Ever since the Miami Heat failed to defeat the Dallas Mavericks in the NBA Finals back in June, we have heard a variety of excuses as to why they could not get the job done. Most of them can be chalked up to whining. Chris Bosh said people only took shots at the Heat because it was the cool thing to do while Dwyane Wade blatantly stated that some of the criticism Miami had to deal with was unfair. Until now, we have heard very few theories that actually make sense.
As I Am a GM pointed out, Wade made some interesting comments about the 2010-2011 Miami Heat on Mike Krzyzewski’s Sirius XM radio show on Wednesday. Shockingly, what he said did not come off as whiny and was actually useful.
“We wanted to win to spite people (last season),” Wade said during the interview. “I believe that’s the reason we didn’t win a championship.”
Bingo. For some teams, being the villain can work wonders. The whole “we’re gonna win just to shut you up” attitude can help a team come together and succeed, but it can also become a distraction. The Heat were likely too concerned with wanting to silence their critics and not concerned enough with actually doing what they needed to do to win games, and that ultimately cost them their focus. As long as LeBron James is in town, people will always hate the Heat. The sooner they start wanting to win for themselves and stop wanting to piss people off with success, the sooner they can accomplish their ultimate goal.
