Miami Heat: Why Every Game They Play Is Must-Watch TV

This time a year ago, you couldn't get me to watch a Heat game. I just didn't see the point; to me, it was like watching a movie when you knew the end already. I would scoff at people who treated a Miami win like it was news, and would lament the two-and-a-half hours they'd forever lost watching it.

LeBron James and Dwyane Wade are amazing, they'd tell me. I'll catch the highlight reel, I'd tell them. However, after avoiding the game of emotional Russian roulette that was watching the Finals hoping for Miami to lose, I watched them after it was over and I realized I had been mistaken.

Not because Dallas won; I still believe the odds are stacked overwhelmingly in favor of the Heat, and we're closer than we've ever been to actual game play being utterly moot (you can quote me on that.)

It was the way Wade played, especially with his back against the wall. The way he kept delivering—key turnovers aside—in the first real pressure he'd seen all year that showed me there was still some dramatic basketball left in Wade. He reminded me of his clutchy old self, before his two super-sidekicks brought a whiff of Globetrotterish simplicity to his every move in 2010-11.

Now, I'm learning to detach myself from my angst over the painfully inevitable, and I'm capable of watching Miami Heat basketball without rolling my eyes every basket they score. 

It was no revelation that on a purely non-partisan, aesthetic level, this is must-see basketball. Add to it a veritable buffet of off-court media highlights, and you have the only team in sports with its own bonus content.  

The Miami Heat experience is not much basketball as it is theater. From top to bottom, this team provides a spectacle like no other in sports history. The sheer displays of histrionic drama this team is capable of putting on is the stuff soap operas are made of—witness the laughing, the crying, the external antagonism, this whole tragicomedic pathos manufactured just right for the camera.

The Heat's main players have such a visible off-court presence, and this sideshow can get to be so much you forget their primary purpose is not to be seen and reported on, but to actually play basketball. You watch LeBron stumble through his little side-quest to rehab his image with hilariously transparent sound bites and you think, "Who needs a sitcom when you have people interviewing this guy?" 

Then you remember there's a reason there's so much attention on this guy: He's kind of the best at what he does. There's a mystique about him on the court (anytime before June) that makes him a sight to see, and the things he does with one bouncy leather ball will take your breath away.

The guy is so strong and fast, he's basically E=MC² in human form. He has so much hangtime he takes in-game naps during his dunks. Sure, you can catch the most interesting part of him in the highlight reel, but when those amazing plays come live, free-flowing and unexpected, it's something else.

Love him or hate his filthy stinking guts, there's no denying that LeBron James plus one basketball equals entertainment. Ditto for Wade. You might feel somewhat robbed that in a league whose history is fueled by legendary rivalries, you'll never see Wade vs. LeBron, but the good news is it now takes you half the time it used to to enjoy two once-in-a-lifetime talents.

In essence, a Miami Heat game is like a Terminator movie featuring Rambo, backed up by Robocop—or at least the human version from the beginning (which is still pretty good).

The Heat are even doing some character development, unveiling a Charles Bronson-like drive to get revenge on anyone with the audacity to even challenge them, let alone beat them. Witness their 39-point evisceration of Charlotte just a few days after the 'Cats actually had the nerve to only lose by one. Or Dallas... there's that too.

If that isn't reason enough to tune in, be advised that in all likelihood a multitude of records are about to be broken as Miami marches to the promised land. Just like there were those who reveled in witnessing the Bulls' 72-win season firsthand, there are those who are going to want to say they watched the Heat do a Godzilla on NBA history.

Again, this is assuming you can watch this crack contingent of too-large-for-life egos have its way on the court without feeling ill over the sheer one-sidedness of it all. But even then, if you're one of those basketball purists who can't stand to see LeBron and Chris Bosh scheme their way to the top, you can tune in for the possibility, however miniscule, that their little plan gets derailed somehow.

You tune into the lottery, don't you? Same diff—what with Miami's odds of not winning being similar to a single person's odds of winning the megabucks—and yes, I honestly believe this. As with the lottery, though, it's best to watch with low expectations. If you just tune in to get your hopes dashed every time Miami fails to lose a game, you will not remain sane in time for 2013.

Yes, there's something for everyone in this little carnival Pat Riley hath begotten unto pro hoops. Heat fans have nothing but bliss in their immediate future, and Heat detractors have an arena in which to believe in miracles (thanks, Dirk) and occasionally poke fun (thanks, Chris).

All allegiances aside, a diverse cross-section of demographics—from people bored with gravity, to people who want to say they saw history re-written, to people who miss Faces of Death—will also have more than ample reason to skip this week's episode of Fear Factor.

To top it off, the whole thing will continue to be engulfed in a circus-like atmosphere that could out-weird a guy covered in cockroaches any day.

That last part may or may not be good news.