"Like many consumers, the Heat's Mike Miller thought he was paying extra for comfort and luxury. He was signing up, essentially, for an expensive VIP basketball experience, literally giving up millions of dollars for the idea of an easier work existence.

He had played his entire career without a single playoff victory, so he came to Miami in search of wide-open shots and blowout wins and a relevance that fans would applaud, not mock. Instead, of course, last season was a circus and a labor that concluded with crushing disappointment, Miller trying to play basketball at the end with thumbs that didn't work. He is the only Heat player to admit that he thought all of this would be so much easier.

It took longer than he expected, took longer than any of us expected, but the Heat finally looks like the VIP experience. No Heat team — not the one that won 61 games, not the champion of 2006, not last year's grandiose experiment — has ever been as overwhelming as what we've seen from this basketball team recently. What we are witnessing is the best product the Heat has ever put on the floor."