Dwyane Wade, LeBron & Bosh: Will They Rank as One of Best NBA Trios?

The trio of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh didn't exactly pull off the same ending as Paul Pierce, Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett did in their first year together, but given the implication and circumstances that the Miami Heat's trio was under I think we could give them an exception just this once.

You try replacing Rajon Rondo and Kendrick Perkins with Mario Chalmers and Joel Anthony and let me know how the Celtics end up.

The Miami Heat didn't finish 66-16 and they didn't end up with a championship over their rival, but they did come closer than most critics and analysts envisioned throughout the regular season. After the preseason hype had died down amongst this team and the talk of winning 72 games was done with, the NBA world came back down to earth and had the Heat penciled in as possible semifinal fodder for the Celtics.

Could you blame them? The Heat finished the regular season a combined 1-6 against the one and three seeds in the Eastern Conference and they weren't exactly stellar against the other elite teams of the league too. They finished the regular season 58-24 with the majority of those wins coming by huge margins against the lesser opponents of the league. Their talent was enough to get the easy wins against the cellar dwellers, but it wasn't enough against the elite teams that had developed chemistry and knew how to play team basketball.

Which is why it came as such a surprise to see the Heat steamroll their way through the Eastern Conference. After defeating the Philadelphia 76ers in the first round in only five games, the Heat were then ready to take on the Boston Celtics, fresh off of their sweep of New York, in the semifinals. It was hardly a competition for the Heat as they went on to drop only one game en route to a five game series win.

They would then take on the Chicago Bulls in the Conference Finals, the same team that defeated the Heat on all three occasions during the regular season. After the Bulls manhandled the Heat in game one, the big three with some help from Udonis Haslem would go on to win the next four games for a trip to the NBA Finals.

The NBA Finals was ugly for the Heat once game three finished, so let's just leave it at that. The big three and the organization as a whole should take it as a lesson learned, improve over the season and find out what went wrong in order to make the necessary adjustments and move on to the next season. It's going to do the team no good to dwell on a series that they could have very well easily had if not for some mistimed lapses in judgment.

Even with the finals loss, you still have to be impressed by what the big three was able to accomplish with so little surrounding them. Dwyane Wade and LeBron James managed to lead the league in most points scored by a duo with 52 points while Chris Bosh chipped in a solid 19 points for a grand total of 71 points. The 71 points totaled up to nearly 70 percent of the team's overall points per game, which is a decent amount amongst only three players.

Each one of these players knew that they had to make adjustments if this experiment of theirs was going to work. They left behind the individual spotlight of each of their locations to join in one place and sacrificed individual awards and stats while also completely refining their entire games with James and Wade learning to play off the ball and Bosh adjusting to the role of third scoring option.

Those are difficult tasks to learn for any player, especially players like Wade and James who had dominated the ball for the first seven years of their career and Bosh who had been a first option for the majority of his tenure with the Raptors. You're not asking this from veterans who are desperate for a championship to end their careers with, you're asking this from three stars who are in their primes that want to win multiple titles over the next few seasons without having to sacrifice too much.

It wasn't easy, as we saw from the momentary struggles throughout the season, but they're committed and that's all that matters. These three players have the talent and the overall drive to win championships. Wires still may get crossed from time to time and mistakes will be made, yet there's no reason to doubt that these three have the ability to lead this franchise to multiple titles through their leadership.

They have Wade and James on the perimeter dictating the flow of the offense, running the finest fast breaks you will ever witness, and prolifically driving and keeping defenders on their toes, anticipating what they could possibly do next. These two players rely on the art of finesse and power and it's the exact reason why they're currently considered the two best players in the league. When you possess two players that drive as prolifically as LeBron and Dwyane, defenses aren't always going to react and they're not going to be able to keep both in check.

As for Bosh, you get arguably the best finesse power forward in the league. Critics like to call it passive, but it's his style of play and it's worked for him over the first eight years of his career. The Miami Heat aren't going to make an effort to obtain someone and then give them $115 million if they knew that they weren't going to play to their fullest potential. Bosh has heart and he gets the team and the crowd fired up and the Heat fan base are thankful for having a player of his caliber.

