Wade says the Heat are still evolving, which sounds like a horror flick concept

Chris Bosh wound up a center, LeBron James turned into a power-point-center, Shane Battier was power forward and Dwane Wade played small forward. The Heat went through a series of radical and unpredictable changes last season on account of both emerging trends in their opponents’ lineups and the injury to Chris Bosh. Up was down, in was out, and the only thing that made traditional sense was that Mario Chalmers ran point and the ball always went through the best player (on Earth), LeBron James.

But just because it worked last season, doesn’t mean it will work next season. And Dwyane Wade, in comments to Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, made it clear that the Heat, despite being champions, are still evolving, still changing, still getting better.

“You never know what player is going to start off and be playing a certain way and you switch things up a little bit,” Wade said. “But we have that luxury, because we have not only three marquee players, but we have a lot of other players on our team that’s very capable, highly capable, and very good.”

And there will be decisions to be made, from how to maximize Allen’s role in the rotation, as stressed during his recruitment, to where to play Lewis, with length suited for the power rotation but a frame more befitting a perimeter player.

“So our plan to come out,” Wade said, “is, let’s get together as a team, let’s get our team defensive concepts down, let’s get our offensive continuity down and  we’ll see what comes out of that.”

via Miami Heat guard Dwyane Wade looks ahead to NBA championship defense. – South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com.

The Heat were three solid Boston quarters away from being sunk by the Celtics, and struggled with Indiana’s size. The Pacers improved. The Celtic arguably improved. The Lakers improved. The Thunder can’t help but improve. So the Heat will have to respond if they want to defend their title. But the ideas that the Heat used to win were sound.

After all that talk about ditching Erik Spoelstra (and I made as much noise about it as anyone — whoops), Spoelstra put the pieces together specifically by not cementing anything. It was that approach that lead them through, and it will have to be the same for Miami next season.