Why a Miami Heat Championship Would Send the Wrong Message to Our Youth

Anyone who has spent any significant time playing or coaching Little League is familiar with the following scenario: the fathers of the two or three best kids in an age group get together and decide they are “coaching together.”  Their sons are therefore arranged to be on the same team.

The kids then alternate pitching and bat third and fourth in the lineup, and proceed to dominate the league.  The parents’ exercise in narcissism is rewarded, and the 90% of the other kids—fully aware of what’s going on—are taught a lesson in unfairness.

For the benefit of the few, to the detriment of the many.

This is exactly the model that the 2010-2011 Miami Heat are built on.  Like bad Little League fathers, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh got together and decided they were going to have a grand old time stomping on the rest of the league.

It turned out to be harder than they thought, and they seemed genuinely surprised that everyone hated them so much.  But they now appear poised to eliminate the Chicago Bulls and their humble superstar Derrick Rose.  All that would be left to ensure they vanquish the Mavericks would be to assign Danny Crawford to officiate a game or two in Dallas.

But it is not just this subtle form of grown-up schoolyard bullying that sends the wrong messages to kids.  A Miami title would also reinforce the following:  

It’s OK to celebrate before you actually accomplish anything.

 The party thrown for the new-look Heat in July was appalling enough, but it also promotes the idea that the high fives come before the hard work.  As if we don’t already have enough lazy kids with overblown senses of entitlement.

Loyalty and community mean nothing.

If LeBron James was not a product of Ohio, a hometown hero, a cherished and rewarded favorite son, I don’t think anyone would have batted an eye at his leaving Cleveland.  But he was.

 All the major talent can just decide to be on a few teams.

If the model succeeds, that tells other superstars that they, too, should band together into a couple of super-teams, leaving 20+ NBA markets without any local stars to cheer on or reason for hope. 

With a lockout looming, the highly paid stars of the NBA should really think more about that last point than I imagine any of them do.  There’s a reason why so many teams are struggling to remain solvent, and if this model becomes the wave of the future, that will get worse rather than better.

Sure, the LeBrons and D-Wades will be fine, but if they think that there is no long-term impact to declining attendance across the league and fewer jobs for their peers, they are sadly short-sighted and selfish.

For the benefit of the few may end up really being for the benefit of none.