SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2010
KLMNO PROFESSIONAL BASKETBALL Spotlight heats up Miami’s stars heat from D1
Heat intoanovernightNBAFinals contender as well as an object of international wonder and ex- tremely heavy stateside resent- ment. “It’s going to be the top story
every night, period,” said Jalen Rose, an ESPNcommentatorwho played 13 seasons with six NBA teams. “Whenyouturnon‘Sports- Center,’ turn on the local news, you’regoingtoseewhathappened intheHeat game.”
Worldwide reach Knownforpromotingindividu-
al stars such as Michael Jordan, MagicJohnsonandKobeBryant,a league with more global reach than any other U.S. professional sports league suddenly finds itself with a squad of megastars as its prime showpiece. The Heat is not only positioned to join the Dallas CowboysandNewYorkYankees in therarifiedairof so-called“Ameri- ca’s teams” — those detested as much as loved and admired—but Heatofficialsmindfulof theNBA’s international appeal are also an- gling to launch the franchise into the global sphere occupied by Manchester United and iconic athletes such as TigerWoods and RogerFederer. All this even though the trio
hasn’tplayeda single game yet for Miami. Whether the team’s per- formance will live up to the hype has only heightened the interest surrounding it. “It’s theater,” saidMark Bartel-
stein, a Chicago-based agent who represents more than 120 NBA and NFL players. “It’s entertain- ment. It’s what plays. It’s just he- roes andvillains.People love great rivalries. They love teams that hate each other. There’s a lot of interest. I think the casual fan tunedinto the soapopera that the NBA was this summer, and it will carry forward.” Overseas fans tuned in, too.
Since the end of June, the Heat’s Facebook “friends” have swelled from 23,000 to nearly 250,000, and half live outside the United States, according to Eric Wool- worth, the Heat’s president of business operations. The team’s Web site attracted more visitors between July 1 and mid-August than all of last season, he said, with more than 40 percent of the hits coming from international sources — not surprising given that more than 50 percent of
NBA.com hits originate overseas, according to league spokesman Mike Bass. Meanwhile, a multi- tude of companies from Europe and China have sought sponsor- ships,Woolworth said, with deals likely to be announced through- out the fall. The diversity and intensity of
interesthas far surpassedthat sur- rounding the 2005-06 Heat team thatwonanNBAtitleafteracquir- ing outsize star Shaquille O’Neal as a sidekick toWade. “The teamhas sort of catapult-
ed into a new universe,” Wool- worthsaid. “Fromacorporateper- spective, we’re playing in a sand- boxwe’veneverplayedinbefore.” Amix of strung-out drama, gar-
ish execution and over-the-top revelry helped turn the signing sweep into must-see reality TV. After a week of visits with a half- dozen teams, James chose to un- veil his choice on an hour-long special called “The Decision” that drew a 7.3 overnight rating – the same size viewing audience that tuned in to the recent record- matching Virginia Tech-Boise StategameandtheU.S.WorldCup opener againstEngland. In the aftermath of the show, public support for James dipped
Wizards’ Blatche likes where he is
At age 24, big man has security,
money he wanted BY MICHAEL LEE
Andray Blatche’s summer
appeared to be lost when he suffered a broken bone in his right foot in June. But just before the start of training camp, he found a rewarding conclusion when the Washing- ton Wizards gave him a three- year contract extension worth more than $28million between now and the 2014-15 season. The money was right, and
getting an upward bump in salary over the next two sea- sons was even better. Yet the reason Blatche said he decided to sign the deal on Friday was because he doesn’t want to leaveWashington. “Themain thing about it is, I
wanted to be here. I like being here,” Blatche said in a tele- phone interview. “I wanted to be aWizard. So when they said they wanted to do a deal with me, you know, I’m going to negotiate with them.” And it was Blatche himself
who did the actual negotiating — without an agent, having separated from his long-time agent, Eric Fleisher,
last
month. Blatche said he hired an attorney to an hourly rate to assist him with the legal lan- guage of the contract. The timing for the extension
MARC SEROTA/GETTY IMAGES
Asummer of free-agent frenzy turned theHeat’s DwyaneWade, left, Chris Bosh, center, and LeBron James into the stars of theNBA’s most-buzzed about team, but it also left them with a legion of haters.
