well, it's like inception, just a matter
Speaker 1: of where you come into the story. Well, you gotta
Speaker 1: watch in the beginning or you don't get like the
Speaker 1: middle of the movie. You can't go into the exception
Speaker 1: the beginning, it's like, I don't understand what this is
Speaker 1: a lot of people watched in front to end and
Speaker 1: had no idea what the hell was going on. Anyone's like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is back when Joseph Gordon Levitt was in like
Speaker 1: every third movie and then like, okay, we need less
Speaker 1: Joseph Gordon and then he became Batman. He yeah, he
Speaker 1: kind of did become Batman. Well, you know, I gotta
Speaker 1: say Five Days of Summer was probably my favorite Joseph
Speaker 1: Gordon Levitt movie. Okay, that's a pretty good one. I
Speaker 1: couldn't stand Zoe Diistionnelle's character, and then it kind of
Speaker 1: just flips at the end. I go, oh, now I
Speaker 1: get it. Yeah, but he was in Ten Things I
Speaker 1: Hate About You, Right, I like the eight things that
Speaker 1: they hated, but the last two things I wasn't a fan.
Speaker 1: Not too far, Yeah, too far? It was a bridge
Speaker 1: too Yeah. I think he had an extra ten minutes
Speaker 1: for those. The two thousand ten, two thousand and eleven
Speaker 1: my Emmy Heat now a team that went to four
Speaker 1: finals in a row and won two championships. It's the
Speaker 1: first year we're dealing with because quite honestly, the two
Speaker 1: thousand ten year began with the Miami Heat changing the
Speaker 1: National Basketball Association the way we know it. Why because
Speaker 1: this is when the decision became everything that sports fans
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about. Lebron James deciding, after hitting free
Speaker 1: agency for the first time, he wanted to leave the
Speaker 1: Cleveland Cavaliers and join the Miami Heat. And the decision,
Speaker 1: which was broadcast live on national television throughout the country.
Speaker 1: What team was Lebron James going to? It enraptured sports
Speaker 1: fans everywhere, and it's still is gonna wind up being
Speaker 1: one of the top four or five stories of my
Speaker 1: lifetime in sports because the decision and the attention surrounding it,
Speaker 1: Lebron James leaving was really a watershed moment in both
Speaker 1: television and sports media. The way this team was constructed,
Speaker 1: the way it all came together, the hype of that
Speaker 1: year's free agency class as to what was going to happen.
Speaker 1: Would these superpowers joined up, would they just change teams?
Speaker 1: Dwayne Wade, what was the future in Miami? I mean,
Speaker 1: all of those things came to a head, and I
Speaker 1: remember the rumors here on our airwaves of Fox sports
Speaker 1: radio Stephen A. Smith calling his shot for for days
Speaker 1: ahead of the decision, and the funny thing is one
Speaker 1: of the things I remember going into the decision was
Speaker 1: where was Lebron gonna go? Obviously, and Stephen A. Smith
Speaker 1: had the story said it's gonna be the heat. But
Speaker 1: there was so much information going out there with people
Speaker 1: saying this is where he's going, this is where he's going,
Speaker 1: he's staying, he's this, it was impossible to figure out
Speaker 1: what insider had the right information. I remember Stephen A.
Speaker 1: Smith the time was telling everybody, no, I got this,
Speaker 1: He's going to the heat. It's gonna be I got it.
Speaker 1: I got it. But it was met with all right,
Speaker 1: we have a lot of stuff. We can't be wrong
Speaker 1: about this. So it was almost like ESPN decided to
Speaker 1: make a conscious decision to say, we're not gonna broadcast,
Speaker 1: We're gonna We're gonna wait and the decision is gonna
Speaker 1: come out and we're going to go with it then
Speaker 1: because nobody went, but nobody knew because he was connected
Speaker 1: to what the clippers, to the bowls, to the nets,
Speaker 1: I mean, you just go down. Whether he was gonna
Speaker 1: just stay in Cleveland and be done with it, and
Speaker 1: it was gonna be this good moment, right. You got
Speaker 1: all the Boys and Girls clubs representatives there. You know
Speaker 1: what's always lost in this is that several million dollars
Speaker 1: went to the boy and Boys and Girls clubs. It's
Speaker 1: kind of a good thing, right, For as much hate
Speaker 1: and vitriol his game out of this from Jim Gray
Speaker 1: hunt down the line, I mean, it worked out pretty
Speaker 1: well for for a bunch of kids, but from Lebron James,
Speaker 1: I mean, everybody remembers what they were doing that night.
Speaker 1: I mean, and when it came down, how quickly the
Speaker 1: phone started blowing up. I was like, can you believe this?
Speaker 1: Coming off the two thousand ten season, Lebron's free agency
Speaker 1: was all anybody wanted to get into. He took meetings
Speaker 1: with every team. Don Nelson, who was running the Knicks
Speaker 1: back then, was in a wheelchair, and they wheeled him in,
Speaker 1: you know, to be able to present his side to
Speaker 1: the Lebron James and and his contingent. And it was
Speaker 1: very soon after I think the Nets went and and
Speaker 1: and presented, and I remember hearing that during the Knicks presentation,
Speaker 1: Lebron and everybody just spaced out, like it's been enough.
