Miami Heat Research Paper

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Miami Heat Won Championships Back to Back
The Miami Heat is an American professional basketball team based in Miami. The team was launched in 1988 and played in the 1988–89 season of the National Basketball Association The next season they moved from the Western Conference to the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference. After a mainly mediocre performance in the first few seasons, there were extensive team changes in 1995 and 1996 under head coach Pat Riley, including the recruitment of Isaac Austin and P.J. Brown. They reached the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time in 1996–97. They did not reach this level again until 2004–05, under new head coach Stan Van Gundy and with Dwyane Wade as a leading team member. At this time they transferred to the Southeast Division. The next year the team won the NBA Finals, defeating the Dallas Mavericks. The head coach position was next taken by Erik Spoelstra. Their next successful season was 2010–11, when they reached the NBA Finals again, losing to the Mavericks. Acquiring LeBron …show more content…

Among the players on the inaugural roster were first round picks Rony Seikaly and Kevin Edwards, fellow rookies Grant Long and Sylvester Gray as well as NBA vets Rory Sparrow, Jon Sundholm, Pat Cummings, Scott Hastings, Dwayne "Pearl" Washington and Billy Thompson. The team started out the season by losing its first 17 games, including a blowout 138–91, to Magic Johnson's Los Angeles Lakers, at the time an NBA record. It did not help that the Heat were placed in the Midwest Division of the Western Conference despite being located on the East Coast. This forced them on the longest road trips in the NBA; their nearest divisional opponent was the Houston Rockets, over 900 miles from Miami. The team ultimately finished with a league-worst 15–67 win-loss record (tied for worst season in franchise

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