NBA: Does the Miami Heat Meltdown Prove the "Super Team" Experiment Fails?

The Miami Heat celebrated their future rings after they signed superstars LeBron James and Chris Bosh to join their own star, Dwyane Wade. The reaction across the web and the media was that the future of the NBA was inevitably affected; star players would combine to form "super teams," and there was nothing the NBA could do about it.

Next up, the New York Knicks literally traded away half their team to acquire Carmelo Anthony and Chauncey Billups to team them up with their own megastar, Amar'e Stoudemire. New York now can't wait for 2013 when they hope to add another star player, Chris Paul, when Billups' contract expires. 

The New Jersey Nets pulled off the coup of the trade season, when out of nowhere they reached an agreement to acquire Deron Williams. Immediately, the rumors began to circulate that it was only a matter of time before Dwight Howard joined Williams in New Jersey. 

But now the Miami Heat's struggles are raising questions as to whether the "super team" strategy really works. The top-heavy nature of the team is increasingly hard to ignore, and when they face more difficult teams, the lack of depth gets exposed. 

Against lottery teams, the Miami Heat are destroying their competition. Their efficiency differential is 30.5, almost seven points higher than anyone else in the NBA. After last night's blow at the hands of the Spurs, their efficiency against playoff teams fell to -0.7

That's a difference of 31.2, the biggest difference in splits between playoff teams and non-playoff teams in the entire NBA. At a certain point, it can't be ignored that there's a big difference when the quality of the Heat's opponents goes up. 

Compare that with Boston (7.0) or Chicago (8.7), and you notice a different type of team. These are teams that have a much deeper rotation. While Miami may have the best "top three" in the NBA, they lack after that.

It just seems that when Miami faces the deeper teams, their star power isn't enough to compensate for the lack of depth. They are last in the NBA in scoring from the center position. They are also last in the NBA in scoring from the bench. They are 21st in the NBA in scoring from the point guard position.   

After the "Big Three," Mario Chalmers has scored the fourth-most points for the Heat this season with 373. That would place him eighth on the Spurs, Mavericks or Bulls, and seventh with the Celtics. The fact is that after you get past the "Big Three" there's no one there to account for.

Granted, the Heat have had some injuries to Mike Miller and Udonis Haslem. The two have combined to play in only 38 of the team's 62 games. Certainly that's going to have some impact, but how much should it have? When a team struggles to absorb the loss of its two best bench players, doesn't that amplify the lack of depth issue?

The Heat are just too top-heavy to play against the big teams. When they are forced to play in a set offense against the better teams, they struggle getting the ball into the paint; they have the fewest field goal attempts per game in the paint with 28.9.

More than 10 of those come off of Wade or James driving the ball inside, and Bosh is only getting 4.5 points per game in the paint. The bottom line is that they simply lack the ability to pass the ball into the post to score, and that is what catches up to them when they play better teams.

That's the detriment of stacking the team up top.

Sure, you could stack it differently, but that just changes where the holes are. You need stars to win, but you can't win with just stars. 

The startling thing is that there doesn't seem to be much they can do about it either. Between James, Bosh and Wade, the three have two-thirds of the Heat's salary room locked up. That leaves, on average, about two million a year left for the rest of the team.  When you add in Miller and Haslem's five million each, that cuts out half of what's left. 

What you end up with is about 10 million dollars to be split between 8-10 players. It's simply not enough to build a deeper roster. Sure there are some players who are at the end of their careers and hoping to get a ring by dancing with the stars, but as the experiment fails, how many will follow?

It's not just the Miami "super team" that is interesting though. Compare the Denver Nuggets, who acquired tremendous depth in exchange for their star with New York and depleted their depth in order to obtain Anthony and Billups. 

Denver has gone 4-1 with an average margin of victory of 13 points, and four of their five opponents have winning records.  New York has gone 3-3 with an average margin of three points. The initial indications are that Denver is a better team right now than the Knicks, and that's not even factoring in the draft picks they picked up as well. 

Could it be that the traditional team will triumph in the end?

With teams like the Mavericks, Spurs, Bulls and Celtics, you see deep rosters built over time with a combination of trades, drafts and free-agent signings. If the Heat and Knicks fail to manufacture a championship after a couple of seasons, don't look for the "super team" trend to continue.

The problem with a top-heavy thing is that it's easier to topple.

In the end that could be the lesson learned here.