The Miami Heat taught us all a valuable lesson yesterday. Actually, a few valuable lessons. Firstly, about professional basketball, and secondly, their competitive spirit. The fun part of course is that we probably weren't meant to learn any of this.
Heat coach Erik Spoelstra's admission that a few Miami Heat players were crying in the locker room after their 87-86 loss to the Bulls set off yet another firestorm that the franchise has grown so accustomed to dealing with this year. Spoelstra's comments were meant to exhibit how badly the team wanted to win. Instead, most people used the comments to argue that the Heat were a mentally soft team, a viewpoint they probably already held, and were looking to confirm. And so goes the double standard...
There's a long-held view about the NBA, propagated mostly by the over-50 crowd that the players don't care. They're content earning a paycheck and being friends with each other. Basically, winning is the least of their worries.
The NBA naysayers point to the college game as a true model of how players should carry themselves. In this year's March Madness tournament, the camera will surely focus on a lone player on the bench, head down, crying into his towel. This will probably be a senior, and the best player on a lowly-ranked Cinderella team.
"Look at how passionate he is," the NBA naysayer will say. "Now that's a player who gave it his all, came up short, and couldn't hold his emotions in any longer. I've never seen an NBA player care that much."
So thank you Erik Spoelstra for revealing that your players were crying. Thank you Dwight Howard for going on The Dan Patrick Show and telling him that you cried numerous times after losses your rookie season, and also after losing the 2009 NBA Finals to the Lakers.
When college players cry it's because they care so much about the game, when professional players cry it's because they're pussies. NBA players care, maybe not all of them, but most do. The question should be, why are they crucified for caring?
The problem, in most people's eyes, was that LeBron and Wade, two of the best, if not the two best players in basketball were playing together. This was supposed to mark the end of competitiveness as we knew it. How could LeBron and Wade want to play together? Didn't they have a competitive bone in their body?
The Heat were looked at as a team that wanted to coast to a Championship. A team that would be able to put an end to all competition. Hell, even the Heat players themselves believed this. It hasn't worked out that way. The Heat are the third best team in the East. They're 1-9 against elite teams and have looked absolutely clueless on offense at times. It hasn't been easy, and it isn't going to be easy.
Now we're seeing the Heat's true colors. They realize they can't coast through the season. They're putting forth maximum effort, but guess what? They're just not that good. Not Championship-level good, at least.
I wrote a few weeks ago that teaming up may have been the most competitive thing the Heat could have done. The competition instead would come from within. Playing with elite teammates would in fact push them to greater heights, more so than playing against elite opponents ever could. Turns out I, and many others underrated their outside competition.
The Heat crying in the locker room tells me they've accepted a challenge and want to win. They may not win anything significant but it won't be because they're afraid of a little competition. At the end of the day, that's all I want. I want to feel like athletes give as much of a fuck as I do. And I believe the Heat do.
Some things are meant to stay in house. I'm glad this little crying incident didn't.
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