Who To Put On The Heat
By Robert Ferringo
P.S., I’m not 100 percent sure which of these players have signed, are under contract, or whatever. I do know that at the start of free agency each of them were unrestricted free agents. So if I were building the Heat from here, below is a list of guys that I would be calling. They aren’t in any particular order. But I know that the Heat have about six slots to fill (they have LeBron, Wade, Bosh and Chalmers, plus three rookies). I would fill them with a mish-mash from this group, with greater weight given to the big men, then shooters, then point guards:
Bobby Simmons
Rodney Carney
Brad Miller
Ronald Murray
Hakim Warrick
T.J. Ford
Luke Ridnour
Carlos Arroyo
Udonis Haslem
Mike Miller
Joey Graham
Wesley Matthews
Kyle Korver
Devean George
Steve Blake
Derek Fisher
Larry Hughes
Brendan Haywood
Luis Scola
Jamal Crawford
I would try to grab Scola, Warrick, Miller, Haslem and Haywood. Get three of those guys. Then I would try to get two of the following: Miller, Korver, Hughes, Carney or Crawford. After that, I’m thinking I would get one of these guys: Ford, Simmons, Fisher, or Blake. The rest are there in case you can’t get your first pick.
But the reality is that all of these guys are/were unrestricted free agents and I think that any one of them would be willing to take a little less money in order to play on the clear-cut NBA favorites to win the 2010-11 NBA championship. (Again, I want to emphasize that this is a snap-judgment thing. I am not 100 percent on who is still available and/or what they would command in salary. I’m just saying that this group was UFA’s and I’m trying to project who will fill out the roster on this squad.)
So if they followed the Ferringo Plan, the team would look like this:
James
Wade
Carney
Miller
Simmons
Blake
Chalmers
Scola
Warrick
Miller
Bosh
(The other three slots are for rookies; but what will they contribute? Really?)
Yeah, that would be a title team. With ease. I would start Chalmers, Wade, James, Bosh and B. Miller. Warrick and Scola would be the bigs off the bench. Carney would be the second-team scorer. Blake, M. Miller and Simmons wold be ball handlers and shooters. In the playoffs I would shorten my rotation to Chalmers, Wade, James, Bosh, B. Miller, Blake, M. Miller, Carney, Scola.
Champ-ion-ship!
