When last night’s blockbuster Carmelo trade broke, I posted some quick thoughts on twitter about why I think the Knicks made an outstanding deal, and to my surprise I appear to be in the minority expressing that sentiment. Digging deeper, here are my full thoughts on the deal from the Knicks’ perspective.

Looking at the Knicks’ incoming and outgoing players and assets, they sent out Raymond Felton, Danilo Gallinari, Wilson Chandler, Timofey Mozgov, Anthony Randolph, Eddy Curry, a 2014 first round pick, a 2012 second round pick, a 2013 second round pick, and $6 million in cash. In return, they received Chauncey Billups, Carmelo Anthony, Corey Brewer, Shelden Williams, Renaldo Balkman, and Anthony Carter.

The first subjects of note in this deal from the Knicks’ perspective are the non-immediate assets, namely the picks and cash. At first glance, the Knicks appear to have given up quite a lot of assets, but it’s important to remember that the Knicks’ massive financial resources make some assets relatively less important to them, compared to what they’re worth to other teams. The $6 million in cash is pretty much irrelevant from an assets perspective to the Knicks, and the same can be said for all three of the picks as well, as NBA draft picks in the 20-60 range every year have shown over time to have cash equivalents of $3 million or less (which is the maximum allowable cash that can be sent from one team to another in a transaction).

Looking at this past year’s draft, the #25 and #31 picks were both sold for straight cash, while the 2009 draft saw #29, #32, #34, #54, and #57 traded for cash considerations, to say nothing of the multiple other deals where teams moved up in the draft or acquired new picks by taking on unwanted salary (see Kurt Thomas, Daequan Cook, Kirk Hinrich, Morris Peterson, Sasha Vujacic deals in the past few seasons as examples, among the many, many others).

The point of the matter is for the Knicks, draft picks that fall after a certain point in the draft have a cash equivalent on the trade market, and cash is not really an issue for the Knicks. While it’s easy to discount the relative importance of $3 million, some may still not be convinced, but let’s not forget that the Knicks $60-70 million in team salary this season is just half of what it was just five years ago when their annual salary hovered in the $120-$130 million range. And now they have a product worth seeing and are going to be in the playoffs, meaning even more revenues to offset costs (which would be still down from five years ago even if they bought 10 draft picks).

Some assets in the NBA are easily replaceable while others are not. Late first round picks and all second round picks have cash equivalents on the market, and that makes them virtually unlimited for the Knicks (at least to the extent they’d ever need them – they only have 15 roster spots after all). This situation isn’t comparable to when the Knicks wound up trading away two high lottery picks for Eddy Curry, as those assets have massive value and are extremely hard to replace. Late picks can be acquired easily, where as high lottery picks are extremely difficult to acquire, though even that difficulty pales in comparison to what it takes to acquire already established NBA stars in their prime.

So when you accept the notion that the Knicks’ picks and cash are largely irrelevant in this deal, it makes it easier to analyze the rest. For the purposes of simplicity, we can throw out Eddy Curry, Anthony Randolph, Renaldo Balkman, and Anthony Carter from discussions, as none of them have meaningful impact in the league this season and none of them had value greater than a $3 million cash equivalent from a future perspective. What that leaves us with is a straight 4-for-4 player swap, and that’s what needs to be looked at to analyze how the Knicks made out.

Much has been said about the Knicks gutting their assets to acquire Carmelo, about how they have a paper thin rotation, about how they don’t have any depth in the frontcourt, and about how they have no margin of error going forward because of all the assets they gave up. When you actually break down the key components to this deal, however, things don’t look so grim for the Knicks, especially compared to what they had before.

Comparing the 10-11 season numbers of Anthony, Billups, Brewer, and S.Williams to Gallinari, Felton, Chandler, and Mozgov, there’s a remarkable similarity in the incoming and outgoing. Essentially, the Knicks are replacing four rotation players with four rotation players, consisting of a point guard, two wings, and one center.

Comparing the combined per-game numbers of the quartets, the new group has averaged 109.0 MPG this season, compared to 121.2 for the outgoing. The discrepancy largely comes from Brewer averaging just 24.3 minutes compared to Chandler’s 34.4, and presumably some combination of Brewer along with Shawne Williams and Bill Walker will fill in the gap for the Knicks. Regardless, this isn’t a dramatic change for the Knicks, who basically are getting close to equal minutes coming back (and they’re coming from the Nuggets, who have quite clearly been a better team than the Knicks thus far this season when you consider their better record in a tougher conference).

