A random revelation on the Miami Thrice

It began in Japan...

BallinEurope may be a bit slow on the uptake with this one, but it appears most everyone else fascinated with the newly-created Lebron James/Dwyane Wade/Chris Bosh threesome over in Miami Heat land has missed it, too.

It’s now pretty much taken for granted that “The Decision” – or rather more appropriately “The Amalgamation” – was planned for about four years (or at least “months” as the increasingly foot-in-mouthed Wade would have it). Apparently, the Miami Thrice decided that they were just having so much fun playing together during the 2006 FIBA World Championship that they should try to, you know, make it a reality in the NBA.

Except …

…didn’t Team USA finish third in that tournament, essentially duplicating the feat of the highly disappointing 2004 Olympic team? Wasn’t Carmelo Anthony seen as the best international-style player on that team, leading the USA in scoring and becoming the only Yank on the all-tourney team? Didn’t the bronze-medal “win” in the 2006 Worlds dump America into an unprecedented no. 3 spot in the FIBA rankings?

Wasn’t James just the 19th-highest scorer in the competition, despite managing an incredible tournament-high 67.1% two-point shooting? Wasn’t Bosh ranked a mighty 70th overall in rebounding, just behind the likes of New Zealand’s Phillip Jones, Qatar’s Ali Turki Ali, and Senegal’s Jules Richard Aw? Didn’t Team USA finish a sad fifth in team rebounding, edging one-time Barkley fodder Angola by a whopping 0.2 boards per game?

Finally, didn’t it take Kobe The Killer to put Team USA (even a Team USA loaded with the future Miami Thrice, ’Melo and Dwight Howard) back over the top in 2008?

Just saying is all.

Have a ball in Miami, guys! And hey, even if a proven quantity like the Boston Celtics or Orlando Magic knocks you headliners off “early” in the playoffs, perhaps you can throw a nice beach party and watch the 2011 NBA Championship together. That’ll be fun.

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Comments: 3
  1. Alex
    9 years ago

    This is horribly revisionist and filled with irrelevant information. Coach K, for whatever reason, didn’t play James, Wade, and Bosh consistently at all. I remember him substituting entire lineups out every five or six game mins, even when the three–James especially–was playing amazingly well. You can’t put up good numbers if you don’t play; and you can’t find a rythm if you don’t play for extended minutes. Since James, Wade, and Bosh were hardly not the only members of that team–indeed, they didn’t play nearly as much as they should have, I find it hard to find error in this decision with how the WC unfolded four years ago, when these guys were still very young. On an individual level, if you had put Bosh on Angola, he likely would have led the tournament in rebounds; if you had put James on any other team, he would have been the tournament’s leading scorer; Wade probably would have been up there as well.

    What does Carmelo Anthony being thought of as the best international player in 2006 have anything, at all, to do with the legitimacy of their decision? They were planning on playing together in the NBA, not for some Euroleauge team. It was pretty clearly established that Wade and James were better NBA players than Anthony at that point, while Bosh wasn’t too far behind.

    Why don’t you look closer at what they did during the 2008 Olympics–which probably would have been won without Kobe Bryant?

    Anyway, this is all a moot point when you’re cutting to the chase of it, which entails discussing the issue at hand: those guys wanted to play in the NBA, on a single team; not at a FIBA tournament.

    I find it ironic how you cite the Boston Celtics, who did something similar three seasons ago–with a lesser threesome–and still dominated the NBA en route to an NBA championship.

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  2. majkemi
    9 years ago

    …Finally, didn’t it take Kobe The Killer to put Team USA (even a Team USA loaded with the future Miami Thrice, ’Melo and Dwight Howard) back over the top in 2008?…

    D-Wade (16ppg, 4rpg, 1.9apg, 27 points in final) was the 1st scorer of the team while LeBron (15.5ppg, 5.3rpg, 3.8apg) was the 2nd. Crish Bosh (9.1ppg, 6.1rpg, fg% 77.4) was the leading rebounder.

    Black Mamba? 15 ppg, 2.8 rpg, 2.1 apg

    I would say the ‘Miami Trice’ led the Yanks to the gold medal.

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  3. 9 years ago

    @ Alex, Majkemi: i admit it; i’m among the legion of Heat haters right now and surely my vitriol shows in this piece. I couldn’t help it — i literally woke up at 2.30am thinking about 2006 again and couldn’t get back to sleep.

    As a fervent Team USA backer, i was extremely disappointed with the 2006 team. Statistics aside (and that’s tough for a stat monkey like me), i couldn’t believe how timid those all-stars looked in that tournament generally, culminating in the Greece game.

    I have noticed in myself as well as the mainstream media the lack of complaining about the Celtics’ acquisition of a couple of studs to go with their franchise player, but somehow that felt different with two of the NBA’s accepted “good guys,” i.e. Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett being involved. I realize that’s a weak excuse, but:

    Two things differ between the 2007-08 Celtics and 2010-11 Heat: One, Lebron utterly eviscerated Cleveland with his conspiracies and “look at me” peepshow on ESPN; two, the 2008 Celtics slowly evolved into the present-day C’s with one of the NBA’s most compelling players in Rajon Rondo and the might-have-gone-undiscovered Kendrick Perkins. I see no future for the Heat 3 as they pick and choose minimum-pay veterans that won’t mess with the “harmony” of their big names for short-term gain. (Funny, i thought a basketball team — “Ubuntu” or no — required 12 players including role-playing guys.)

    Finally, as for the “Kobe the Killer” comment, i didn’t mean he dominated statistically but let’s face it: that 2006 team was totally without dagger-throwers, assassins, finishers, closers (whatever you want to call it) until Bryant came along and wasn’t afraid to take over the big games in the clutch. Argentina had Ginobili, Germany had Nowitzki, Russia had J.R. Holden for god’s sake, but until Kobe was there, that final shot was up for grabs — much to the team’s detriment, in my opinion.

    But as Dennis Miller so famously said: “Of course, that’s just my opinion. I could be wrong.”

    Thanks for reading!

    Cheers,
    Os.

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ballineurope
9 years ago 4 Comments FIBA, More, NBA/NCAA, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,