Miami Heat's Biggest Red Flags Entering This Season

Superstar players are fine deodorant.

The Miami Heat advanced to the NBA Finals the last four seasons, despite—especially during the last two campaigns—suffering a litany of faults and flaws. Such is the power of LeBron James. With an athlete of his caliber on your side, you can overcome a lot.

The baggage Miami stormed through the Eastern Conference while carrying includes but is not limited to trouble on the glass, the declining Dwyane Wade, an aging supporting cast and Norris Cole.

But, alas, while those problems persist, LeBron is no longer around to overwhelm them.

The Heat’s biggest red flag is LeBron’s absence. And it’s the problem that makes all the others more acute.

Dwyane Wade's Decline

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Wade is still a fine player, but injuries and age have taken their toll.

The good news: Dwyane Wade is still a very good basketball player. The bad: That could change any minute now.

While Wade finished second among shooting guards in player efficiency rating last season, per ESPN, the guard has been declining steeply the last several seasons.

His numbers for rebounding, steals, blocks and scoring are each trending in the wrong direction. Per Basketball-Reference.com, Wade has seen his win shares per 48 minutes slip from .227 to .192 all the way down to .149 the last three seasons.

And at his age, this trend isn’t terribly likely to reverse. The guard is entering his age-33 season, a year after the point where—according to economist Dave Berri—NBA players start to “age like milk.”

Wade, for his part, maintains he’s still among the best in the sport. He told Bleacher Report’s Ethan Skolnick earlier this month that, when everything’s clicking, there isn’t a more complete shooting guard in basketball:

"

When I'm right, there are players at my position that are probably more athletic than me. There are players at my position that can probably shoot threes better than me. That can do individual things. But when I'm right, overall, just like I've been the last few years, I mean, I can be a dynamic player.

"

While Wade could absolutely enjoy a bounce-back season, and there’s reason to believe he’ll be less affected by the absence of LeBron than conventional wisdom dictates, his status absolutely bears monitoring.

Shooting Guard Depth

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Shannon Brown is Miami's No. 2 at the 2. That could be a problem.

Another reason Heat fans should sweat Wade’s play more than a little: The depth picture behind him is not pretty.

Shannon Brown appears to be ready to pick up the lions’ share of Wade’s minutes should something happen to the veteran. This is a problem.

Brown is a 28-year-old journeyman who split 29 games between the New York Knicks and San Antonio Spurs that season. He’s played for seven teams in an eight year NBA career that hasn’t exactly been distinguished.

He’s a lifetime 42 percent shooter who has never posted an above-league-average season by measure of win shares, per Basketball-Reference.com, topping out at .096 in 2009-10.

And he’s backing up a player who missed 24 games last season and played a career-worst 32.9 minutes a night. The Heat could be in for some trouble at the 2.

Spacing

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With Deng in tow, Miami's space-based offense is a thing of the past.

Here’s another issue that’s at least tangentially related to Wade.

The thing that’s made the Miami offense fly the last few seasons is spacing. The Heat attack was a simple one, in principle at least. Chris Bosh manned the mid-range, tormenting defenses from that distance, while LeBron and Wade cut to the basket for close looks. Meanwhile, Miami used Shane Battier, Ray Allen and its cadre of other top-flight shooters in the corners to further stretch overmatched defenses.

That’s not going to happen anymore. Battier has retired, and Allen is in professional limbo. And, as you might have read, LeBron has taken his talents elsewhere.

The players the Heat brought in seem unlikely to capably replace them in this respect. Josh McRoberts is a fine shooter for a big man, but Luol Deng is subaverage from outside. Coupled with Wade’s inefficacy from outside, opposing defenders will be able to clog the lane against Miami in a way that would have been unthinkable in seasons past.

Alas, the Glass

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Josh McRoberts is a player with a lot to give. However, his rebounding is not one of those things.

The Heat were a terrible rebounding team in 2013-14. They might be worse this season.

Miami finished 27th in rebounding rate last year, per ESPN, and 29th in offensive rebounding rate. The Heat’s offseason leaves little reason to think they’ve addressed this deficiency.

Out the door went LeBron James, who, among other things, was a stellar rebounder, while in came Josh McRoberts—who averaged a paltry 4.8 rebounds per game as a power forward last season—and Luol Deng, who’s sound on the glass but not in LeBron’s league.

This is going to be a problem for the Heat this season.