His game consists of a solid mid-range jumper that extends as far out as 20 feet and a driving game which is nearly impossible to stop because of just how quick he is off the dribble when compared to opposing power forwards. Once Bosh gets the first step on his defender, defenses are either forced to foul or allow the power forward the easy two points next to the rim.

These three players combined might not have all the success that everyone dreamed of them having at the beginning of the 2010-'11 campaign, but they took a step in the right direction. With solid free agents set to join the team, key bench players returning from injuries, and the big three with a year of experience playing together under their belts, there's no reason why this Miami Heat shouldn't make another legitimate run this year.

When you compare the big three to that of past big threes however, you can see that the Heat's falls far behind when standing next to the trio of players that past teams have brought out.

It's easy to say today that the Heat have the best big three in the league. With the Celtics trio facing retirement soon and the New York Knicks big three inability to play any defense, the Heat stand far and away as possessing the best big three in the league. Compared to that of say the Boston Celtics or Los Angeles Lakers big three of the 1980's however, that's a completely different story.

There's no doubt that the Heat's big three talent level is possibly higher, but it's nearly impossible to compare them to the likes of Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, and Robert Parish or Magic Johnson, James Worthy, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Those big threes seemed to possess an infinite amount of dimensions with the Celtics big three showing off perimeter and inside scoring as well as interior and perimeter defense.

The Lakers thrived off of the chemistry that was created by their point guard in Johnson. It helps your franchise out when you possess the best point guard in league history and when he stands at 6'9", can see the floor better than any other point guard, and can make a play happen on just about any possession.

And don't even get me started with the Chicago Bulls big three that won three consecutive titles between 1995 and 1998. The trio of Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman were possibly the most successful in the short time they spent together with all three players being superb defenders, Rodman as the enforcer and rebounder, Pippen as the lock down perimeter defender, and Jordan as the scorer and overall team leader.

The Miami Heat's big three is good, but they're not quite on the level of the Celtics and Lakers of the 1980's or the Bulls of the 1990's. It's also nearly impossible to judge how well the Heat's trio will pan out since they still need time to adjust to each others tendencies. What this Heat's big three has as a huge advantage is youth, talent, and plenty more time to go out and win titles because of the two aforementioned ideals of them.

These three are signed for the next five years and they could very well easily win a championship each and every time if they continue to stay motivated and play as teammates rather than individuals. Success will help the Heat's big three possibly overshadow the accomplishments of past big three's, but it still doesn't put them over the edge against those legendary trios.

Those trios had defense in the interior and perimeter, shooting specialists that could hit from outside at a consistent rate, and inside threats that could score off of post ups. The Miami Heat's trio only has the advantage of driving which defeats the Celtics and Lakers, but still comes up short against the driving skills of Jordan and Pippen.

The Heat's big three also lacks consistency from the perimeter and an offensive and defensive presence in the middle. The fact that the Celtics and Lakers had the likes of Robert Parish, Kevin McHale, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar easily defeats the Heat's lone inside threat in Chris Bosh. It would be a nightmare for the Heat's big three to even contend with the interior presence of those two squads.

The lone advantage that the Heat have is the fact that they have two prolific scorers which gives them an advantage over the Celtics and Lakers slower front court. The Bulls would be able to lock the Heat's big three down every time though with Jordan defending Wade, Pippen on James and Rodman on Bosh.

Even though the big three of the Heat still have all the talent, potential and age on their side, they still don't exactly compare to the big threes of the Lakers, Celtics and Bulls of the past. It's going to take some significant improvements for the Heat to even come close to defeating teams of that caliber.

Luckily for the Heat, they don't have to face those teams so this is all hypothetically speaking. Until the Heat take on Jordan, Pippen and Rodman in the Conference Finals, then we have nothing more to speak of and the team will have nothing to worry about.