Posted by Sekou Smith
HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – We might never know the true story behind the formation of Miami Thrice, The South Beach Big 3, Three Amigos or whatever it is we are calling the Miami Heat’s super team these days.
LeBron James joining
Dwyane Wade and
Chris Bosh in Miami sounded like a pipe dream when it first made the rounds on the free agency rumor mill.
After a few days of it being a reality, it doesn’t seem so far-fetched.
For Heat boss
Pat Riley, it appears this was a part of a master plan hatched long ago, a plan that Cavs owner
Dan Gilbert will probably never get over.
When you
read some of the details in Brian Windhorst’s piece in the Plain Dealer, the whole thing seems to deeper roots than many of us might have imagined:
The seeds were planted in the summer of 2006 after Bosh, James and Wade finished their third seasons. Established All-Stars and clearly the future of the league, the three were part of a bonding effort led by USA Basketball to revamp and re-energize the national team after the disappointing 2004 bronze medal.
The three played together for the first time that summer in Japan at the World Championships. For the first week, they were sequestered without family or friends in Sapporo, Japan, in an attempt to build chemistry. But it wasn’t just the players. Working as an intern for Team USA and getting to know the players was Nick Arison, the son of Heat billionaire owner Micky Arison.
Now, Nick Arison is a rising executive with the Heat. He was part of the team that recruited all three players this summer.
Already close because they came from the same draft class, the Team USA experience strengthened the relationship. Even before the team gathered in Las Vegas to prepare for the World Championships that summer, the three had talked about playing for that team.
That same July, the co-op took on another role when all three decided to extend their contracts with their teams. They couldn’t all become unrestricted free agents until 2007 under the rules, so the smart play was for them to extend with the respective teams.
But with some of the league’s higher-profile older stars perceived as being stuck in long-term contracts with struggling teams, the three decided to go for shorter contracts.
After talking about it amongst themselves, James, Bosh and Wade decided to accept three-year extensions with their teams. It would make them all unrestricted free agents at the same time in 2010. For players on maximum contracts, becoming an unrestricted free agent after just seven years in the NBA is rare. But it would put them all in position to potentially team up that year as well.
There’s so much more to the story.
And however painful it might be to digest for Cavs fans and fans of the other teams that missed out on James, it’s information you need to have to better understand the biggest move in the biggest free agent summer in history.