Speaker 1: It was a big process and Lebron's free agency was
Speaker 1: going to change the National Basketball Association. And so when
Speaker 1: it was announced the decision was coming up July seven
Speaker 1: of two thousand and ten, everybody's watching TV and watching
Speaker 1: Jim Gray ask one question for an hour to Lebron James.
Speaker 1: When he finally comes up with the I'm taking my
Speaker 1: talents to Miami line, which has become lampooned and and
Speaker 1: a part of sports history. South Beach, Baby, it was
Speaker 1: a big whoe. He's really going to the heat. He's
Speaker 1: really going to the heat. It was a tremendous night
Speaker 1: for basketball, and in the end, it turned out to
Speaker 1: be one of the worst nights for Lebron because all
Speaker 1: he did was get all kinds of flak because he
Speaker 1: was leaving his hometown team. He got a lot of
Speaker 1: flak for that, for going on television for an hour
Speaker 1: and making a decision in which he presents as it's
Speaker 1: a big night for boys and Girls Club, But yeah,
Speaker 1: it is. But it's also a night where you decided
Speaker 1: to take control of a storyline for an hour when
Speaker 1: you already knew what was going on. You're the kid
Speaker 1: with the hats going to college. It was the beginning
Speaker 1: of the polarization that Lebron James had going forward in
Speaker 1: his NBA career, because up until then, it was boy
Speaker 1: Lebron is fantastic, and you had a little bit of detractors.
Speaker 1: And there's a few things that happened with Lebron that
Speaker 1: you were like, I don't know. You remember he had
Speaker 1: the whole situation where the one kid from college dunked
Speaker 1: on him during the summer and Lebron's people tried to
Speaker 1: hold onto the video. Absolutely, you had stuff like that
Speaker 1: going on with Lebron James, but still overwhelmingly Lebron James
Speaker 1: was next. We are all witnesses going to the finals,
Speaker 1: uh and and but getting swept by the San Anto
Speaker 1: Neo Spurs. But Lebron James decides for the heat and
Speaker 1: this is where he became polarizing, but at the same
Speaker 1: time became even more of an icon than he was
Speaker 1: before he got global because of the news cycle he
Speaker 1: was able to grab and what he's held onto really
Speaker 1: since that moment, I changed the game forever. In this
Speaker 1: moment where we didn't know that it would become as
Speaker 1: prolific a style of making a decision of how to
Speaker 1: rebuild and reformulate teams, find your friends and team up
Speaker 1: and change courses of many franchises with the stroke of
Speaker 1: a pen. So the Miami Heat have pat Riley who
Speaker 1: was running things, and Eric Spoelstra, a young hen coach
Speaker 1: that nobody knew if he was going to be any good,
Speaker 1: and suddenly they had to fit things around because Lebron
Speaker 1: and Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade decided they wanted to
Speaker 1: team up and play in Miami. They wanted to play
Speaker 1: together because they were all tight, something that came up
Speaker 1: probably at the Olympics. Hey, you know, it would be
Speaker 1: pretty cool if we all played together. I don't think
Speaker 1: it was well thought out by Lebron and Wade and Boss,
Speaker 1: which are gonna get to coming up in a few minutes,
Speaker 1: but it was something that still was a work in progress.
Speaker 1: Had to figure things out as they went. I don't
Speaker 1: think they thought they'd get the backlash. I don't think
Speaker 1: they thought it was gonna be as difficult as it was,
Speaker 1: that there would be as many people that would say, Oh,
Speaker 1: I think you're a superpower, now I want to see
Speaker 1: you lose. They announced they want to play together and
Speaker 1: pat Riley I loved him taking all kinds of credit
Speaker 1: for you know, we had to fit these people under
Speaker 1: the salary cap and figure things out, and it's whoa,
Speaker 1: whoa dude, you didn't do anything but answer your phone
Speaker 1: when Lebron called in Today we all figured out we're
Speaker 1: coming here to the heat. I mean, we got to
Speaker 1: That's all you did, pat Riley, was do that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean the only question at that point was was
Speaker 1: Lebron James also giving him a list of guys he
Speaker 1: wanted him to go get, and then you figure out
Speaker 1: the rest of your roster and that becomes uh an
Speaker 1: arduous task as well. We'll get to in a moment. Now.
Speaker 1: He had to make some trades. He had to make
Speaker 1: some moves. He had to trade four first round picks
Speaker 1: to the Calvs and the Raptors in order to get
Speaker 1: Lebron James and Chris Bosh and that kind of made
Speaker 1: them stuck a bit because that hurt when they got
Speaker 1: to the NBA Finals, something we'll get too later on
Speaker 1: in the podcast. But having to trade away all these assets,
Speaker 1: they didn't have a lot to go get the other
Speaker 1: players to fill out their team. It was can three
Speaker 1: guys basically win a championship. I remember when they decided
Speaker 1: to come. The Heat had four players, and they're going
Speaker 1: into the summer going all right, who are you gonna get?
