“Um in this fall, man this is very tough. In this fall, I’m a take my talents to South Beach and um, join the Miami Heat.”

This was the domino that started it all. LeBron James and ESPN hosted the, perhaps fairly, much-maligned 75-minute show, “The Decision.” The show culminated in him announcing that he was leaving his home state of Ohio and the Cleveland Cavaliers for the sunny beaches and glorious sands of Miami.

The announcement was followed by an unveiling ceremony of the new Big Three that included James, 2003 Miami draftee Dwyane Wade and former Raptors ‘wallow-ee,’ Chris Bosh.

“We didn’t come here to win one championship, not two, not three, not four, not five, not six, not seven…,” James said during the unveiling. 

Immediately after this spectacle and in the months after, James became the subject of a lot of criticism, and he became the poster child of ungrateful professional athletes. LeBron could barely do anything on or off the court without getting criticized, and this situation certainly wasn’t helped by the slow start of the Miami Heat. As a member of the anti-LeBron party, I’d like to say that we were unreasonable in our judgment because not baseball, but hating LeBron became the national pastime.

Fast forward to the end of that first season and the Heat have lost to an unbelievable Dirk Nowitzki and the Dallas Mavericks in the NBA Finals. LeBron’s performance in that series almost justified every criticism that had laid at him, and the loss was almost like a vindication for the world in the ‘Miami Heat v. the World’ saga.

In that very moment and up until about a year later, people were criticizing the Miami Heat organization. Owner Micky Arison and President Pat Riley were ridiculed because their Big Three experiment was called a failure. The comments about James shrinking on the greatest stage grew stronger and irrefutable.

The year after that, the Miami Heat used the “hate” from detractors to fuel a championship run and momentarily silenced those critics. James also used the NBA Finals series against the Oklahoma City Thunder to shred the perception of him as an anti-hero in waning moments of important games. The tide had finally turned, and Miami was on top of the world again.

We catch the team again at the end of Game 5 against San Antonio this year. The Heat are on the brink of elimination and whispers about the Miami Big Three experiment being a failure start to abound again. What is it that makes us prisoners of the moment?

This was the same Miami team that had been to the NBA Finals in each of the three seasons it had been together. The same squad that had gone on an 27-game win streak, second in history only to the 1971-72 Los Angeles Lakers that included Wilt Chamberlain. This is the same team with the best player in the world, a four-time regular season MVP LeBron James. This was the team that we had started to write off as failures.

With 10 seconds left in regulation of Game 6, the Miami Heat were facing the possibility of that whisper becoming a summer nightmare. Speculation of Bosh being on his way out and James contemplating his future in South Beach had already started. The obituary of the Big Three was already being etched all over the inter-web. As we all saw, Ray Allen used his pincer to remove the nails from that coffin.

I started this column before Game 6, and I was ready to debunk the theory that the Miami Heat going 1-for-3 was a failure. I was going to point out that although Wade was appearing to be on the decline, he still had some years in him. I was ready to go to bat for Chris Bosh and say that although he was struggling to score this series, he had played his heart out and the slump couldn’t last the rest of his career. I was ready to point out game after game of LeBron not shrinking in the Finals but actually being a driving force to Miami’s wins. I was ready to scream from the rooftops that his best is yet to come. I was stocked with ammunition, but I didn’t have to use it.

In back-to-back incredible end-of-game performances, the Heat go from a Kawhi Leonard free throw away from a horrible summer to a bright outlook at another NBA dynasty. It looks like the claims of “not two, not three…” could come to realization. Acknowledging just that, a relieved Miami team took its talents to South Beach with rapper Aubrey Graham as it spent the night in the clubs of Miami. The hate and doubt will have to wait for another 130 days.

As the dust settles from Miami’s explosive three-day party weekend, and people are forced to return to the tediousness of a sunny Miami summer, the rise of an era could be upon us. “Numbers Never Lie” showed that the LeBron James-Michael Jordan comparisons could be true again with James having the edge in accomplishments at this point in his career. The whispers are starting again, but this time it’s back to the MJ-LBJ argument. These could be the first two of six championships for LeBron and Co. We could be witnessing greatness, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. After all, it would be hypocritical of me to be another prisoner of the moment.

Lanre is a junior in Media. He can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @WriterLanre.