Just a disclaimer, Heat fans: This is a post from my blog. I write a little about the Heat, the 'Canes, the Hawks, soccer... just different sport commentary. I thought this might interest people who visit Peninsula, though, which I find is a home for well-informed and passionate fans. Without further ado:

There are so many on-court options for the 2010-2011 Miami Heat given the size and the talent they’ve signed in the offseason. Yours truly will delve into some potential looks for next season utilizing an outline from a chapter in The Sports Guy’s book.

Although occasionally it’s tough to cope with the man’s ubiquitous Boston bias, Bill Simmons is one of the preeminent commentators writing on the NBA. The Book of Basketball tells you everything you’d ever want to know about the history of the league and more, and it’s written in Simmons’ pop culture-nodding, wisecracking, smart-aleck voice, which makes the 700+ pages fly by much faster than one would assume.

In this article, I borrowed a concept from Simmons’ final chapter, “The Wine Cellar.” In the thirteenth chapter, Simmons assembles his All-Time-All-Star Team. The premise is this: you have to pick a twelve-man roster with players to defend the planet from annihilation at the hands of roundball-jamming Martians á la Space Jam. One of the especially interesting pieces of this premise is that Simmons chooses specific “vintages” of the greatest players, usually during the peak years of production, like fine wines in a Parisian restaurant’s basement cellar. This is such an interesting concept that it’s worth reading every previous chapter just to squirm when he gets to write about the team of greats he assembles. Don’t worry, I won’t spoil it. Just go buy Simmons’ book.

 

The portion of “The Wine Cellar” that I’ll borrow is close to the end of the chapter when Simmons describes the different on-court looks after filling out the roster, but I’m going to adapt it to the Miami Heat’s 2010-2011 roster, which looks in many ways like an All-Star East roster anyway.

It doesn’t need to be reiterated, but here goes: the Miami Heat roster is stacked. It will include guards Mario Chalmers, Dwyane Wade, Mike Miller, forwards LeBron James, Chris Bosh, Udonis Haslem, James Jones (who also re-signed recently), and centers Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Jamaal Magloire, Joel Anthony, and rookie Dexter Pittman. Additionally C/F Juwan Howard, G Kenny Hasbrouck, and G Jason Williams have been linked with the Heat. For now, let’s just utilize those that have signed contracts in Miami.

Best defensive lineup: Wade, Miller, James, Haslem, Anthony. Start D-Wade at the point. Both his and LeBron’s inclusion here need no justification. Mike Miller has enough size to defend many players at the 3-spot, but perhaps not enough speed to guard the 2. Playing a kind of flex-defense where LeBron, DWade, and Mike Miller switch men depending on the personnel makes sense here and still affords the team a solid 3-point threat. Udonis Haslem is a team leader and a tenacious defender. He’s been a defensive specialist in South Florida and a consistent one at that. Additionally, Joel Anthony has been brought on for leadership ability and although he may give up inches to 7-footers, Anthony is rugged when it comes to enforcing in the paint. If the Heat somehow land Matt Barnes, he would take Mike Miller’s spot for his widely known aggressive defensive presence.

Best fast break lineup: Chalmers, Wade, James, Haslem, Bosh. Because of its speed, this lineup best affords Coach Spoelstra the opportunity to score on the turnover. With an average age of 26.6 (its oldest player, Haslem, a mere 30) and young legs means this lineup can run up and down the court with any team all night. This lineup has Bosh at the 5, however, where he has said numerous times he would like to avoid playing.

Best smallball lineup: Chalmers, Wade, Miller, James, Bosh. Although this lineup isn’t really especially small, especially with a frontcourt measuring 6’8”-6’8”-6’10”, it does offer a style of play that may resemble a strategy that Heat fans see this season: a non-center-dominated, pass-happy version of the Heat that scores 120+ every night. We may not see this lineup for extended minutes, however, given Bosh’s expressed desire not to play minutes at the 5. The smallball option was especially difficult to piece together given the height of the roster this year.

Best bigball lineup: James, Miller, Haslem, Bosh, Big Z. No one on this roster is under 6’8”.  This is a big, intimidating squad. Although Ilgauskas leaves a bit to be desired on the boards, this look should be horrifying to opposing teams, and may even double as a secondary best-defense roster. With LBJ at the point-forward, which he played in his first season in Cleveland, distribution will be more than adequate. Even shooting will be taken care of with Big Z’s ability from beyond 16 feet and Mike Miller’s deadeye from beyond the arch. This lineup is scary.

Best three-point shooting lineup: Chalmers, Wade, Miller, Jones, Big Z. Both Chalmers and Wade can distribute and shoot and Mike Miller and James Jones are money from beyond the arch. Even Big Z has shooting chops from beyond 16 feet. More importantly, all of these players are efficient passers as well. With D-Wade and LeBron’s abilities to dribble-drive and distribute, as well as opponents’ need to cover both players with a double team, this lineup could shoot the lights out for 10 minutes every night.

Most intriguing lineup: Wade, Miller, Jones, James, Bosh. This is a big squad with two deadeye shooters, three players that command a double team, strength, speed… it’s insane that Pat Reilly has pulled this together. The only problem here is that Bosh has said repeatedly that he doesn’t want to get stuck playing the 5. If Heat fans see this look, again, it will be limited because of Bosh’s desire to play the 4, although it may grow on him if the Heat start scoring 140 points per night. Seriously, this is the Globetrotters lineup.

If you’re following along in Simmons’ book, you’ll realize I’ve left off the free-throw lineup and the murderous press. Because Miami is good, not great at free throws on the new roster, with most players shooting around 75%, it would interest very few to come up with an entire lineup for shooting from the charity stripe. The murderous press is an idea Simmons took from Rick Pitino. Pitino is paraphrased in the book as describing 4 or 5 bench players who would come in for 4 minutes at the end of halves and play the nastiest press defense ever seen, creating mayhem for the other team’s offense. These players would spend portions of each practice together working on the “murderous press,” fighting bears, going for days without food, punching each other in the groin, and basically just being hardasses. Spoelstra needs ‘em mean. While this is intriguing, a murderous press seems a bit off the table considering the seeming offensive focus of this team.

But for the hell of it, stick whichever guard signs (Hasbrouck or Arroyo probably), Juwan Howard (if he signs), Joel Anthony, Jamaal Magloire, and Dexter Pittman together for 30 minutes during practice while everyone else watches the mayhem develop. What could it hurt?

The one thing that Simmons was adamant about is that a winning team has to have good chemistry. Throughout the book, there are examples of successful players on winning teams that embodied the team mentality. The Heat have so many options next season, it will be ridiculous. Heat fans have a lot to be excited about, and one of those things is the chemistry that the team will grow into; the Three Kings obviously have chemistry in their friendship, but not one player on the Heat has shown himself to be a “me first” player. Expect lots of passing and lots of points, and maybe, if NBA fans are lucky, multiple new looks.

My blog is here. Thanks for reading!