Speaker 1: Who's around? We're start making phone calls. Who wants to
Speaker 1: come play? Well, it's like the Lakers heading into right
Speaker 1: Lebron James go figure it's him again, going all right,
Speaker 1: I got my core and I got my one guy.
Speaker 1: As Anthony Davis comes over and I got coused by
Speaker 1: I like him. All right, what else we got? Who
Speaker 1: else are we got? I mean that's like Ocean's eleven
Speaker 1: trying to fill out. You're the rest of you, guys.
Speaker 1: We need one more. I think we need one more.
Speaker 1: Let's go get one more. The roster that they had
Speaker 1: to put together was just Okay, we're gonna piece meal things,
Speaker 1: and that's the best thing we're gonna do. Will you?
Speaker 1: Mario Chalmers, Hey, we love him. We got Donna's hassle,
Speaker 1: m Eddie Houses on that team. Juwan, how Howard? I
Speaker 1: mean they were calling guys up, going hey, just come
Speaker 1: here and play for whatever. Mike Miller was a big
Speaker 1: acquisition for them that you know, we're gonna get Mike Miller.
Speaker 1: That's a big thing for us. It's oh, these are
Speaker 1: the guys, these are the guys. Championship. Yeah, you want
Speaker 1: to you want to come play and potentially win and
Speaker 1: hang out in South Beach. That was the team that
Speaker 1: was going to wind up taking the court for them.
Speaker 1: They had four second round picks to Shaun Butler's one
Speaker 1: of those picks, Dexter Pittman's one of those picks. But
Speaker 1: it was gonna be these three and what else can
Speaker 1: they put together? This was the Miami Heat team that
Speaker 1: change the way the NBA works because now everybody wants
Speaker 1: to be super teams and join up together. But going
Speaker 1: into the season, now, how are they going to make
Speaker 1: it work with a really, really thin roster. The backlash
Speaker 1: was immediate and the hate watching began for Lebron James
Speaker 1: and company. Well, the other part of it was their
Speaker 1: big introductory press conference, which was when all the fireworks
Speaker 1: are going off and Lebron James said, We're not here
Speaker 1: to win one championship, not to not the not four,
Speaker 1: not five, not six, not seven, And it's, oh, my god, dude,
Speaker 1: what are you kidding? Are you? This is but this
Speaker 1: is feeling good, feeling not thinking that saying that was
Speaker 1: gonna come back to haunt them be something that we
Speaker 1: talked about. Oh, here's the guys, I'm joining a team
Speaker 1: and he's gonna win eight championships with the Miami Heat.
Speaker 1: I love the bravado in the moment. I thought it
Speaker 1: was one of the great w W E heel kind
Speaker 1: of turns right, he's doing it for the Miami Heat
Speaker 1: and their crowd as they're all excited, right, building the
Speaker 1: perfect beast, the Summer Heat Welcome Party is what it
Speaker 1: was called. And they were introduced as the Three Kings, right,
Speaker 1: and they came up on their little risers and the
Speaker 1: whole thing. So when he gives the speech, Mike, all right,
Speaker 1: they're playing to the home home fans. But it was
Speaker 1: almost the al right, the threat, the calling out of
Speaker 1: every other NBA team. So yeah, you get a little
Speaker 1: bit of the the w W E heel with the
Speaker 1: mic skills. So this is how the Heat go into
Speaker 1: the eleven season. Coming up next on the podcast, Dwyane
Speaker 1: Wade crying after the first few games. What was the
Speaker 1: rest of the world looking at besides Lebron James at
Speaker 1: the NBA season began all that more? Right here, on
Speaker 1: the Special Teams Podcast, The two thousand ten two thousand
Speaker 1: eleven Miami Heat. Continuing on with the Special Teams Podcast
Speaker 1: as we look back at the Miami Heat, who changed
Speaker 1: the NBA forever, as they get set to make their
Speaker 1: debut after a long offseason of anticipation. What was the
Speaker 1: rest of the world talking about. Well, Lady Gaga wore
Speaker 1: the meat dress, and I'm just thinking, boy, when I
Speaker 1: was younger, if I could wear a meat dress, It's like,
Speaker 1: if it's cooked me that I could actually, But you know,
Speaker 1: wearing a meat dress was pretty risque even back then
Speaker 1: for her. You've never worn a meat dress. Now you
Speaker 1: could go the opposite, Uh, wear a vegetable dress, like
Speaker 1: like like broccoli. You wouldn't let it get that close
Speaker 1: to your body. Ten wat dress. The top movies of
Speaker 1: two thousand and ten you mentioned one a couple of
Speaker 1: minutes ago. Inception, a movie that drove people crazy. Oh
Speaker 1: is the thing gonna spin at the end? Is it
Speaker 1: falling over? Is it staying up? Is it falling over
Speaker 1: and staying up? Inception was on everybody's mind. How about
Speaker 1: your favorite TV show premiered Sons of Anarchy? Yes, and
Speaker 1: The Walking Dead? Both premiered. I was very excited about
Speaker 1: both of them. Not a Walking Dead guy. The thing is,
Speaker 1: I stopped watching The Walking Dead, and that's been a
Speaker 1: big piece of of social currency, is when did you
Speaker 1: stop watching the Walking Oh that's pretty because people don't
Speaker 1: watch it. It was when did you stop? Well? I
Speaker 1: stopped watching the beginning of the second season of Negan. Oh,
Speaker 1: that's a good time to stop. That's pretty good. I
Speaker 1: like that that that's that. That's a cool guy that
Speaker 1: stopped watching then. I mean it is cool. I mean
Speaker 1: Andrew Lincoln is the on in law of Ian Anderson,
Speaker 1: of Jethro Tull, not running down his nose? Do you
Speaker 1: know any other lines? But what other rock song could
Speaker 1: you say? Snot running down his Nose? I mean, that's
Speaker 1: a good one. I'll give you that. But Sons of Anarchy.
