Cleveland Cavaliers: Big 3 Should Mesh Quickly

When LeBron James joined Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami, they threw a party in front of fans and James said the infamous words, “Not two, not three, not four….” Just like the rest of the shell-shocked NBA, the Miami Heat’s Big Three thought that things were going to be easy. Sure, they didn’t come out and say it. If you’d asked them, they would’ve said that there was lots of work to do. But there is no doubt that LeBron thought what he was saying at the time was true.

The Miami Heat’s Big Three was going to be great, and they were going to be great right away. They were going to come out and crush teams into chalk dust, rip defenses to shreds, and become a terror on the break that opposing players would have nightmares about.

We all know the story now. The Miami Heat did indeed rise to the occasion. They won back-to-back titles and trekked to the NBA Finals four straight times. They were a force to be reckoned with and at their best, no one could handle them.

But let’s not forget that it didn’t start out that way. The Heat didn’t do what LeBron thought they would initially. Instead, they struggled. They began the 2010-11 season with a 5-4 record and lost a bunch of close games throughout the season as James and Wade tried to figure out which of them should be the alpha dog in the final moments. Bosh had to learn to be a third option, after having been the go-to guy in Toronto for most of his young career.

Even when they sort of got things together and reached the Finals, they lost 4-2 to an inferior Dallas Mavericks team, led by an insanely hot Dirk Nowitzki. During those games, LeBron disappeared at random, Wade tried taking things over and Bosh shifted in and out of mediocrity.

And that was the end of the first season of that experiment. Even the players themselves began to wonder if it had been a failed season. They had gone through so much just to get to the Finals, including drawing a ridiculous amount of spite from fans around the world. They were villains and they had fallen.

Or had they? Then, the next season, the Heat came back with a new fire in their eyes. They torched teams in the regular season as a now-recognized powerhouse and pushed their way back to the Finals, where they finished their business.

Ultimately, yes, the LeBron-led Miami Heat were a success. Any team that gets to the Finals four times in a row and wins two of them is a success. But that first year, the year where they struggled and became frustrated and learned they had to work hard to truly figure things out, that’s what led them to that success.

When you put three monster talents on the same team like that, there is going to be initial turbulence. It doesn’t matter who the players are. And sometimes, even though a lot of people like to think that talent will figure itself out, it doesn’t come to fruition. Take, for example, the 2012 Los Angeles Lakers. What a disaster that became.

That initial turbulence is something I like to call the “meshing” of a squad. During this time of meshing, the entire team learns how to deal with itself and how to make things work. This doesn’t just mean a Big Three, it also means the coaching staff, the role players, etc. All hands on deck.

This meshing, if it ends up working, can take different amounts of time depending on the team. It could take a few weeks, a few months or perhaps even a whole season, like it did for the Miami Heat.

But if it all comes together and the meshing goes as it is supposed to, then the result is often prolific and you’ll get something similar to at least one of the Heat’s four runs. That’s the dream that every NBA team wishes to achieve.

It’s no secret that the Cleveland Cavaliers have been working from that blueprint since they found out LeBron was returning, doing everything in their power to recreate the 2010 Miami Heat, only better. They brought in Kevin Love as the new Bosh, and they already had Kyrie Irving on board as the running mate in place of Wade. Then they brought in some wily vets and even a few of James’ buddies from those past Heat teams, like Mike Miller.

No squad like this new Cavs team can avoid the meshing, but there is lots to be excited about it as it happens. Apart from getting to watch a raw version of what shall come to be a surely incredible final product, it may also happen quicker than most expect. And certainly, it shall happen faster than Miami’s meshing.

Why? Well, here’s a few reasons:

• They’ve got a veteran leader in LeBron
• Love’s game won’t have to change as much as Bosh’s did
• Kyrie will flourish more than ever before, at once
• They’ve got some young legs in Tristan Thompson, Dion Waiters, etc.
• The defensive system won’t be as taxing

If I were so bold as to throw out a crazy prediction for this team, it’d be that their meshing process will only take until about Christmas. By then, they should be ready to take over the second half of the season.

There will be plenty of time to enjoy the finished Cleveland Cavaliers eventually. But as the season grows closer and the players get ready to lace ‘em up, I ask everyone who’s planning on watching this team this season to observe the meshing closely, and more importantly, enjoy greatness as it unfolds.