Miami Heat president Pat Riley recently made headlines for some comments he made regarding the Big 3 era in South Florida.
Riley suggested that if the Big 3 had stayed intact (and remained healthy) for long enough, the team would have won five or six championships.
Retired NBA guard Ron Harper knows a thing or two about winning five titles. The five-time NBA champion offered his thoughts on Riley’s comments and implied that the longtime Heat president Pat Riley deserves some blame for the departure of generational superstar LeBron James, who was the first one to leave the Big 3 and essentially end the era.
The Heat’s Big 3 era lasted four seasons. It featured James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, three players who made the most of their time together.
As a trio, James, Wade and Bosh reached the NBA Finals in all four of their seasons together. While they fell short of winning rings in the 2011 and 2014 NBA Finals, they won back-to-back championships in 2012 and 2013, giving Miami its second and third titles in franchise history.
Following the 2014 NBA Finals, James left the Heat to return to the team that drafted him, the Cleveland Cavaliers. That ended up being a rewarding decision for him, as he was able to bring a championship to Cleveland in 2016.
Today, he’s with the Los Angeles Lakers, where he has added one more title to his resume to become a four-time NBA champion overall. He’s the only member of the Big 3 who is still active, and at nearly 40 years old, he’s the oldest active player in the NBA.
Nobody will ever truly know how many championships the Big 3 Heat would have ended up with if the trio had stayed together for longer. After James left in the 2014 offseason, Wade left in the 2016 offseason (before eventually returning to finish his career with the Heat), and Bosh wasn’t able to play past the 2015-16 season due to blood clots. The 2018-19 season was Wade’s last.
As such, it’s unclear if the Big 3 would’ve had enough time to win up to six titles even if James hadn’t left in 2014, especially considering the fact that Bosh was forced into retirement. However, Riley does seem to think that some championships might’ve been left on the table.