Speaker 1: I still miss Sons of Anarchy. I mean I I
Speaker 1: still missed that. I I walked around with I had
Speaker 1: the T shirts that they wore, and then the TV
Speaker 1: show had the Sam Crows shirts. I had everything. The
Speaker 1: Apprentice kept going the league. It's always sunny in Philadelphia. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and now they're on like seasons. Always say, if it's
Speaker 1: still making money keep going. So that's what people were
Speaker 1: talking about in two thousand and ten, and then early November,
Speaker 1: the Miami Heat tipped off for the first time and
Speaker 1: they started nine and eight out of the gate as
Speaker 1: they really had to figure things out. And in the
Speaker 1: middle of this is when Dwyane Wade had his quote
Speaker 1: meltdown crying after a game, saying, oh, now everybody could
Speaker 1: be so happy the Miami he'd have problems and I
Speaker 1: remember that vividly, saying, oh, dude, you gotta be more
Speaker 1: mentally tough than that. You just decided a month ago
Speaker 1: to have a press comments where you're set, or have
Speaker 1: a an event where you're saying not two championships, not three,
Speaker 1: not four. No, you want to do that. You can't
Speaker 1: cry and be upset when you're nine and eight. You
Speaker 1: got a lot of backlash. Anytime you want to stand
Speaker 1: up and say hey, I'm great, this is me, you're
Speaker 1: gonna have people sling arrows at you. And the Heat
Speaker 1: weren't ready for it, which is why I say it
Speaker 1: wasn't that well thought out. It was one of those
Speaker 1: things that happened and they had to figure it out
Speaker 1: as they went along. People might have liked the novelty
Speaker 1: of it. But if you're looking for competition, you're sitting
Speaker 1: there and going, all right, if I'm a fan of
Speaker 1: one of these other teams, I hate this because a
Speaker 1: my team didn't think of it, and they if my
Speaker 1: team was in the running, they weren't able to get
Speaker 1: it done. The thing that bothered me most. And look,
Speaker 1: all these years later, never faulted Lebron for the decision,
Speaker 1: never faulted him for the not two, not three. Always
Speaker 1: thought it was nice, like I said, a whole w
Speaker 1: w e heel thing. But then once the crowds are
Speaker 1: actually against you, don't cry about him. You said it
Speaker 1: up this way. All the rumors that started at that
Speaker 1: point with the heat struggling, where Eric Spoelstra is gonna
Speaker 1: be fired and pat Riley is gonna come down and
Speaker 1: coach the team, right, that Lebron didn't like Spolster, the
Speaker 1: very famous, the very famous video of him just blowing
Speaker 1: him off walking by in the huddle, and it was
Speaker 1: by Erik Spoelster is getting fired. Man, It's just a
Speaker 1: matter of time. And really, are you gonna trust Eric
Speaker 1: Spoelstra with all these guys that are basically coaching the team.
Speaker 1: You needed somebody who was gonna come down and and
Speaker 1: command respect, and Spoilster was not the guy or well,
Speaker 1: because the other part was I think for many NBA
Speaker 1: fans that had watched this thing come together, pat Riley
Speaker 1: as much as front office pat Riley wanted some credit.
Speaker 1: Don't tell him. He didn't want his slick back hair
Speaker 1: back on the sideline, right, So people were waiting for
Speaker 1: the coup at mid season just so he could finish
Speaker 1: the job. Right, all right, Spoilster, you you do the
Speaker 1: hard work here. These guys will start playing together, and
Speaker 1: then I come down from the rabid look. I saved
Speaker 1: the season and I made these two for stars like
Speaker 1: it was a hero moment in the waiting. But what
Speaker 1: saved him, and I think saved NBA history from being different,
Speaker 1: is that once December hit, that was it. The heat
Speaker 1: go on a big run. They go fifteen and one
Speaker 1: in the month of December and they never looked back.
Speaker 1: I mean that was that. That was where everything starts
Speaker 1: coming into focus and the slotting of the superstars became
Speaker 1: a little bit easier. It wasn't well, it's the three
Speaker 1: of us. It was okay, this is becoming Lebron's team,
Speaker 1: and Wade's gotta be okay being the one A and
Speaker 1: Chris Bosh has to be okay being way over here
Speaker 1: being the three right, it was, it was going to
Speaker 1: be the three of them, but you knew it was
Speaker 1: gonna morph, and it morphed to Lebron's team with Wade
Speaker 1: playing the supporting role. And that's something that people don't
Speaker 1: take into account when they talk about the greatness of
Speaker 1: this run, is that Dwyane Wade on his own team
Speaker 1: that he already won a championship with when they beat
Speaker 1: the Mavericks being okay taking quote a back seat to
Speaker 1: Lebron on welcoming him in, allowing him to take over
Speaker 1: and to be Lebron without that, if he's fighting Lebron
Speaker 1: for control of the team or who's gonna be the
Speaker 1: alpha on any night, it's gonna fall apart. And you know,
Speaker 1: we saw it with Shack and Kobe in l A.
