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NBA Miami Heat

Miami Heat Learning To Live With Less Exposure

Miami Heat

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With tempered expectations comes tapered exposure. You could see that through pictures of the way media day coverage dwindled down to the sparse contingent of reporters tailing the early stages of Miami Heat training camp.

That’s a far cry from the past four seasons, where the ESPN Heat Index made all team news seem as big as a President Obama press conference.

You really cannot knock them for their handling of the superstar team — or current lack thereof — because their every move was like an NBA event that the entire world wanted to be a part of. But now there’s a change. And the difference probably shines brightest with the lack of televised attention of tonight’s annual, free training camp open practice.

The game went from live on television for many of the Big Three years to a live broadcast on the team’s website — even though the cause is to promote breast cancer awareness. Instead the media chooses to focus on a battle of the best backcourt, which features two groups of people (in Cleveland and Washington) who have a total of one playoff appearance.

Call it the equivalent of a rock star divorce. Everyone cares about the new spouse and rarely speaks of the former companion. So it is easy to see why Miami forward Udonis Haslem said, “now we’ll see who the real Heat fans are.” However, the positive is the South Florida Sun-Sentinel’s Ira Winderman observing that “[Dwyane] Wade and [Chris] Bosh do seem more at ease with the relaxed, laid-back atmosphere.”

It’s an unexpected perk of not having the current king of basketball around, which means less pressure, less cameras and less fanfare. But this organization will still expect excellence while everyone else predicts mediocrity.

Could you think of a better way to catch teams by surprise? That’s especially the case when those teams will be looking to smash them in their weakened state as payback for the last four years of South Beach beatings.

It should be an interesting season in Miami.

Richard Nurse is a writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @blackirishpr or add him to your network on Google.