The 2012 Heat: A Lion in Autumn
The Miami Heat have two more seasons as odds-on title favorites. Then it gets a bit murky, and if everything doesn't go right, they may very well end up worse off than the last 3 Cavs teams LeBron played on -- except instead of LeBron in his prime, they'll have him on his way down. With even less roster flexibility. Sort of weird. Strange. Ridiculous. And -- as I outlined in my new piece for 48 Minutes of Hell outlining the Spurs' ongoing difficulties compensating for Duncan's decline on the offensive end -- it's essentially rooted in a single concept. The respect defenders have for him. And something that, in a few years, may be nothing but a fond memory for any talent tasked towards defending the Miami Heat. Let's explain.
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LIES, DAMN LIES, AND STATISTICS
In the same way the post about the Spurs offense focuses on Tim Duncan, this post will focus on Dwyane Wade. To begin, a fact -- Wade turns thirty in less than a month. His current contract with the Miami Heat is going to take him all the way to the age of 34. There are only 6 guards at that age or older who played more than 30 minutes per game last season Raja Bell (34), Andre Miller (34), Chauncey Billups (34), Ray Allen (35), Steve Nash (36), and Jason Kidd (37). With the key exception of Andre Miller, all of those players are old men whose games at this point rely on a combination of shooting talent and key pocket passing. Most of them who were once good defenders have fallen off in at least a few key ways -- for instance, while Kidd still does his defensive work quite well in isolation and bothering the pick and roll ball handler, he's slowly degenerated at defending spot-ups and post-ups as he ages. Ray Allen has done a similar turn, though he fell off somewhat hard on isolation and spot-up defense while maintaining his surprisingly solid ability to stifle the few guards that try and post up on him. The pattern of spot-up defense being their worst ranked defense holds true for all of the members of this list. As far as I surmise, as a star SG's quickness wanes, they begin to lose the ability to properly recover on spot-up defensive possessions.
This is relevant to Wade for many reasons, but the primary one is that he's already beginning to show signs of rust in how he recovers on spot-up assignments. I noticed this in the finals last year and the numbers bear it out -- as with all the defensive players above, Wade's worst defensive category per Synergy is on defending spot-up shots (ranked a dismal 261st in the league), dragging the overall Synergy assessment of his defense despite sparkling numbers in most other categories. And let's not beat around the bush -- of all the "passes the eye test" defenders in the league, Wade passes all of them. As a guard, he's rated the 10th best defender on the pick and roll ball-handler and forces a turnover nearly 20% of the time. The Heat were an incredibly good defensive team last year, and Wade was one of the biggest reasons. LeBron and Wade formed the best two-man defensive unit at obliterating the pick and roll in the league, with LeBron forcing turnovers on a ridiculous 30% of the plays he defended the pick and roll. The two of them combined to be as efficient at defending the most effective play in basketball as a generation-defining big man, and together kept teams away from easy baskets as effectively as Andrew Bogut or Dwight Howard did for their squads. If you wanted to make a list of singularly important reasons the Heat were such a great team last year, pick and roll defense should be extremely high on the list
Now, this isn't to say Wade is necessarily about to fall off a cliff. He's simply beginning his long rusting process. He's no longer in his prime, or improving -- every year that passes is a year where Wade will at best stay level with where he is now. At worst, he'll take one more step down the ladder. From the Heat's big star to the Heat's big albatross. He's showing some signs in the way his defensive skillset is aligning with age, yes, but the 2012 version of Dwyane Wade should be roughly as good as the 2011 version, if not perhaps a bit more willing to cede usage to LeBron and Bosh. But his defensive rust isn't the main point of this post, merely a useful observation that helps lend credibility to the nagging problem now that's going to become significantly worse for the Heat in a year or two. Wade will almost certainly lose his legs on defense slower than he'll lose his legs on offense. My reasoning, as follows.
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