Speaker 1: They fought each other and they only made it a
Speaker 1: few years. But in the modern NBA they made it further.
Speaker 1: Because Dwyane Wade and Lebron were friends and Wade was
Speaker 1: okay seating the spotlight to Lebron. He made this thing happen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: one for those guys showing up, but too for knowing
Speaker 1: when he needed to be player b. That's when Lebron
Speaker 1: also coined the heatles. Yes, so everybody comes to see us.
Speaker 1: They were selling out everywhere. It's us coming into your
Speaker 1: town and it's wherever you were doing. Hey, where are
Speaker 1: the Heat? Remember it was all those ads for bad teams.
Speaker 1: Hey our it went from the our season. Our Clippers
Speaker 1: season ticket package includes a game against the Bulls and
Speaker 1: Michael Jordan's two. Hey, we got the Heat coming in
Speaker 1: next month. But that was what it was, appointment television.
Speaker 1: Every night that Heat played, it was a story. And
Speaker 1: the NBA, how often do you get stories every night?
Speaker 1: Two games season? You're exciting time they played, whether they
Speaker 1: won by fifty, they played a close game, the rare
Speaker 1: times they lost, they were the big story. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: they played a lot of close games in this first
Speaker 1: couple of months of the season. And that was one
Speaker 1: of the detractors, like, well, you got three superstars. You
Speaker 1: got these superstars, and you can't blow these bad teams out.
Speaker 1: They trade from Mike Bibby at the deadline, and that
Speaker 1: turns out to be a pretty big move back when
Speaker 1: Mike Bibbee was still Hey, Mike Bibby is not bad,
Speaker 1: and he might be a big addition because they needed
Speaker 1: more shooters, and that's what the Heat needed. They needed
Speaker 1: guys that could make shots, that could contribute more offensively,
Speaker 1: because look, we mentioned it a few minutes ago, we're
Speaker 1: gonna talk about a lot later. You gotta have those
Speaker 1: support players to win the NBA finals, and the Heat
Speaker 1: were still trying to mix and match. They were a
Speaker 1: great regular season team. They want up finishing second in
Speaker 1: the Eastern Conference. They won fifty eight games, they finished
Speaker 1: second to the Bulls, and it was boy, here come
Speaker 1: the Heat, and they were expected to roll through the playoffs.
Speaker 1: But winning championships, you need those support guys to come through.
Speaker 1: You can't just rely on your stars. That's the one
Speaker 1: thing people forget about the NBA, whether it's the Warriors,
Speaker 1: Dynasty or anybody else. You need those players who are
Speaker 1: gonna play big support roles when the games get big.
Speaker 1: That back end, you got Haslam, you got Miller, and
Speaker 1: you got a lot of guys who were, you know,
Speaker 1: just a guy on the back, a lot of Jags
Speaker 1: that really didn't have any particularly uh crafted set of
Speaker 1: skills to help the Big Three finish what they were doing.
Speaker 1: Coming up next on the podcast. While they roll through
Speaker 1: most of the playoffs, a disappearing act that nobody saw
Speaker 1: coming with Lebron James beset them in the NBA Finals,
Speaker 1: we break down what became a theme for Lebron james career.
Speaker 1: Coming up next on the Special Team's podcast, two thousand,
Speaker 1: two thousand eleven, Miami He So we're into the NBA
Speaker 1: Finals here on Special Teams, taking a look at the
Speaker 1: two thousand, two thousand and eleven Miami Heat team that
Speaker 1: changed the face of the NBA, despite the fact they
Speaker 1: did not win it all, as the Miami Heat are
Speaker 1: able to get through the playoffs without a lot of
Speaker 1: difficulty awaiting them. The Dallas Mavericks and what you're gonna
Speaker 1: see over the course of these six games are two things.
Speaker 1: Number One, the Mavericks had a deeper team because you
Speaker 1: need those kinds of players who are gonna come off
Speaker 1: your bench or be your shooting guard that's gonna have
Speaker 1: a big game that you're not expecting, and that's how
Speaker 1: you win championships. You can have the star power, but
Speaker 1: you need the people coming off the bench. You need
Speaker 1: the the role players to play big in the NBA Finals,
Speaker 1: and this is where things fell short for the Heat
Speaker 1: because they didn't have that. They had three great players,
Speaker 1: but there was nobody else. You could say, Hey, you
Speaker 1: know what, Mike Miller had a huge, huge, huge, get No,
Speaker 1: they didn't have that, and that's why the Mavericks are
Speaker 1: the champions. We talked about this across all sports, right,
Speaker 1: you need that that extra extra man just step up.
