The Miami Heat will begin their NBA title defense next week. It's been a harrowing journey since the Big Three came together in the Summer of 2010. The whole world watched and hated and delighted when they failed to beat the Dallas Mavericks in the NBA Finals.
Then they were forced to eat it hard when LeBron and the boys brought home the hardware in 2012.
No one ate it harder than the national media, which not only fed the hatred but openly rooted for Miami to fail and collapse.
So as the Heat approach the new season, we count down the ten biggest Heat haterz in the media, and wonder how they like their crow cooked:
10. Adrian Wojnarowski (Yahoo! Sports): He's not so much a part of the HATERZ as he just seems to play to the crowd. Which is a shame, because Wojnarowski is a pretty good NBA columnist. Throughout the two years LeBron's been with the Heat, Woj would trot out the "Heat Experiment Is Soft And Won't Work" meme. Look at this heaping pile of raccoon shit.
The LeBron James experiment not only teetering on COLLAPSE. But Erik Spoelstra is SOFT.
It's like he looked up the most Googled words people look up when they want to read about the Heat, and threw them together in a mangled mess of a column.
The only relevance to James' words in the locker room is the absence of malice over losing, the sense that a Game 5 loss when Rajon Rondo, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen missed 32 of 43 shots is somehow palatable. Hey, we were close. We had our chances. What else can you ask for? The superstar doesn't ask for anything else: he demands it. Of himself, of others.
Mind you, this was written before Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals when the so-called Failed Experiment unleashed his Cobra Dick on the entire city of Boston to the tune of 45 motherfucking points.
But, no, TOTALLY in collapse, guy.
9. Michelle Beadle (ESPN talking-head): One-time Sports Nation host, Michelle Beadle, represents the worst in media Heat haterdom. She took shit personal. When LeBron James was in Cleveland, she nicknamed him the Akron Hammer. When he was due to become a free agent, Beadle started a LEBRON FREE AGENT COUNTDOWN clock. And then, James chose Miami, shattering Beadle's hopes and dreams into oblivion. And she immediately took to Twitter with a gargantuan monkey-fist of hatred and never let go. On her show she called Heat fans dumb: "Miami heat fans are not smart fans, they are just fans who show up in the second quarter." Because that would NEVER happen in Cleveland.
When LeBron made his "What should I do?" Nike commercial, Beadle mocked it during an intro to Sports Nation.
HA. HA. HA. It's funny because she's eating a donut and she's a girl.
She has since left the show and is now a sports reporter for NBC Universal, which we're pretty sure is an actual thing, but we're gonna have to Google it.
8. Gregg Doyel (CBS Sports): Nothing more obnoxious and self-serving than a sports columnist who over saturates his articles with passive-agressive commentary, and then passes them off as "facts." Because he wrote them, then they're facts, you see. Doyel excels at being a douche-scribe, evidenced not only in his writing, but in his looks. I'm bald and I wear cool t-shirts, bro. In 2011, Doyel brought the douche-volume to eleven when, during an NBA Finals post-game press conference, he thought he'd catch LeBron in a "gotcha" moment -- after a Heat win, no less.
"LeBron, three games in a row for you fourth quarter -- not much. That's the moment superstars become superstars. Seems like you are almost shrinking from it. What's going on?"
James' answer pretty much obliterated Doyel and the national media's "shrinking in the moment/who wants it more" bullshit narrative. LeBron might as well have pulled out his nuts and rested them on Doyel's bald head.
Even as the Heat were dominating the 2012 NBA Finals against Oklahoma City, Doyel -- like all true HATERZ -- refused to give credit to Miami. Doyel spewed out this nonsense:
I present the following not as a conspiracy theory, but as a fact: A judgment call by an official late in Game 2 of the NBA Finals went in favor of LeBron James, and that judgment call allowed the Heat to escape with a victory against the Thunder. ...Again, that's not me launching a conspiracy theory. That's me telling you the way that it is, and the way it is has the Heat holding a 2-1 lead on the Thunder -- with both wins sealed by a referee's decision of a 50-50 call in favor of LeBron James.
No, no. I'm in no way keeping with my history of trolling the Heat with the entirety of my being. It's a FACT that the refs made a judgement call, because during the other times, they're just blowing the whistle randomly. Never mind the fact that James was the best player on the floor, dominated the low post, and played all-world defense on Kevin Durant. THIS WAS ALL DECIDED BY A 50-50 CALL. And it went 100 percent in LeBron's faverrrrr... derp nerp derp.
Gregg Doyell can eat 100 percent of LeBron's penis.
7. Ric Bucher (ESPN NBA Analyst): Outside of maybe Skip Bayless, no one trolls the Heat harder, in terms of lack of actual substance and facts, than Ric Bucher.
