James’ exit not end of Heat
Ultimately, nostalgia trumps all.
So Dwyane Wade leaves amid 2016 free-agency acrimony and returns to a categorical embrace 17 months later. Chris Bosh's separation requires arbitration, but just a month ago there were hugs on the court at AmericanAirlines Arena.
And Sunday, LeBron James, now two stops removed from his 2014 parting, is back as mere obstacle to snapping three-game home losing streak rather than despised deserter.
Because his jersey, too, one day will hang from the rafters at AmericanAirlines Arena. Because nothing since has matched the exhilaration of that ride to four consecutive NBA Finals and championships in 2012 and '13.
"That's never going to go away," coach Erik Spoelstra said, with James' Los Angeles Lakers making their lone visit of the season Sunday. "I mean, that's what it's all about: the relationships you build and going through something collectively that stresses you out, that exhilarates you, that brings you together in a way that teams that don't compete for a championship never get to.
"You want to be able to create lasting memories, memorable seasons of being tested at the highest level. And then when teammates or players or staff go different ways, as will happen, you still have that common bond."
The other part of the equation is that in these intervening seasons the Heat never capitulated.
In fact, of all his basketball memories, what stirs Spoelstra is nearly making it to the playoffs in 2014-15, the season after James left, and then coming within one game of the Eastern Conference finals in 2016.
"I replay that series in my head all the time,” Spoelstra said of the 2016 Eastern semifinals against the Toronto Raptors.
As he does the playoff chase in 2015, when the Heat had lost Bosh to a first bout of blood clots.
"That game in Detroit, when Hassan [Whiteside] split his hand open, we were in the playoff hunt until that last week of the season,” Spoelstra said. “It would have been a great accomplishment for us to get in, and we were right there. And we had to deal with a ton of adversity with CB going out."
And while the Heat have won only a single playoff series since James' departure, what drives Spoelstra is the drive Heat President Pat Riley and Heat owner Micky Arison have shown in the wake of July 2014.
"That's the way it's always been,” Spoelstra said. “It's been about putting together a team that'll compete for a championship. And that type of mentality has been literally every single year I've been here.”
Among those who joined the Heat in the wake of James' departure was point guard Goran Dragic, acquired at the February 2015 trading deadline. He said he sensed at that moment and other moments of loss a refusal to surrender.
"I have two words in my mind: 'no excuses,' " Dragic said. "Even when we were missing players, we never used excuses. We had who we had and let's go into battle.
"That's something special because most of the teams in the league, they go different ways. I want to be part of this kind of organization that they would not surrender."