Looking at the rest of the numbers, you have 42.6 FGA per game outgoing compared to 42.0 incoming, 53.4 points outgoing to 55.0 incoming, and 13.0 FTA outgoing to 18.1 incoming. There’s a little give and take here or there, but the notion that the Knicks gutted their roster to acquire one guy is simplistic and largely inaccurate, as the two quartets are close to identical from a minutes, usage, and production standpoint.

Breaking things down further, there is actually some disparity in regards to shot locations for the quartets, unsurprising given the Knicks’ three-point shooting and Carmelo’s love of the long two-point jump shot. The chart below shows a breakdown of how many FGA per game from each range are incoming and outgoing for the Knicks for the eight main players involved in the deal.

The biggest disparity comes in the ratio of long two pointers to three pointers attempted, with them being essentially inverted for the two groups. Theoretically, this could be problematic for D’Antoni’s offense, but slight adjustments could be made from multiple players to offset the difference.

While the new guys have a higher propensity for taking long two pointers, surprisingly the groups have nearly identical True Shooting Percentages, both hovering at about 55% in total. Billups' elite scoring efficiency (63.4% TS%) balances out Carmelo’s league average 54.7%, while the group as a whole makes up for their propensity for long jumpers by attacking the rim much better than the outgoing players, averaging 2.3 more attempts per game at the rim and 5.1 more free-throw attempts despite taking the same number of field goal attempts overall.

Shot locations and free-throw attempts only tell part of the story, however, as Sebastian Pruiti of NBAPlaybook.com illustrates many microelements of how Anthony and Billups may struggle to fit in with the Knicks’ offense here, but looking at things purely from a location perspective, the adjustments for incoming players won’t be THAT dramatic. It’s also worth noting the Knicks to this point have attempted the second most threes and third fewest long twos per game according to our Shot Locations database, so drifting to a more average distribution will make them slightly less dramatic.

Looking at the specific players themselves, the first concern is how Anthony and Stoudemire will mesh. Concerns about two players who take on so much offensive burden fitting together are ill-founded, which can be quickly seen comparing the pairs current numbers to others around the league. Anthony and Stoudemire have the third and sixth highest usage rates in the league, respectively, which is the highest combination of any two players, but Lebron and Wade aren’t far behind at fourth and seventh, while Durant and Westbrook are surprisingly right there as well at 8th and 9th. There should be a slight adjustment for Anthony and Amare, but it’s a marginal one, and there is precedent for this type of pairing working for sure.

The bigger concern is how the two fit from a stylistic perspective, as both are players who like to face-up and isolate from the mid-to-long range, getting most of their shots either on long two point jumpers or attacking the basket. Lebron and Wade have similar compatibility problems, and it’s been a work in progress for them, but ultimately the talent overcomes if the two players are willing to work at it. The bigger problem for Amare and Anthony is whether they can even be placed in the same universe with those two on the defensive end of the floor, where neither has had much history for being go-getters. Still, using Lebron James and Dwyane Wade as your basis for comparison may not be the easiest standard to measure up to.

As for the rest of the deal, you’d be hard pressed to argue that Chauncey Billups isn’t a clear upgrade over Raymond Felton for the next 16 months, and that’s all that really matters for the Knicks given Felton’s deal expires after the 11-12 season. Even at 34 years old, Billups is still going strong, as his unbelievable ability to hit pull-up threes is a somewhat ageless quality and makes him a much better fit for D'Antoni's system.

As much potential as Mozgov has (probably not much), you’d also have a tough time arguing he’s better for the present than Shelden Williams, who was playing more minutes than Mozgov this season on a clearly better team, while he also was a solid rotational player for the East-best Celtics last season. At 27 with limited athleticism and a bruising style of play, Williams should be able to contribute as an end-of-the-rotation big for another two or three seasons at his current level, so that’s not an issue either.

That leaves Anthony and Brewer against Gallinari and Chandler, and that’s essentially what this deal will come down to when it’s all said and done. Gallinari and Chandler are very good players and worthwhile assets in their own right, but Chandler is a free agent this summer and the Knicks couldn’t sign him to an extension without using virtually all of their cap space, as he’s likely to command around $8 million annually in the current market. Whether those two can develop into key starters for NBA playoff teams is yet to be seen, but even with them at their full potential, it’s hard to compare them against Anthony, a clear-cut star who’s succeeded as the offensive focal point for a team that’s been among the 5-6 best in the league the past few seasons and is still just 26 years old.