He still maintains Derek Rose is better than LeBron James.
He actually wrote these words and then stuck to them:
[LeBron is] not the best player in the league. The best player in the league is the undisputed leader of his team [Rose]. At least in my book. You can compare what he did in this series vs. Rose, but the comparison can't be made.
You can compare LeBron and Rose in a head-to-head situation, except that you can't. Also, Rose is better than the three-time League MVP because he yells at his teammates more. Also, WHERE THE FUCK ARE MY EYEBROWS???
6. Jon Barry (ESPN NBA Analyst): This penis-headed shaped jagoff spent every waking minute on ESPN's NBA pregame shows shitting all over LeBron and the Heat.
Heat fans know what's up.
5. Michael Wilbon (ESPN Analyst): When he's not showing utter contempt for your failings to view sports from the golden perch he does, Wilbon is aiming his gasbaggy horse dickishness on the Miami Heat and their fans. This is more so probably because the Heat constantly beat the shit out of his beloved Chicago Bulls. It's also because Wilbon is a widely known condescending asshole.
Not only did he delight in Miami's failed run at a championship in 2011 on TV, radio, and in his column, he kept feeding the media narrative of the Heat's softness throughout the 2012 playoffs. Like Woj, Wilbon grasped the whole "Heat doesn't have what it takes to be a champion" moose fuckery narrative and ran with it like someone just brought donuts to the break room.
"It became apparent literally sometime in Game 3 -- more likely in Game 4 -- that Miami just doesn't have what it takes to be a championship team. They don't have it, Wilbon told a Boston radio show before the Heat destroyed the Celtics in that same exact series (FOR THE SECOND SEASON IN A ROW, MIND YOU).
"Spoelstra can't get done what they need to have done," he added.
"There's a disconnect between what they're supposed to do and what they actually do -- what they're capable of doing, and what they actually do. Do I seem them suddenly putting it all together tomorrow in Boston? No, I don't. I don't see any scenario where that happens."
Nothing says condescending dipshit more than a guy who asks a question and then answers it.
Did the Heat SUDDENLY put it all together in Boston? IT WOULD APPEAR SO. Is Michael Wilbon a complete and utter fucking tool? FUCK AND YES.
4. Jason Whitlock (Fox Sports): He wrote that the San Antonio Spurs would win the NBA championship because their stars didn't grow up in America, while the Heat stars did.
Yep. Sportz analisissss.
Tim Duncan (Virgin Islands), Tony Parker (France) and Manu Ginobili (Argentina), the San Antonio-drafted foundation of the Spurs team, did not grow up a part of traditional American basketball culture. Duncan grew up dreaming of being an Olympic swimmer. ... San Antonio's "Big Three" is quite a contrast to Miami's. James, an Akron, Ohio, native, never attended college and orchestrated his move to Miami after seven seasons with the Cavaliers. Bosh, a Dallas native, left Georgia Tech after one season and bolted to Miami after seven seasons in Toronto. Dwyane Wade, a Chicago native, played two seasons at Marquette and was drafted by the Heat.
The Spurs and their non-American cultured up stars got thrashed by the Oklahoma City Thunder after taking a 2-0 series lead. The Heat then beat the Thunder in the NBA Finals.
But, LeBron never attended college! And Tim Duncan dreamed of swimming! In the Olympics! HOW CAN THIS BE????
3. Charles Barkley (TNT NBA Analyst): Called the Heat a bunch of "whiney babies," and thinks Heat fans suck. Now he's suddenly on the LeBron is better than Jordan bandwagon.
Firss of awl. You caaaan go fuck yerselfff.
2. Bill Simmons (ESPN/Grantland columnist): Not only did he openly root for the Heat to fail as an experiment, he preemptively made sure their first title would be tainted with an asterisk because Derek Rose got hurt.
And then there's the classic "BOSTON TEAMS NEVER LOSE UNLESS THE REFS MAKE THEM DERP HERRRRRRRRP DERP" horse assery.
Boston sports fans are probably the most obnoxious entitled fanbase in all of sports, and Simmons is the perfect defacto leader.
Asterisk these nuts, Sports Fella.
1. Skip Bayless (ESPN talking-head): Of course, no one takes the cake on Heat Hatery quite like Skip. We're convinced he does this shit on purpose. People revile him, yet can't not watch him on ESPN's First Take. LeBron called him his "Howard Cosell," which Skip is fond of.
Still, the guy invented the "LeBrick" moniker and fed the haterz worldwide with the "LeBron shrinks in big moments" myth.
So Skip earns one big LeFuck You.
Then, of course, he got obliterated by Mark Cuban after the Heat won the title.
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