Do The Heat Have The Fire to Compete in The East??

Dwyane Wade and Lebron James were seen shopping together in San Francisco over the weekend and the fire was once again stoked for the exciting yet improbable offseason reunion in South Beach.  Would the rest of the league simply throw in the towel?  Could that dynamic duo ever be stopped?  How much would the season ticket price hike be?  All of this speculation doens't matter to all of us true Heat fans at the moment.  What we need to know is... Does this current squad have what it takes to be playing deep into the postseason?  Or can we stop sitting on the edge of our seats and sit back until the final whistle blows on the '09-'10 NBA calendar?? 

I personally have had enough of the back and forth frustration of 30 point wins countered with 30 point losses. The Heat currently sit on the comfortable side of .500, but it seems at any point the bottom could fall out for good. While the Mayor of Wade County has shown that he is still a top 3 player in the league, the rest of the ramshackle crew has been either hit lightly or miss badly on a night to night basis. 

The phenom that is SupaCoolBeas has shown that he can either dominate or simply let the center stage get the better of him.  It's been feast or famine for the second year star in the making and Wade clearly needs a more consistent #2 man.  Jermaine O'Neal isn't worth half of his confounding contract and the minutes seem like years when he is lazily manning the post.  Mario Chalmers has gone from gem of the draft to 3rd point man depth chart.  Carlos Arroyo was a seviceable replacement for a while, but now Skip To My Loo Alston is back in the starting spot.  The addition of Wade's long time friend Quentin Richardson hasn't been a total disaster, but it's either 4-7 or 1-10 when he steps behind his beloved three point arc. 

And last but certainly not least is the man who has paid the dearest through this transition period, Miami native and fan favorite Udonis Haslem.  He has been nothing short of the picture of professionalism by taking a backseat off the bench.  He continues to bang the boards and knock down his patented 15 footers with relative ease.  He would be starting on every other NBA squad, but Pat Riley clearly knows something that the rest of the elite executives do not.

Now back to the future for a moment. The Heat are the only team in the NBA that has the cap space and the cojones to pull off the megadeal that would land Miami 2 of the 3 best players in the league for the long haul.  Michael had Scottie in Chicago, but this would be like Magic having Bird on his wing!!!   Riley and owner Mickey Arison have done so much to prepare for this upcoming offseason, that even after possibly wooing Lebron to depart Cleveland for the sunny skies of South Beach, they will have the capacity to bring in another top tier talent to complete the trifecta.   Pile on a Joe Johnson or a Chris Bosh and you have what could be a decade long dynasty.

Well the weather is finally heating back up in South Florida...