While assets like late draft picks and cash can be replaced by the Knicks at any time, teams could try for years and years and not have the opportunity to get a player of Anthony’s caliber, a truly scarce commodity in the NBA. In this league, your best three or four players are usually significantly more important than the rest of your roster (especially on a cash cow team like the Knicks, who can find creative ways to replace those guys quite easily), and there just aren’t many opportunities to fill those top spots often. Everything the Knicks gave up other than Gallinari/Chandler is easily replaceable using their endless supply of cash, and it’s not like the Knicks had a surplus of cap space waiting for them as an opportunity cost this summer – even with a favorable outcome of CBA negotiations they were nowhere close to being in position to sign a max player (and that’s AFTER you consider they’d have to renounce the rights to Chandler anyhow).

Whether Anthony and Amare can work in harmony will be an ongoing struggle, and there are some concerns about how all the key pieces will fit at the top of the Knicks’ roster in D’Antoni’s system, but from a value and opportunity perspective, it’s hard to find fault with the Knicks making this deal. As much as people opine about the Knicks having little margin for error moving forward and that they will have limited opportunities to improve themselves, I honestly can’t see many more opportunities if they stood pat, and competing with the NBA’s elite teams is no easy task, while there’s always a small window to get everything together. This is their best shot, and they’ll have plenty of chances to make it work if the front office can stay creative and aggressive in using their cash to accumulate complementary assets over time.

After establishing himself as a legitimate star in his sophomore season, Russell Westbrook has exploded in his third year in the NBA, earning his first All-Star bid while posting some extremely impressive numbers all across the board. The clear cut second best player on one of the best teams in the Western Conference, Westbrook is already placing himself in the conversation with the best point guards in the league despite being just 22 years old.

Breaking down his numbers, Westbrook has improved in nearly every area this season, and ranks among the top players in the league in a few critical categories. The most noteworthy statistic for Westbrook this year is his Usage Rate, which measures the percentage of team possessions a players uses in his time on the floor. After posting a solid rate of 25.70 last year, Westbrook has skyrocketed to 31.12 this season, the eighth highest rate in the entire league. While this sounds impressive in and of itself, it helps to take a step back and look at the seven guys ahead of him: Kobe Bryant, Carmelo Anthony, Lebron James, Dwyane Wade, Derrick Rose, Amare Stoudemire, and Kevin Durant.

The interesting thing about Westbrook's drastic spike in possessions this season is that his scoring efficiency has actually gone up as much as his usage has, a strange occurrence in basketball. Typically, as one's usage increases, one's efficiency will decline, as at a certain point a player needs to start taking more difficult shots in order to add to his possessions. Seeing efficiency and usage both increase dramatically simultaneously is extremely rare, and it's remarkable Westbrook has managed to do it at this level.

Westbrook has managed to bump his True Shooting Percentage from 49.1% to 53.7% this season, compared to the league average of 54.2%. On first glance, this would appear to be a striking blow against Westbrook, but there are other factors to consider. For one, Westbrook is one of the most ball dominant players in the league, creating his own shot more than almost any player in the NBA. Westbrook is assisted on just 17.3% of his field goal makes. The only other player in the league averaging 20+ minutes per game who is assisted less? Steve Nash.

Beyond that, one must consider the effect Westbrook has on his teammates, as with him creating so much offense and accounting for many of the difficult shots the team has to take, it improves the efficiency of others. To illustrate this with some other examples, Derrick Rose and Carmelo Anthony both have comparable TS%'s to Westbrook, while he isn't far behind Kobe Bryant either.

Looking at where Westbrook is getting his shots on the floor, there is more reason why Westbrook's TS% has yet to reach elite levels: he doesn't have consistent three-point range (only 1.2 of his 17.3 FGA per game come from behind the arc, and he’s hitting at just 28.8%). For guards who can't stroke the long ball, it's very rare for players to eclipse league average scoring efficiency, especially when forced to create at the rate Westbrook does. With the spot-up three-pointer being one of the most efficient shots in basketball, not having it in your arsenal makes it very tough to reach elite scoring efficiency, as hitting a 23-foot jumper will give you 50% greater returns than hitting a 22-footer, something that can quickly add up.

