There are two schools of thought when you have a luxury vehicle. One way of thinking is you paid all this money for a fine automobile, so there no reason to have it sit in the garage all day, you drive it to the wheels come off.
The second school of thought is you paid all this money for a fine automobile, so you want to preserve it as much as possible, so the wheels stay on.
The Heat was forced to use LeBron the first way, because they had no choice but to use Wade the second way, but according to ESPN Bron is tired of being taken out every weekend for cross country trips.
James will have some serious conversations with Heat management and his teammates. There are going to be at least three driving factors in his decision:
• Wade’s health is once again in question after he showed signs of slowing down in the late rounds of the playoffs. Wade has needed procedures on his knees in each of the past two summers and it has carried over into the season, reducing his availability. If Wade needs to take any other action with his troublesome knees, James will want to know how much can be expected out of him in the future.
• To better prepare for the long grind of the season, James wants to reduce his minute load so he can attempt to save his body for the playoffs and, for the long haul, hopefully extend his personal championship window.
• James played 400 minutes more than any teammate this season and about 1,300 more minutes than running mate Wade. This is a trend he’s interested in reversing immediately. This means the Heat will have to add at least one reliable, and ideally younger, player at his position.
• James is going to want to hear the team will spend some more money on role players. The Heat made three choices over this past season that were aimed at controlling payroll instead of improving the roster that ultimately explained how the Spurs’ bench and overall depth proved to be dramatically better.
They released Mike Miller via the amnesty provision, a move that ultimately saved the Heat $15 million in luxury tax. James complained about this frequently during the season, especially on nights when Wade missed games to deal with ongoing knee issues.
You didn’t have to have “sources” to figure some of these things out.
LeBron knows he is chasing ghosts and can’t really be sympathetic to Wade’s knees or Bosh’s emotions. He wants to win rings and if the Heat don’t make serious changes to their roster, he will be taking his talents elsewhere.