Why the Heat are still worth watching this season

In the euphoria of celebrating LeBron James’ return to Cleveland and being able to make fun of fair-weather Miami fans again, one thing that was lost among the majority of the basketball world was that the Heat will remain one of the most intriguing teams to watch this upcoming season.

How will James’ old teammates and a few new additions fare without him? On one hand, the Heat wavered in 2013-14 even with James, en route to winning ‘only’ 54 games - their lowest winning percentage of The Big Three era - and they were outscored with LeBron on the bench. That doesn’t bode well for this new-look team if their malaise was a real sign of deterioration.

On the other hand, many feel the team eased off the accelerator and coasted in a comically weak Eastern Conference that saw them virtually locked into a top-two seed before the New Year. While quantifying or proving how hard a team is playing is impossible, perhaps the Heat can play harder for more consistent stretches than they did last season. Without the best player in the world to lean on, coasting against lesser opponents is no longer an option.

Then there’s the reality that the Heat still boast a collection of very recognizable talent.

In a more balanced and wide open East, a starting lineup of Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, Luol Deng, Josh McRoberts and Mario Chalmers is more than capable of doing some damage. They’ll need help from an iffy group of reserves that includes Norris Cole, Shabazz Napier, Danny Granger, Udonis Haslem and Chris Andersen, but that lineup should be a playoff shoo-in in the aforementioned East, and if things break right, they might even have an outside shot of competing for a fifth straight conference title.

Of course, there are also plenty of questions surrounding this roster. Can that iffy bench provide enough support for an aging trio of Wade, Bosh and Deng? Will the playmaking McRoberts continue to drill threes at a 36 percent clip in Miami, as he did in Charlotte last season, or will he revert back to the player who shot 31 percent from deep over his first six seasons? Wade hasn’t played 70 games in a season since 2010-11 (the first year of The Big Three), while Deng looked worn down last season after being run into the ground by Tom Thibodeau’s depleted Bulls for years.

As easy as it is to see Miami competing near the top of the East again if things go well, it’s just as easy to see things falling apart in embarrassing fashion if Wade and Deng continue to show signs of age and the lackluster bench can’t contribute.

And then there’s Bosh, easily the most intriguing piece of all. We’re four years removed from CB4 averaging 24 points, 10.8 rebounds, 2.4 assists, 1.0 blocks and a 25 PER in Toronto, and over those four years Bosh has become a more complete player overall, notably morphing into a much better defender and a more dangerous shooter who’s moved away from the basket. Last season Bosh finished with the best on-court/off-court rating (+10.4) of any Heat player and the 11th-best rating in the NBA.

One of the biggest questions of the 2014-15 season will be whether Bosh can carry a team as a No. 1 option again, as he did for so many years with the Raptors. If the support from Wade, Deng, McRoberts and co. is there and Bosh can deliver as the best player on a conference contender, it will further validate what is already a potential Hall of Fame career. But if the pieces around him crumble and leave him to fend for himself on most nights, the only similarities to Bosh’s CB4 days will be his leading a mediocre, underwhelming team.

Erik Spoelstra is worth watching as well. Coach Spo deserves a ton of credit for how the Heat adapted and evolved in the wake of their 2011 Finals loss to Dallas, and the 43-year-old remains one of the game’s brightest minds and best coaches. How will he mold this new-look Heat squad and how does he envision them playing? As popular as the term ‘pace-and-space’ is when describing the Heat’s offense in recent years, they’ve never really played fast under Spoelstra, finishing in the bottom half of the league’s pace rankings in all six seasons Spo’s been on the job.

There will be faster teams around the NBA this season and certainly better ones, but few teams, if any, are more intriguing for curious basketball minds than the suddenly James-less Heat.

You may be conflicted about whether you want them to succeed as somewhat of a new underdog or to fail spectacularly without their king, but either way, you’ll be watching.

At least you should be.