On the positive side, Westbrook does get high efficiency shots in other ways, namely with his ability to fearlessly attack the rim both in the halfcourt and in transition. Averaging 6.8 FGA at the rim per game (5th most in the league) and 8.2 FTA per game (8th most in the league), Westbrook is already among the league's best at getting to the basket. Scoring on a strong 57.9% FG% at the rim and a scorching 84.8% on free throws, Westbrook is very efficient in this area, and it's worth noting his at-rim percentage his risen 5 percentage points in each of his seasons in the league, making you wonder where the 22-year-old's ceiling even is.

Looking beyond scoring to the rest of his game, Westbrook is dishing out 8.6 assists per game, 8th best in the NBA, and his Turnover Rate (turnovers per possession used) of 15.58 is below the league average of 16.03 and has declined steadily each of his three seasons in the league. Westbrook's 8.4 Rebound Rate is also best among every point guard in the league, partly by design in the Thunder's system, but no doubt due to Westbrook's rangy athletic abilities and excellent pursuit skills as well.

Given his remarkable learning curve (seeing where he is now compared to a freshman at UCLA five seasons ago, you would barely even recognize him), amazing work ethic, and superb free-throw shooting, the likelihood of him developing into a reliable three-point shooter is higher than would be for most third year players. And if he can do that, people may not end the discussion at Westbrook just being in the conversation of the best point guards in the league, as he's already among the league's best point guards in virtually every other facet of the game.

Added some minor stuff to the team stats page this past week, most notably having numerical rankings alongside every team stats page, which can be seen here.

I've also added alternate versions of the Shot Location and Opponent Shot Location pages, which show percentage of shots taken from each area of the floor as opposed to raw Makes/Attempts on the original page. This is useful for looking at shot distribution across the league, as viewing them as percentages means pace doesn't matter, which was a problem when trying to compare between teams with the old version. You can toggle back and forth between Shot Location page versions by using the link at the bottom of those pages.

Hopefully will get around to adding some other new features in the coming weeks, but will be in South Padre Island for the D-League Showcase the next four days and then Springfield, Massachusetts for a High School Showcase this weekend, so stat updates may be a bit delayed the next week or so.

Coming into the 2010 NBA Draft, practically anyone who relied on a statistical system for projecting NBA players had DeMarcus Cousins rated as the best player in the draft, and that’s not surprising given his gaudy college numbers: 58% TS%, 24.5 points per 40 pace adjusted, 15.9 rebounds per 40 pace adjusted, 0.73 FTA/FGA, etc. What stats don’t take into account, however, is players who are forced to (or in this case, choose to) make role changes once they reach the NBA, and anyone who scouted Cousins closely (especially dating back to high school) could’ve told you there’s a good chance he would make some stylistic changes to his offensive game in the pros. Based on his seven-game preseason sample, it looks like that’s exactly what has happened, and it isn’t for the better.

In the NCAA, DeMarcus Cousins was a bruising post player who physically overpowered everyone he faced, spending virtually all of his time operating in the painted area on the offensive end, leading him to post absurd rates of pulling in offensive rebound and getting to the free-throw line. In the pros, he still has a size and strength advantage against most centers, but if preseason is any indication, he’s already shying away from making consistent use of those skills, reverting back to the lackadaisical perimeter style he was known for in high school.

Thus far in the preseason, according to Synergy Sports Technology, Cousins has attempted 20 jump shots compared to 39 shots at the basket, which at first glance appears to be a pretty good ratio. Comparing it to what he did last season at Kentucky, however, it’s quite the fall off, as Cousins attempted 24 jump shots compared to 170 shots at the basket in his time there! Further, Cousins’ post efficiency has fallen off considerably, down to 0.77 points per possession from 0.93. On the whole, Cousins’ PPP in preseason was 0.83 on all possessions, compared to 1.00 in college.

Operating with a seven-game sample size against preseason competition, it’s hard to put too much confidence in the efficiency numbers, while there is some fall-off to be expected going against much higher levels of competition and having to adjust to the new game regardless. On the other hand, the shot selection tendencies are concerning, as that is largely a matter of choice, and watching the tape confirms reason for concern.

To his credit, on the 20 jump shots he took in preseason, Cousins scored 23 points, which is very good efficiency, but even if he maintains that in the long-term, he’s doing his team a disservice by spending so much time away from the basket, which takes away his two greatest strengths: the ability to draw fouls and his dominance on the offensive glass. Indeed, his FTA/FGA was a pedestrian 0.40 in the preseason, nearly half what it was in college, while his offensive rebounds per 40 dropped from 6.9 to 4.8. Another effect of his increased reliance on the perimeter game is his turnover rate rising from 0.15 per possession to 0.17, likely to rise even more if he keeps up this style in the pros, where regular season defense will be much stouter.