Speaker 1: Not that superstar, maybe one of those Lou Williams. I
Speaker 1: gotta get Lou Williams and wherever I can, but those
Speaker 1: that sixth man who can come in and take over
Speaker 1: and let your guys take an extended breather because you
Speaker 1: don't lose any momentum from your first unit. And when
Speaker 1: we looked at this Heat team, they just didn't have it.
Speaker 1: Occasionally Miller would get hot, but in the finals, not
Speaker 1: so much. The Finals, which were known in the end
Speaker 1: for the exclamation point on Dirk Nowitzki's career, started pretty
Speaker 1: poorly for him. Miami wins Game one and Dirk tears
Speaker 1: attendant in his left middle finger. So now they lose
Speaker 1: Game one and suddenly he's got a really serious finger injury.
Speaker 1: You get to Game two. Miami was up huge, They
Speaker 1: were up fifteen points midway through the fourth quarter, and
Speaker 1: Dallas comes back to win. They go on a huge
Speaker 1: run with six and a half minutes left to go,
Speaker 1: and you heard to a man following the game, the
Speaker 1: huge Mavericks come back. How do you come back against
Speaker 1: this team that was taking a stranglehold on the series.
Speaker 1: They were upset with six twenty left to go. They
Speaker 1: were pissed that Miami was celebrating and dancing after a
Speaker 1: big shot. Lebron and Dwyane Wade were doing their thing
Speaker 1: on the sidelines, and players said, you know what, that
Speaker 1: really got us upset, and we decided to focus more
Speaker 1: and we came down and we wheeled into that lead,
Speaker 1: wheeled into that lead because we didn't like the heat
Speaker 1: celebrating prematurely. Dwyane Wade blew it off after the game.
Speaker 1: But in the end, this turned out to be the
Speaker 1: real turning point of the series, because when you let
Speaker 1: a win get away, momentum leaves at some point and
Speaker 1: goes to the other team. Every final series has its
Speaker 1: own rhythm, has its own uh cadence, and its own
Speaker 1: rolling waves. There's a time in every series where momentum
Speaker 1: forever leaves the losing team and goes to the winning team.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's Game two, sometimes it's Game I've Sometimes this
Speaker 1: Game seven, when you have a fifteen point lead and
Speaker 1: you blow that lead with six minutes left to go,
Speaker 1: the Mavericks tie of the series, and momentum was on
Speaker 1: their side the rest of the way. I always find
Speaker 1: it funny in these types of professional environments that's something
Speaker 1: seemingly innoxious of a couple of guys clowning on a
Speaker 1: bench could be the alright, we gotta focus now. It's
Speaker 1: like no, no, no, it's like the extra incentive our composer. No,
Speaker 1: but that's it, finish the job. But for the for
Speaker 1: the Mavericks, all right, that really cheesed us off. Man,
Speaker 1: Now we knew it was our mission to claw back,
Speaker 1: Like why why did you need to get clowned like
Speaker 1: your professionals playing for a championship. And you always hear
Speaker 1: these tales in in the moment or years later as
Speaker 1: we do the reviews here on special teams that you know,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, that was the thing that really solidified us
Speaker 1: as a team, and it bonded us together, Like the
Speaker 1: follow up is why, why does that take that You
Speaker 1: gotta best just seven? And for a guy like Jerk Nevitsky,
Speaker 1: that's it. That's the home park, right, A lot of points,
Speaker 1: a lot of great times. So Game three, Miami finds
Speaker 1: a way to win. Game four, Dwyane Wade misses a
Speaker 1: free throw that could have tied the game with twenty
Speaker 1: seconds left. He fumbled the inbounds, passed down three with
Speaker 1: seven seconds left when he could have hit a three
Speaker 1: to tie the game, and the Mavericks tie the series
Speaker 1: back had two games at peace. This is now what
Speaker 1: we're going to focus on because this was the first
Speaker 1: of the Lebron James disappearing games eight, nine, and seven.
Speaker 1: In this game, eight points, nine rebounds, seven assists. On
Speaker 1: the sunny side, you could say close to a triple double,
Speaker 1: but really eight points for Lebron James in an NBA
Speaker 1: Finals game. He took eleven shots. And at the time
Speaker 1: it was boy, I don't get what happened to Lebron
Speaker 1: in this game, But as the series came out, it
Speaker 1: became a theme. These last three games, Lebron James completely disappeared,
Speaker 1: and it was the beginning of the how does Lebron
Speaker 1: James do this in the finals, and it was a
Speaker 1: question that dogged him for years because he did a
Speaker 1: little bit with the Cleveland Cavaliers and happened here. Was
Speaker 1: he gonna just keep disappearing at big moments during his
Speaker 1: NBA career. Game five was the Jason Terry game. All right.
Speaker 1: This was the exclamation point for the Dallas Mavericks. He
Speaker 1: gets benched by Rick Carlisle for bad play, comes back
Speaker 1: in late and runs Miami into the ground. He scored
Speaker 1: or assisted on eleven points. In the fourth quarter. He
Speaker 1: had a big three with Lebron James in his face
Speaker 1: to clinch the game. Again, Lebron played this game as
Speaker 1: a facilitator and that hurts Miami. Anytime Lebron is more
Speaker 1: facilitator in a go for the juggular type game, teams
Speaker 1: are gonna take that. During the regular season, if Lebron
Speaker 1: plays facilitator, it's boy, it's one game out of eight.
