Miami heat threatening to bring master plan to ashes

To fully comprehend what's happening on Nov. 29 in Miami, you have to go back to May 12 in Cleveland. That was the beginning of the end for LeBron James' days in Ohio, as well as the precursor to the unexpected events of the day: A five-headed monster futilely thrashing on the shores of South Beach.
Back in May, the Cavaliers were one game away from being eliminated from the playoffs by the Boston Celtics; one day away from Armageddon. Criticism of coach Mike Brown was reaching a fever pitch. Owner Dan Gilbert was publicly apologizing to his paying customers. And everyone turned to the leader, the superstar, the Chosen One, to lead them out of it.

Erik Spoelstra likely isn't the problem in Miami, but he might not be able to survive the turmoil. (Getty Images)

This was one day after LeBron James appeared out of it during an abysmal performance in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference semifinals, a 120-88 home loss to the Celtics that turned out to be his final game in Cleveland -- until Thursday, when he returns as a member of the struggling, angst-ridden, thoroughly destabilized Miami Heat. On the Cavs' practice court in Independence, Ohio, James was given a chance to speak publicly in support of his coach. He took a pass -- the way he did on the Cavs' six-year, max contract offer a few months later, even after the team carried out his wishes and fired Brown.
Here is what LeBron said about Brown on May 12, when asked if Brown was being outcoached by Doc Rivers: "I'm not going to get involved in that. As players, we can control what we want to control."
And with a published report Monday quoting sources as saying Heat players already are frustrated with coach Erik Spoelstra and wondering if he's the right coach for the team, the other edge of the sword crafted by Heat president Pat Riley already has presented itself. Instead of the countdown to 70 wins, there are Las Vegas betting odds on whether Spoelstra will be fired.
"It's hard for guys who are trying to build a brand to blame themselves when things don't work out quite the way they want," said a person familiar with the organizational dynamics in Miami. "It's always easier to use a fall guy."
Brown wasn't the problem in Cleveland; if he was, LeBron would've stayed there after Gilbert reluctantly fired Brown in a failed attempt to placate his superstar. Executives and other insiders familiar with what Spoelstra is up against say he isn't the problem, either. But just as with Brown, whose back-to-back 60-win seasons and Coach of the Year trophy did nothing to save his job, that doesn't mean Spoelstra will survive as the coach of a barely .500 team with LeBron and Dwyane Wade on the court and another Hall of Famer, Pat Riley, in the executive suite.

"This is always like a self-fulfilling prophecy, so there's no way to stop it," said the person familiar with the situation, a veteran of NBA front-office maneuverings. "Probably the right analogy is runaway train. ... It's a fish bowl, and everybody in the world is there gawking at it and rubbernecking this thing. I don't see how [Spoelstra] can survive it."
There is a knee-jerk tendency to make this about LeBron and his operatives, and that is a fairly substantial part of this story. When James' people have their preferred audience, they're among the biggest chatterboxes in basketball. But beyond that, whether the Heat win 60 games or lose 60, LeBron will be the focal point -- and sources say that is one of the things chafing Wade in the early and disappointing meanderings of the Miami Super Team, the champions of July.
In Cleveland, management constantly had to deal with interference from James' phalanx of enablers -- marketing manager Maverick Carter and others -- until Brown tried to get Gilbert to silence them. By then it was too late; James had been having his way for too long. Now in Miami, this is the first true test of Riley's ability to keep the outsiders at bay. How he handles it -- and when -- will set a tone for how spectacular the success or failure of his free-agent concoction will be.
"You don't want people to feel like outsiders can pressure or come in to run their organization," the coaching source said. "That's why it has almost a counter-reaction effect."
In other words, does the early coup attempt on Spoelstra only embolden Riley and make him more entrenched in his desire to keep him on the sideline and put the players in their place? That's where the other tentacles of this five-headed monster -- LeBron, Wade, Chris Bosh, Spoelstra and Riley -- come into play.
"I know that Dwayne Wade doesn't want Pat Riley to be the head coach," said another person familiar with the dynamics, referring to Miami's post-championship run when Wade and Riley often were at odds. "I don't think Pat Riley wants to be the head coach. I don't think he does."

Pat Riley could solve many of the problems with one wave of his championship-ring-encrusted hand. (Getty Images)

If James' people are leaking the concerns about Spoelstra, they better put those concerns in line behind a collection of other destabilizing forces at work on this experiment gone bad. The first culprit, believe it or not, was Riley himself.
As any other executive would've done, Riley gutted his team to have the cap space to unite Wade with James and Bosh, and Spoelstra is suffering the consequences of coaching a team with no inside presence and no point guard. Injuries to Mike Miller -- a play-making point-forward who can do what James and Wade can't (meaning shoot) -- and Udonis Haslem haven't helped.
"The team is faltering because they don't have a complete team," one of the people familiar with the situation said. "And that's what people should be writing about and stop complaining about Erik Spoelstra."
Aside from the obvious roster flaws, Riley did something else to further imperil Spoelstra's ability to weather a tough stretch like this one. Remember back in June, when Riley shrewdly planted the notion that he wouldn't rule out coaching the Heat if one of the top free agents wanted him to? The devil was in the details of Riley's master plan, and he had to compromise his coach to get the players he wanted.
"The truth of the matter is, the precedent was already set years ago where he stepped in [for Stan Van Gundy]," one of the sources said. "And so no matter what, the nostalgic people are going to always come back to that and say, 'This is our way of correcting it.'"
Then, just when the Heat began looking vulnerable, guess who lobbed a SCUD missile into Spoelstra's office from 3,000 miles away? Yup, good old Dr. Mind Games, Phil Jackson, whose strategic comment last week about the prospect of Riley taking over for Spoelstra was the final straw that sent the Heat into damage-control mode -- and into a tailspin that saw them lose four of five games heading into Monday night's home date against Washington. Dr. Phil has to be chuckling to himself that Spoelstra's future -- not to mention whether James bumped into Spoelstra intentionally near the sideline in Dallas on Saturday night -- has so quickly evolved from a long-distance tweak into a real issue.
"There was a reason for what Phil did," one of the sources said. "It's destabilization. Challenge them now. Why wait until Christmas? He is as good a mind-game player as there's ever been. It threw chum in the water and it started the [sharks] circling."
Mix all of this together in a cauldron, combine it with the Big Three's self-proclaimed goal of winning six championships, throw in the losing, the egos, the inability of LeBron and Wade to have enough basketballs or pieces of global icon status to go around, and you have one angry, bitter brew.
"For everybody to fall into this trance that this is the Dream Team; well, they're not," one of the people familiar with the dynamics said. "They're not going up against Angola."
And it's a good thing. They might not be able to beat Angola now.

extracted from cbssports.com