precipitously, according the mar- keting research firmTheQScores Company, and Wade’s and Bosh’s reputations alsosank. Jameswent fromhaving one of themost posi- tive athlete approval ratings in January (24 percent viewed him positively; 22 percent negatively) tofallingintothetop10ofdisliked athletes by August (14 percent positive and 39 negative), compa- nyspokesmanHenrySchafer said. Wade and Bosh also earned nega- tive reviews; their numbers went from 21/18 to 15/25 forWade and 13/21 to 12/35 for Bosh, Schafer said. Meanwhile, the outspoken
owner of the Dallas Mavericks, Mark Cuban, told a Dallas radio show this month that James pulled off the “largest public hu- miliation in the history of sports . . . and all of a sudden, he became a bad guy, he lost a billion dollars inbrandequity.”
Cashing in on interest Experts say reputations may
have been tarnished, but demand andinteresthavesurged.Rawpas- sionhasprovenverygoodforbusi- ness, driving up prices for home and awayHeat tickets. Tickets for Miami’s home opener against Or- lando showed an average price of $536 in early September on the ticket exchange site StubHub, ac- cording to StubHub spokesman Glenn Lehrman. By comparison, last year’s Miami home opener against the Knicks drew an aver- age of$50. The Christmas day game in Los
Angeles between the Heat and NBA champion Lakers was aver- aging$478,Lehrmansaid. “Youmight see an average tick-
GOLF
Furyk holds one-stroke lead in tight Tour Championship
ASSOCIATED PRESS Jim Furyk ended a demanding
round with an even-par 70 in the Tour Championship in Atlanta. It was just enough to give him a one-shot lead Saturday, and not nearly enough to allow him to think ahead too much to a possi- ble $10 million payoff. There were simply too many
players right behind, too many possibilities going into the final round of the FedEx Cup. Furyk scrambled for two good
bogeys on the back nine and two consecutive birdies late on anoth- er steamy day at East Lake to build a one-shot lead over Retief Goosen and Luke Donald going into the final round Sunday. Goosen, who won the Tour
Championship in 2004 when Ti- ger Woods failed to protect a 54-hole lead, didn’t make a bogey
until the final hole and shot a 4-under-par 66. Donald was atop the leader board most of the round until a three-putt double bogey onNo. 15, the only par 5 on the back nine.He shot a 71. Furyk was at 8-under 202. The top three on the leader
board can win the FedEx Cup, along with Geoff Ogilvy (72) at 5 under. Paul Casey, who shot a 69 and
tied for fifth at 4 under, could still win the FedEx Cup by finishing in second place alone. CharleyHoffman, another shot
back at 3 under after a 69, still has a chance to win the $10 million bonus if he were to finish alone in third. l SAS CHAMPIONSHIP: Russ
Cochran shot a 5-under 67 to increase his lead to four strokes, the largest 36-hole margin in the history of the Champions Tour event in Cary,N.C.
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et price for a Yankees opening game at $150,” Lehrman said. “To have it this high, the only thing I can try to compare it to was the Vikings last year, when they got Brett Favre. But even that was nowhere near this. . . . It’s certain- lyashighasanyopeninggamehas everbeen.Theonly thinghigher is the Super Bowl; it hasn’t reached that level.” Added Lehrman: “The fact that
we’re even having this conversa- tion, comparing a SuperBowl and an NBA season opener, is almost preposterous, but that’swherewe arenow.” The Heat will make the maxi-
mum 15 national television ap- pearances on ESPN and ABC this season after being featured seven times last year. James, Wade and Bosh jerseys
have climbed a combined 27 per- cent in sales league-wide, accord- ing to the NBA, and Heat mer- chandise sales since July have in- creased by a factor of 10 over last year, Woolworth said. Even new season ticket sales around the league are up 45 percent, accord- ing to Chris Granger, the NBA’s senior vicepresident of teammar- keting and business operations, who noted that the summer’s ex- citement surely has been a signifi- cant contributor.TheHeatdidnot sell out American Airlines Arena with its season ticket packages, butonlybecauseitdecidedtohold backa thirdof of available seats so it could make individual and group tickets available to a broad- er fanbase throughout the year. “We clearly could have sold out
the arena,” Woolworth said. “We probably could have sold it out twice.”
