I Loathe to Love the 2010-11 NBA Finals

I hate to say it, but the Miami Heat look like NBA champions.

While they still need to win three out of their next six games against a very good Dallas Mavericks team in order to be crowned as such, it’s hard to see this team losing when everything is clicking for them.

It’s funny, because other than an Atlanta-Memphis NBA Finals, the pairing of Dallas and Miami was probably the most unfavorable matchup conceivable. Not because it would be a boring or lackluster finals, but out of the 16 playoff teams, I can’t think of two teams that are more disliked by the majority of the NBA’s fan base than Miami or Dallas.

But for the NBA who struck out on a Kobe and LeBron finals matchup for a third consecutive season, a best-of-seven battle between Dallas and Miami doesn’t get much better.

The series has bad blood, rooting back to the only NBA Finals since 1998 that didn’t feature the Lakers or Spurs, when Dallas and Miami faced off against each other in 2006 and the Mavs collapsed at the hands of a dominating Dwyane Wade.

More than that, the series contains something (err, someone) that even a non-basketball fan will care about: LeBron James. Whether you watch basketball or hate it, if you’ve lived anywhere but under a rock for the past 12 months, the name LeBron James is probably familiar to you, to some extent anyways. Since the infamous “Decision,” LeBron James has become bigger than just a basketball player; he’s steadily become an integral part of pop culture. He may not be flagged in tabloids doing lines of coke at New York nightclubs with Lindsay Lohan or seen at every major red carpet event, but one doesn’t have to travel too far out of their house to hear people talking about LeBron James.

And for the true basketball fan, the hoops craving lunatic, the series is going to be an enjoyable one to watch. Even if Miami does take the crown in a quick five game set, the NBA’s newest villains will make sure they put on a show while doing it. Visible in the last two minutes of Miami’s game one victory tonight, with LeBron and Wade putting on a “the-fat-lady-is-now-singing” display to close out the Mavs, it’s apparent that Hollywood has relocated to South Beach in the form of the Super-Friends (but only for this series).

Next: A Remarkable Transformation

But what has happened to Miami all of a sudden? Isn’t this the same team that supposedly had no depth? Isn’t it essentially the same roster that began 2010-11 just barely floating above .500 for the first 18 games of the season? Indeed it is, but similar to any champion, Miami’s level of hunger rose and the Heat grew together as a group. Even though their offense still relies on the trio for a disgustingly high percentage of their points, the role players such as James Jones, Mike Bibby and Mario Chalmers have made sacrifices and stepped up tremendously.

And although they missed a good portion of the season, it’s arguable the Mike Miller and Udonis Haslem have been the biggest contributors to Miami’s success. How? They brought the warrior, never die mentality to South Beach. They came into the season expecting their years to be a joy ride, they expected to get easy shot opportunities like they never had before — then major injuries derailed both players at extremely crucial points in the season. Miller injured the thumb on his shooting hand before the season, and no matter how hard he worked and how much it healed — for a shooter, that’s a near-impossible injury to recover from, but he found a way to contribute. He became a better defender, he provided playmaking and rebounding for a team that lacked much of anything outside of its big three.

As for Haslem, man, Miami really needed him. The lone remaining teammate of Wade from the championship team in 2006 missed nearly the entire regular season due to an injury that many believed could end his career. But the man knew his team, without any depth whatsoever, needed his presence. They needed his tenacity down low, his mid-range game on offense and his experience on the court. And he knew that, so he worked his tail off during the regular season while his team struggled to find an identity on the court. He did everything possible, almost taking note out of a book from Scott McKnight — the protagonist from the god-awful basketball romantic-comedy, Just Wright. He came back when his team had finally come together, and he was truly the missing piece to their success. After working his way back into the flow of the game, it was almost as if he had never missed a beat. Playing stifling defense, grabbing boards and going after loose balls — Haslem brought the fire to the Heat, and it has paid major dividends for them thus far.

I can’t say that I am happy to see Miami looking like the eventual champions (especially considering I have $100 bet stemming back to July that they don’t win the title), but from the standpoint of someone who loves watching great basketball, I can’t say that I’m not enjoying it immensely either. The play, the story lines, the drama (my apologies TNT for stealing one of your terrible network show tag lines), all encapsulated in one seven game series between two teams I have loathed over the years, is turning out to be pretty exciting and fun to watch.