Speaker 1: Two other guys can beat you. If he has a
Speaker 1: game with fifteen points, but he has eleven twelve assists,
Speaker 1: he played facilitator. Other guys did it. But in the
Speaker 1: NBA Finals, Lebron James is not gonna win games where
Speaker 1: he plays facilitator and scores ten or twelve points or
Speaker 1: like he did in Game four with eight, nine and seven,
Speaker 1: do it. And that's always the question in the background
Speaker 1: of like what are the conversations in the locker room?
Speaker 1: Is is he hearing things? Right? He always said he
Speaker 1: had you know, zero dark three and didn't hear what
Speaker 1: was being said about him, And even at in this
Speaker 1: early stages was I'm just locked in, but you know,
Speaker 1: you hearing the whispers that you took over the team
Speaker 1: and that maybe folks are a little bit disgruntled about
Speaker 1: it or there's some unrest, so it's like, all right,
Speaker 1: let somebody else do it. Then it's just the psychology
Speaker 1: of it never made sense, like you're are you this way?
Speaker 1: Like like this is who I am. I want to
Speaker 1: show you. I want to win, Like Magic Johnson, I
Speaker 1: can score thirty a game the first three games, but
Speaker 1: I can dish out fifteen assists in the rest of
Speaker 1: the games with It's it was very strange because I
Speaker 1: don't know what happens to him and what happened to
Speaker 1: him in the final Remember talking about this on the
Speaker 1: radio after going I don't get this is not the
Speaker 1: Lebron James that we have grown to see. This is
Speaker 1: Lebron James who takes over games in the fourth quarter
Speaker 1: and doesn't shrink from those moments, right, the guy that
Speaker 1: takes on his wide Drexler persona and puts his head
Speaker 1: down and dribbles into the lane and runs over anybody
Speaker 1: in his way. So it's just that that type of
Speaker 1: mentality that we've seen so many times, where he'll take
Speaker 1: over a quarter a game. Why in the middle of
Speaker 1: a series is there this flip of the switch. Even
Speaker 1: though in Game five he had a triple double, a seventeen,
Speaker 1: ten and ten, it's still underwhelming for him. I mean, still,
Speaker 1: it's not the kind of game you would get from Lebron.
Speaker 1: And it was very, very strange. He only took two
Speaker 1: free throws, but he's got to get to the free
Speaker 1: throw line. Lebron James for many times in his early career,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna settle for the jumper because it looks pretty
Speaker 1: rather than take the ball to the hook because I
Speaker 1: want to hit that jumper and put my hand up
Speaker 1: and go back down the floor. It's like I felt
Speaker 1: like he wanted to win a certain way. And then
Speaker 1: you get to Game six of the NBA Finals, and
Speaker 1: this was it for the Heat. Their backs were to
Speaker 1: the wall, and you know what, Lebron James sort of
Speaker 1: disappeared again. You know, twenty one points in Game six,
Speaker 1: just four free throws. They were facing elimination and they
Speaker 1: get worked by the Dallas Mavericks who hit a ton
Speaker 1: of threes. They played a lot of zone in that game,
Speaker 1: and that hurt Miami. And it was stunning to watch
Speaker 1: the end of this game because I vividly remember seeing
Speaker 1: every time they passed the ball to Lebron hot potato
Speaker 1: and he would set it to somebody else. It was
Speaker 1: like hot potato basketball. And I'm I really, it's like
Speaker 1: I'm watching the meltdown in front of me. I'm just
Speaker 1: a this is a three game meltdown. He wanted on James, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he wanted nothing to do with the ball in the
Speaker 1: fourth quarter. As you say, hot potato, just the facilitator
Speaker 1: mode in overdrive. That the average just three points per
Speaker 1: game in the fourth quarter in the series for the
Speaker 1: series as a whole, down nine points a game from
Speaker 1: this sin from his regular season average. In the time
Speaker 1: when it was it was showtime. This was your go,
Speaker 1: make your mark and go take on and start going
Speaker 1: to where you're you're thinking about the repeat and two
Speaker 1: and three and four and everything from before the season
Speaker 1: and said, uh, shrunk away. In the biggest moment it
Speaker 1: was after this series, pat Riley said, I gotta have
Speaker 1: a talk to Lebron, talk with Lebron about getting more
Speaker 1: out of him. Even pat Riley when he asked to
Speaker 1: sit here a gay boy, I gotta go take on
Speaker 1: our big star who came here and and and you know,
Speaker 1: got us to the NBA Finals. But he had the
Speaker 1: conversation with Lebron about giving him more and it worked out.
