KFDM COOP Posted November 22, 2006 Report Posted November 22, 2006 Miami Heat Could Miss NBA Playoffs Will defending champs make trip to playoffs or lottery?By John Hollinger ESPN Insider Archive Yes, Miami is in trouble. That in itself doesn't really qualify as news. With Shaquille O'Neal out several weeks and the Heat off to a 4-5 start, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the first half of the season could be bumpy. What might be newsworthy, however, is the extent of the trouble. I get the impression most view the Heat's troubles as a temporary thing -- they'll have a rocky first half, get better in the second half and still easily win the SouthLeast Division. To these folks, the trouble is that Miami might get a poor playoff seed that will prove costly in the postseason. But the trouble is much more severe than that. Although Miami's 4-5 record appears quasi-respectable, it disguises a much uglier reality. This was a team that lost its first game by 44 points, at home, to a team that is 3-7 and still looking for its second road win. The Heat have lost three home games by 20 or more points, including a 24-point pounding by the Knicks that will provide about 75 percent of the material for New York's postseason highlight video. Wait, it gets worse. The Heat have the league's worst scoring margin, even though they've played only three road games and only one of their first nine opponents has a winning record. According to USA Today computer guru Jeff Sagarin's "predictor" rating, they've been the league's worst team through Monday's games. I know what you're thinking: That awful scoring margin looks better if you throw out the Bulls game. It does, a bit -- they move up from 30th in the league all the way to 28th. Besides, why would you throw that game out? Was it really that unusual, considering Miami has been stampeded off the floor in three of its six home games? One could argue the real outlier is that they managed to beat New Jersey on the road. In short, they've been horrible, and I'm not sure they're going to get much better. Thus, the issue isn't whether they're going to get a good seed for the playoffs or win the division. The real question is whether the defending champions are going to end up in the lottery, which would be an unprecedented development in the non-Jerry Krause portion of the universe. Life without Shaq Even in an Eastern Conference that's somehow managed to get worse, the Heat aren't going to crack the top eight without significant improvement. Losing Shaq doesn't help, but it's just the tip of the iceberg. The Heat struggled when he played, suffering two home blowouts in O'Neal's four games, and it's not like he was doing much anyway. Shaq's PER is in single digits (15 is average, 10 is pretty dismal) and Yao Ming abused him in his one matchup against an elite scoring center. Besides, Shaq might look like the pre-Subway Jared by the time he returns. He's not exactly renowned for his commitment to conditioning, and he's not going to be able to move around for the next few weeks while his knee recovers. In addition, his recovery is likely to be longer and more arduous than the standard "four to six weeks" for his knee surgery, given how much weight his knee has to support and how many bonbons Shaq may eat in the next six weeks. (By the way, his contract has four years left at $20 million a pop … and you thought Chris Webber was untradable.)
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