It was only days ago that the Miami Heat won their second title in three years, so questioning whether the core of their championship team should be broken up might seem comical. It might be, but we were a Ray Allen 3 or a Manu Ginobili free throw away from this being a legitimate conversation. In fact, I was almost certain that if Miami lost this year, the big 3 would have been broken up and Erik Spoelstra sent packing.

I don’t know if there are many people out there that believe either Bosh or Wade should be traded, and I will assume that some of the people that do, do so because they think breaking them up would stop them from winning next year. I’m in the camp (of 1?) that believes that Miami should break up the big 3 in order to be in a better position to make the finals and potentially win it all again.

The conversation of breaking up the Big 3 starts and ends with Chris Bosh. Miami will not trade Dwayne Wade, who despite struggling most of the playoffs did enough in the finals to complement James and win the title. Now before I start bashing Bosh, I do give him credit for his rebound and 2 blocks late in game 6 of the finals, but in my mind that is not enough to warrant him getting paid over $100 million. I will discard the regular season in my argument because, let’s be honest, LeBron James can win 60 games by himself (Cleveland).

These were Bosh’s numbers in the playoffs:

Playoffs FG% 3p% RPG APG BPG TO PPG First Round 0.538 0.429 8.0 1.0 1.8 1.8 12.8 Conf. Semifinals 0.500 0.500 8.6 2.0 2.2 1.2 13.6 Conf. Finals 0.377 0.500 4.3 0.7 1.0 1.0 11.0 Finals 0.462 0.000 8.9 2.1 1.6 1.0 11.9 Playoff Averages 0.458 0.405 7.3 1.5 1.6 1.2 12.1

The numbers don’t tell the whole story, but they are certainly a chapter of it. Chris Bosh has turned into the most overpaid role player in the NBA. It’s not all his fault. Spoelstra’s system is predicated upon spreading the floor and putting the ball in James’ hands so he can make plays and not very many plays are run for Bosh who in the playoffs lived off of long jumpers. Despite shooting well from the 3, teams will definitely live with him taking that shot. I was talking to a friend of mine, the biggest Miami Heat fan I know and he believes that if Bosh does not get any paint touches and just roams around the perimeter, then it is obvious that he does not fit the system and it might be time for him to go despite winning back-to-back titles. He also mentioned that Miami going “small” a lot of times and playing Bosh at the 5 effectively marginalizes him and, unless Miami can get a good center in the offseason, it s time for him to go. I agree; Bosh is completely overmatched when guarding bigger, better players (Hibbert: 22 and 10, Duncan: 19 and 12) and is not good enough rebounding the ball to where there is any reason to keep him on the roster. How about trading him to the Pelicans for Ryan Anderson? I’m not saying the Pelicans would necessarily do that but Anderson is a much better fit than Bosh to play alongside LeBron James.

It is hard to write this article at this point in time and not come off as a “hater,” but I truly believe that, if the right deal is available, Miami should trade Chris Bosh. Winning a title is hard, repeating is harder, three-peating…

Part II will be posted soon, in which a guest blogger argues that there is no need to fix something that is not broken.

Check it out and let us know what you think.

(Stats courtesy of stats.nba.com)