23Jan

Miami Heat Fans Rank #1 in Forbes for Best Fans in the NBA

January 23, 2015 by

Raanan Katz Miami Heat FansForbes recently did a study on the NBA’s best fans. They use five variables in their algorithm to determine which team has the best fans. The first variable is hometown crowd reach, which is a percentage of local individuals who listened, watched, or attended a game in the last year. The other variables consist of three years worth of television ratings, three years of capacity reached for an attendance based approach, three years of merchandise sales, and social media followers, which is the combination of Twitter followers and Facebook likes. There are also factors that count in behavioral variables such as loyalty and television ratings. Social media reach was calculated as a percent of the city population. Dual city teams had their local population cut in half to account for multiple team options in a single city.

This year, the Miami Heat was calculated to have the best fans in the NBA. Although LeBron James leaving the Miami Heat might have something to do with their high score, the Heat fans have been ranked in the top 5 ever since 2004. With Dwyane Wade, LeBron James, and Shaquille O’Neal; the team’s merchandise sales have been among the top since 2004. The Heat are ranked 3rd in the social media metric with both the 3rd highest combined Twitter followers/Facebook likes and total percentage of social media followers combined with the population of Miami.

After LeBron left, the teams capacity and merchandise sales still ranked towards the top of the league. To even further prove the team’s momentum, Fox’s Sun Sports signed a network contract with the Miami Heat that pays triple today’s rights fee and is signed through the 2025 season.

 

The list of the top 10 best NBA fans:

 

1)   Miami Heat

2)   Oklahoma City Thunder

3)   San Antonio Spurs

4)   Chicago Bulls

5)   Los Angeles Lakers

6)   Boston Celtics

7)   Dallas Mavericks

8)   Indiana Pacers

9)   Portland Trail Blazers

10)  Los Angeles Clippers

06Nov

#LeBron James is channeling his inner Erik Spoelstra in Cleveland (Let’s run through the #Spoisms checklist)

November 6, 2014 by

By Joe

LeBron James is sounding a lot like Heat coach Erik Spoelstra these days, and NBA insiders familiar with the Heat’s locker-room culture have been taking notice.

James and the Cleveland Cavaliers dropped below .500 on Tuesday with a loss to the Portland Trail Blazers, and afterwards James began reeling off a list of classic Spoelstra catchphrases and go-to nuggets of wisdom about team development. The unique and repetitive jargon or “coach speak” — known as “Spoisms” — has become one of Spoelstra’s most endearing trademarks.

“It’s going to be a process,” James said at Portland’s Moda Center after the loss to the Trail Blazers. “I keep on harping on that word, but it’s the truth. I’ve been there before and understand it. But you do have to go through it even though you don’t like to go through it.”

Or, as Spoelstra might say, the Cavaliers just need to “respect the process,” and avoid listening to “outside noise” because those distractions are just “someone else’s truth.”

James scored just 11 points in Portland, including two points over the final three quarters of the game. He never scored 11 or fewer points in a regular-season game with the Heat and the last time he has …read more

Source:: Raanan Katz – Miami Herald – Miami Heat

01Oct

Is a South Beach bling king from Ohio partly to blame for ending the LeBron James Era in Miami?

October 1, 2014 by

By Joe

A South Beach bling king from Ohio might be partly to blame for the Heatles break up, and for not only LeBron James going back to Cleveland, but also Mike Miller and James Jones joining the Cavaliers as well.

Haider Zafar of Ohio, who allegedly conned Miller, Jones and Rashard Lewis out of millions in 2013, is expected to plead guilty to multiple wire fraud charges, according to court documents filed on Wednesday in Columbus, Ohio. The Heat amnestied Miller in 2013, but not before a Heat employee introduced Miller, Jones and Lewis to Zafar, who then swindled them to the tune of $7.5 million, according to a grand jury indictment.

So what does this have to do with LeBron going back to Cleveland? Well, let’s just say the whole mess didn’t help Miami’s chances of keeping last year’s team together.

It’s well known at this point that the Heat angered LeBron by amnestying Miller not long after Miller helped the Heat repeat as NBA champions in 2013. Miller said early this week in Cleveland that LeBron thought the move “was an unnecessary change.” That’s Miller being nice, of course. Really what probably made LeBron most angry is that the Heat amnestied one …read more

Source:: Raanan Katz – Miami Herald – Miami Heat

29Sep

Wade on LeBron and other things he said today at #Heat training camp

September 29, 2014 by

By Joe

Some notes on Dwyane Wade and stuff from Day 3 of the Heat’s training camp…

—The morning session was teaching intensive and Dwyane Wade some of the new players need to do a better job of learning on the fly.

—The team took a break for lunch and air mattresses are available for players who don’t want to leave the arena during training camp. Tonight’s schedule includes some live-ball drills at full speed.

—Wade called Norris Cole “a monster” defensively, and said the next step in his career would be learning “how to be effective as a point guard and as a scoring guard.”

“He’s got to figure out the perfect way to do that, and it’s not always easy for guys,” Wade said. “But if he can figure it out, he can be very dangerous for us. But I’m very confident. He’s a kid who loves to work, and he wants to be as great as he wants to be. So, I think he’ll figure it out.”

—Wade on LeBron: “I don’t have no cameras in Cleveland. I don’t know what’s going on on the court.”

—Wade had some loud and colorful neon yellow Li-Ning shorts on today. I asked him if they were …read more

Source:: Raanan Katz – Miami Herald – Miami Heat