Miami Heat: Why the LeBron James and Co. Have Been Great for the NBA

I haven't written about the Miami Heat in a while; no game recaps, no opinions, nothing.

I just wanted to enjoy being a fan (true Heat fan since I was five years old in 1988: the days of Kevin Edwards, Rony Seikley, Rory Sparrow and eventually Glen Rice).

Seeing them in this year's playoffs has been a pleasure for me, while I know it has been tough for a lot of the other people watching, which I'll explain in a bit is a lot of people.

But now I'm about to trash Heat Haters. They'll call me a troll, flood my comments with pithy comments, hell there's a good possibility that I might get a few more nasty tweets or two like I seem to every time I talk about the Heat.

See Heat Haters are, by and large, stupid.

Yeah, I just said it.

They're uninformed, grasp for straws and for the most part, haven't been the most gracious people in the world. Sure you could say the same for Heat fans, but I'm focusing on the Haters because on the court the Heat have proven them wrong.

Off the court, Heat Haters prove themselves wrong by the very showing that the Miami Heat of this year have been the best thing to happen to the NBA.

When you hate someone or something and obsess over it, it means that what you hate has your attention. 

The NBA likes attention. Attention means ratings and website hits. The bigger the ratings and the more website hits, the more money that could be charged to advertise on the networks and websites in question.

So if you're a Heat Hater who watches every game to see them lose, reads every article about the Heat just to troll on the comments board, then you're just feeding the monster.

And you know what? The Miami Heat, NBA and Heat fans thank you for it.

Hate only gives power. It means its taking up your time and energy.

If you really were so against everything the Heat stood for, and if you thought the Heat would be bad for the NBA, then why did you watch?

We know you did. 

Game 1 of the Heat vs. Celtics drew a 7.0. That means seven percent of TV's turned on at that time saw the game. While you may scoff at seven percent, in TV numbers for a sport that's not college football or the NFL (the two sports which draw the highest ratings), that's very good.

And by the way, seven percent of TV's in the country adds up to a whole lot more than just the populations of Miami and Boston put together.

TNT saw a ratings bonanza in Chicago vs. Miami as well. Heat vs. Bulls was the highest rated Conference finals on Cable in history, averaging 10.9 million viewers per game. Games 1, 3 and 5 were three of the four highest rated single games in TNT's history. 

How exactly is that a bad thing for the NBA? If you stopped watching, then yes. But it actually looks like you started watching.

So thank you haters. Not only have the Heat so far proven you wrong on the court by winning the East, but because you're watching, they're proving your point about it being "bad for the game" by bringing in more viewers than any other team this season.