Watching his preseason games, Cousins isn’t working nearly as hard at establishing deep post possession, and when he does get the ball he’s relying far more frequently on finesse moves like turnaround jumpers from 10 feet out as opposed to trying to back his man down and get to the rim or draw the foul. His spot-up jumper has been falling frequently, and to his credit he hasn’t completely devolved into thinking he’s capable of taking jump shots off the dribble, but it wouldn’t be surprising if he did, as he did it frequently in high school.

Cousins’ face-up game has been a bit of a double-edged sword in preseason, as on one hand he is more agile than most centers he faces while at the same time having a size, strength, and length advantage, which makes him extremely deadly when he turns in for one-dribble drives out of the mid and high post. While Cousins has taken advantage of this thus far, he doesn’t realize this doesn’t work as well when he is operating off the wing as opposed to in the post, as he doesn’t have the ball-handling or change of direction ability to take his man off the dribble consistently from that far out, something that will lead to many turnovers.

As for other areas, you can already see minor indications of Cousins’ defensive rotations and running of the floor falling off, with him taking off plays and not staying completely involved on that end of the floor, and it’s something that could become even more concerning as the season wears on and the Kings inevitably rack up the losses. At Kentucky, Cousins had a demanding coach who draws a ton of respect, excellent leaders around him in John Wall and Patrick Patterson, was winning every game, and was playing for an NBA contract, four motivating factors that certainly helped keep him in line. With all of those things gone and 3.4million guaranteed in his pocket this season, what will he do when things start going awry?

With Samuel Dalembert ailing with a sore thigh early in the season, minutes will be readily available for Cousins, and the Kings have shown they will force feed minutes and possessions to their young players regardless of performance, so he should have plenty of opportunities to disprove the many concerns around his game (and plenty of opportunities to score lots of points, regardless of possession efficiency).

Things didn’t get off to a good start in preseason, but ultimately it’s just a seven-game sample of largely garbage time and the results don’t mean a thing, so this could easily have been a minor aberration that is quickly put behind him when his season tips off tonight. Given the mounting concerns around his game coming into the draft, however, these developments obviously aren’t encouraging, and if Cousins wants to live up to his potential in the NBA, he will need to remember why he was so highly regarded as a prospect and why he dominated statistically in college, as if he gets away from those things, things could derail rather quickly.

While the Miami Heat managed to make the final score a respectable 80-88 against the Boston Celtics in their opening night matchup, the game was not very competitive for most of the night, with the Heat playing far below the expectations many set for them. The Heat finished the game with just an 87.9 Offensive Efficiency, and the offensive problems were far more severe than a problem of mere chemistry or unfamiliarity. Here are some of the key themes to why things went so wrong:

Link to Advanced Box Score

The Problem with Joel Anthony

Joel Anthony is a solid rotation player in the NBA, a great athlete capable of making contributions on defense and the boards, and theoretically he is exactly the kind of hustle player you’d expect to fit in well with a trio of All-Stars. This isn’t your every day trio of All-Stars, however, and there are a few reasons why he is not such an ideal fit.

From an offensive perspective, all of LeBron James, Chris Bosh, and Dwyane Wade are players who operate predominantly inside the three-point line, all being players who get to the rim very frequently. Because of this, putting a player with Joel Anthony’s lack of perimeter game on the floor with them can make things very crowded, severely hurting floor spacing and allowing top-tier defensive teams like the Celtics the ability to seriously take advantage of aggressive help defense. It also clogs up the pick-and-roll game, as it allows the opposition to double hard off Anthony onto the ball-handler, while Anthony isn’t much of a threat to do anything if he receives the pass.

From a defensive perspective, you’d think Anthony’s abilities would be a big-time help to a trio of stars, many of whom don’t have a reputation for applying themselves equally on both sides of the ball, but again, these are not your typical All-Stars, as all of them are well above average, if not elite, defenders in this league. While the roster is largely different, it’s important to remember that the Heat actually ranked third in the league in Defensive Efficiency last year, and their coach clearly knows what he’s doing on this end of the floor. Combine all of those things together and Anthony’s contributions here are largely negligible, a big problem when his presence on offense can throw such a wrench into everything.

We Want Z!