Speaker 1: The next two years, the Heat wound up winning the
Speaker 1: NBA Championship. But this year, this was the year that,
Speaker 1: even though it ended poorly for them and Lebron disappeared,
Speaker 1: this change the NBA really forever because you watch teams
Speaker 1: go from hey, now I want to go play with
Speaker 1: my friends and and and we can go get together
Speaker 1: and put three stars here and three stars here and
Speaker 1: three stars here, to the point where now players are
Speaker 1: signing one and two year contracts because they want to
Speaker 1: be able to play with one guy here. And now
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go play one guy one year with one
Speaker 1: guy over here, and that's the way the NBA is now,
Speaker 1: and it's it's it's just not even ten years ago
Speaker 1: that this seismic sea chain turned the NBA from a
Speaker 1: league where, hey, you have a lot of talent spread
Speaker 1: around the league too, there's only a handful of teams
Speaker 1: that can really compete because we're all teaming up now
Speaker 1: and we're we're we're deciding that when a player wants
Speaker 1: to move on, I gotta move on to this team
Speaker 1: that already has an established dark because now I want
Speaker 1: to win. Anytime players get older in their careers, they
Speaker 1: I've I've done what I kind of made my money.
Speaker 1: I want to win now. Think about the way the
Speaker 1: super teams that we recall the Celtics and Lakers, right,
Speaker 1: there are a couple of things that happened where guys
Speaker 1: get traded, changed leagues, and then draft and you roll
Speaker 1: through and it became those super teams for years and
Speaker 1: then long gap Celtics team blip on the radar, and
Speaker 1: then you have this change and every year it becomes
Speaker 1: the one in two year deals because the salary cap
Speaker 1: keeps coming out, but also the idea of I don't
Speaker 1: want to be stuck, right, we see teams jettison coaches
Speaker 1: very quickly. There's no programs, you know, we laugh about
Speaker 1: the term program in the NFL or wherever else, like
Speaker 1: used to be a college only term. But now it's
Speaker 1: all right. Is a guy gonna really get to stick
Speaker 1: around and build some vision or is it all right?
Speaker 1: Show up? We have to win right now. Some players
Speaker 1: they know it's they can look and read the tea
Speaker 1: leaves as soon as they do that first week of practice.
Speaker 1: All right, this is a one year deal. I'm gone,
Speaker 1: And then trying to sync up contracts because that was
Speaker 1: part of this game as well, because you got Bosh
Speaker 1: and Wade and Lebron from the same draft class. So
Speaker 1: it worked out just beautifully. So that was the year
Speaker 1: for Miami Heat. How about somewhere are they now? Are
Speaker 1: some of the guys from this team? All right, let's
Speaker 1: have a little bit of fun, right Carlos Arroyo, he
Speaker 1: played with this squad for a bit, uh and professional
Speaker 1: basketball players play internationally, showed up in the in the States,
Speaker 1: played for the Heat for a while. He was the
Speaker 1: guy that got cut when Mike Bibbie came along, and
Speaker 1: just six point two million dollars took the veterans minimum
Speaker 1: to come hang out. Uh. He's a co owner of
Speaker 1: a team, the Balanceesto Superior Nasal. Yeah. I bet them
Speaker 1: a lot on line. I put a lot of money
Speaker 1: on them. Yeah. So you know he was at home.
Speaker 1: He was started the Puerto Rico team that beat the
Speaker 1: US in the two thousand four Olympics as well, so
Speaker 1: he had some run. Uh. Joel Anthony Center on a
Speaker 1: u n LV. He was in the league until seventeen.
Speaker 1: They called him the Warden, which is always good. Uh,
Speaker 1: he's a cast around with the warden. He's now playing
Speaker 1: in Argentina, and I won't just do a disservice by
Speaker 1: trying to pronounce that one. Now, you said it right, Argentina,
Speaker 1: You got it right, Okay, good. I was gonna go
Speaker 1: through the entire the club Athletico San Lorenzo de la Madro,
Speaker 1: Dexter Pittman, the Center. He's playing in a japan B league.
Speaker 1: The Rising Zephyr Fukiyoka. I like the Rising Zephyr, the
Speaker 1: Rising that sounds like the name of a radio communications
Speaker 1: company that owns a lot of things, Rising Zephyr. They
Speaker 1: own all these stations here in Sioux Falls. That's pretty good.
Speaker 1: Jerry Stackhouse played seven games with this team. I just
Speaker 1: thought i'd mentioned Jerry's while we were Uh. And then
Speaker 1: we've got Bob McAdoo, the legend was one of the coaches. Uh.
Speaker 1: And you're a guy David Fizdale, fizz getting his big
Speaker 1: start before he went and screwed up there got to
Speaker 1: the head coaching job with the New York Hey. Hey, hey, hey, hey,
Speaker 1: so there's o Look Miami Heat. Even though they didn't win,
Speaker 1: they changed the NBA forever. This has been Special Teams.
Speaker 1: I'm Jason Smith, He's Mike Harmon. Hit us up on
Speaker 1: Twitter at how about a Frescup Mike at Swollen Dome.
Speaker 1: Any ideas of teams you would like us to go
Speaker 1: through in the coming weeks. Absolutely welcome and we will
Speaker 1: talk to you next week. Before you go, rate and
Speaker 1: review the show. Whether you're listening on I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: I Heart radio apps, Apple, whatever it is, give us
Speaker 1: a rate, tell us you like it. We will love
Speaker 1: you forever and ever and ever. Special Teams is a
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my
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Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.