Don't believe the hype

Media turns up heat on the Heat

The Heat win a game against the New Jersey Nets the other night, in Miami while faced with key injuries, and all the media could talk about was Walker vs. Williams. Oh, and Gary vs. Stan Van Gundy.

It is no secret that many pundits covering the NBA and looking at the Miami Heat have questioned the moves Pat Riley and Randy Pfund have put together for the upcoming season. Well, most of these critics fail to even cite Randy Pfund as a part of this organization, forgetting that Riley is the president while Pfund is de facto the GM. But that is besides the point - accuracy is not stressed.

The major concern has been about chemistry, or the meshing of personalities such as Walker, Williams, and Payton on this team with Shaq and Wade. Also of intrigue is the Riley/Stan Van Gundy relationship and whether or not Riley is trying to sharpen an axe to relieve SVG of his coaching duties.

Look - this is what the media does. They sensationalize in order to provoke discussion. We here at Miami Heatwave consider ourselves fans, but enlightened ones at that. There is no conspiracy here for Riley to take over the head coaching duties while creating a well-crafted bomb just to demote himself. But the intrigue and the speculation offers too much and proves too tantalizing.

So it spins and spins, continuously out of control.

The Miami Heat must understand that this isn't about them. This isn't about their team. This is about a few members of the national media elbowing for attention. They have nothing else to focus on other than themselves, instead of letting the story tell itself. They are not reporters, but narrators.

This became most apparent to me while away from the internet (and this beloved site) and having to get my Heat fix through the straw of ESPN. The national ignorance of this team was all too evident.

What I saw prompted me to make a phone call to my brother to ask what was going on. ESPN kept showing a 'highlight' of Walker barking at Williams for apparently not cutting through the paint to relieve Walker of the impending double team. Walker turns it over, Nets fast break, Williams plays phantom defense and it looks bad. On the next possession, when Walker gets a chance, he starts barking at Williams - on his own free throw attempts. The Heat ended up getting a delay of game tech, too.

It is a well-known fact that guys don't get along all the time. Especially millionaires who disagree about how they are going to do things. And even more so when you factor in the fact that this was a home game against a tough Eastern opponent who are looking to measure up against the elite Heat. This is a reality in the NBA and even for the Miami Heat. In '03-'04, Rafer Alston and Caron Butler almost came to blows - and that team was supposed to have the chemistry on par with the cast of "Friends". Even last season's team that won 59 games sputtered at times, with Shaq suggesting that his teammates (EJ and DJ) were playing soft and needed to start hitting their 3's.

But Shaq is no stranger to this situation: Shaq and Kobe had their spats, but still managed to somehow win a couple of championships.

And don't even get me started about Gary Payton's comments about his own offensive philosophy. Stan Van Gundy is the coach, GP knows that. The Heat also know that the Glove is outspoken. Always has been. SVG is the kind of personality that will make light of it and move on.

But not the national media - that seems wont to see this team fail. We like underdogs, not empires. We like to see things started from scratch, not bought and paid for. This is all understandable, but also keep in mind that this is all hype. In fact, this can be easily illustrated by the fact that ESPN was running this supposed Heat 'collapse' story on the eve of their next NBA telecast - on Wed. November 9th which featured the Heat vs. the Pacers.

Nothing sells like controversy. Nothing titillates like drama.

So like Flavor Flav and Chuck D once told us, 'don't believe the hype'. As Heat fans, we got to look past the smoke and see the fire. This team will have its struggles - the media will try and blow them all out of proportion.

Don't believe the hype.

Let this team grow, first.