On the contrary to Joel Anthony, Zydrunas Ilgauskas is a player who has the perfect offensive skill-set to complement the big three, being a highly intelligent player with the perimeter jumper and passing game to really open things up for the team. It’s no surprise that Ilgauskas posted a +17 +/- on the night in just 11 minutes (while everyone other than James was in the negative on the game), playing almost all of those minutes in the third quarter alongside James, where the Heat outscored the Celtics 27-18.

Ilgauskas’ benefits to the offense are multi-fold, first in terms of general floor spacing by being a potent catch-and-shoot option with three-point range and second by being the best pick-and-pop big man on the team outside of Bosh, a critical skill to have when playing alongside Wade and James.  Beyond that, it’s readily apparent he puts James a lot more at ease when they’re playing together, something the Heat really need from their primary ball-handler and scorer.

Defensively, Ilgauskas is underrated as a positional defender, though he clearly is a liability in the pick-and-roll game at this point of his career. Still, with three players who have the elite size, length, and athleticism like the Heat’s do, this is something that can be covered up, especially relative to the problems Joel Anthony brings on the offensive end. As strange as it sounds, the Heat’s role players around the big three are better served helping on offense than defense when you consider the coach’s strong points and the elite abilities of their stars.

Mis-Utilization of Chris Bosh

Chris Bosh had a terrible game offensively, largely in part to excellent team defense by the Celtics, excellent individual defense by Kevin Garnett, and very poor play by himself, but seeing where he was getting the ball in Miami’s offense is extremely concerning, especially considering what the Raptors’ offense was able to do for him.

Despite Steve Kerr’s repeated cries during the broadcast that Chris Bosh can’t post up, Bosh is actually one of the best post-up players in the entire NBA, ranking in the 90th percentile in post efficiency according to Synergy last season, scoring 1.09 PPP on a ridiculous 549 possessions in 70 games played. Only seven players in the entire NBA posted up for more possessions than Bosh last year (despite Bosh missing 12 games), and the closest to him in efficiency was Tim Duncan at 1.04 PPP!

So what went wrong against the Celtics? For one, nearly all of Bosh’s post-up opportunities saw him catching the ball 10 feet or more away from the basket, while the help defense the Celtics sent off Joel Anthony certainly didn’t help matters either. Pairing Bosh with a more threatening big man and using more off ball action in terms of screens and movement to free him down low will be critical to the Heat this year, and they’ll need to show a lot more creativity in getting him the ball this way in the future, as there was virtually none of it last night.

The Problem with Dwyane Wade and LeBron James

This may be the most concerning and critical factor of all in the quest for a championship, as even if the Heat sort out their rotation, floor spacing, and utilization of other players, it won’t be enough to save them from errant decision-making from their stars, not in series against the Magic, Celtics, and Lakers.

Too often last night it seemed to be decided with more than half the shot clock remaining that the best option for the Heat was for James or Wade to isolate their man and pull up for a 20-foot contested jumper, which worked about as well as you’d expect it to work. Having players with elite shot creating abilities like this is a massive luxury when the shot clock is running down or your team is down and you need someone to take over, both of which we saw on many occasions last night. But on the other hand, it is very much a double-edged sword if you allow it to bog down your normal halfcourt offense, and this it will be very important for James and Wade to tone down these tendencies, if not for the regular season (where they can get away with it against 75% of the league) then for inevitable postseason matchups against other elite teams. 

The other question here is will Erik Spoelstra have the willingness to really come down hard on his stars when they derail the offense (and likewise will the stars have the respect for him to listen). The silver lining here is all three of the Heat’s stars are highly competitive and want to win, plus with expectations so high they shouldn’t be content with letting things go sour for too long. Still, Pat Riley is obviously lurking in the wings, and the more performances we see like last night’s, the more the public will speculate about Riley descending from the front office to the sidelines once again.

Looking Forward

It’s easy to overreact about things based on one game, and the fact that the Heat only lost by eight and were within one possession with a minute to go last night despite playing so poorly puts in perspective how dangerous this team can be when they get things in full gear. Still, many of their problems won’t go away without adjustments, and it will be interesting to see how creative the coaching staff is in making them. The return of Mike Miller and Mario Chalmers to the lineup in the future will certainly help things from a floor spacing perspective, but it’s easy to see the Joel Anthony problem becoming a recurring issue against elite defenses should they keep their frontcourt rotation the same. Luckily for us fans, we only have to wait ‘til Friday’s game against the Magic to see another such match-up, where the Heat will obviously be looking to make a statement given how poorly their debut went against the Celtics.