DavidSchreff, formerpresident
of theNBA’smarketing andmedia group, said the more theatrical elementsof theoffseasonsucceed- ed in catching the attention of casual sports fans — a critical heist. “The core fans alone through-
out the leaguearenotalwayswhat drives Taco Bell or Coca-Cola or what have you,” said Schreff, now chief executive of Bedare Sports andEntertainment. They also created a vehement
set of Heat haters, another key component of transcendent fran- chises. “All the great teams were hat-
ed,” said Jerry Colangelo, the for- mer owner of the Phoenix Suns who nowdirectsUSA Basketball’s national team program. “Call it jealousy, call it whatever. They won somuch that people got tired of it. . . .But teams thatwerehated earned it over a period of years. This teamtook a shortcut.” They can’t, however, take a
shortcut to the NBA Finals. Whether the highly anticipated merging of talentwill translate to on-court chemistry and domi- nance remainsamystery,one like- ly to keep both the fascinated and themiffed — in the United States and overseas — tuning in as the seasonunfolds. “There’s no question they have
the big, big, big target on their backs,” said Henry Thomas, who representsWade and Bosh. “They know it. They know they haven’t done anything other than assem- bletalent. . . .Theyhavetoactually perform. There is no question ev- ery teamis going to bemore than ready every time theyplay.”
shipleya@washpost.com
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might seem a little premature sinceBlatchewasn’t eligible for free agency until the summer of 2012, but the Wizards were eager to lock up the versatile 6-foot-11 big man to a longer deal, especially with the possi- bility of a lockout looming after this season. The Wizards were able to
entice the 24-year-old Blatche, who averaged career highs of 14.1 points and 6.3 rebounds last season, by exercising a seldom-used clause in the col- lective bargaining agreement that allows teams below the salary cap to restructure cur- rent deals to pay players more money. They had about $6million in
available cap room before reaching a deal with Blatche, who will earn $5.9 million this season — almost $2.7 million more than he was slated to earn under the five-year, $12.5 million contract he signed in 2007. Blatche’s salary will escalate
each year until he earns $8.4 million in the final year of the deal, according to a sourcewith knowledge of the discussions.
His agreement essentially works out to being a five-year deal worth $35million. “A deal like that, anybody
would want one,” Blatche said. “I’mpretty smartwithmymon- ey, but we did something that made sense. No player in my predicament can say no to someone wanting to give you [an average of ] seven [million dollars] a year. So I said yes, and I’m happy that they gave me the opportunity.” The Wizards are committed
to a rebuilding effort, centered around No. 1 overall pick John Wall, and they have established Blatche as one of the young building blocks, along with center JaVale McGee. “That’s another reasonwhy I stayed. To me, I think we have something young, coming up, that’s going to be great in a couple of years,” said Blatche, who will enter his sixth season after being select- ed 49th overall in 2005. “It’s going to be a process. We’re going through a rebuilding phase. We have a lot of young players, and everybody is going to have to learn the ways and step up. Me being the player that I am, I’m going to have to step up and be a leader.” Blatche’s performance in the
final 32 games last season, when he averaged 22.1 points, 8.3 rebounds and 3.6 assists, led both sides to start talks earlier this summer. Blatche said he initiated the discus- sions, but the Wizards contin- ued working to reach a deal even after Blatche broke his foot during his offseason work- outs. Wizards President Ernie
Grunfeld said that Blatche has “full clearance” to participate in full-contact drills, but the teammay hold himback in the first week or two of practice, with training camp set to begin at 12:01 a.m. on Tuesday. “The foot has healed,”
Blatche said. “But it doesn’t make so sense for me to rush. I’mdefinitely not going tomiss games. As long as I don’t miss games, it doesn’tmatter tome.” The injury was a setback to
some of his summer plans, but Blatche refused to let it get him down. “I don’t think this affected
me at all. It was a curse and a blessing at the same time,” he said. “I never inmy life worked so hard in the offseason and I’ve been in the gym every day, doing cardio work, strength work. Don’t get me wrong, I was very frustrated, but now, I see how I run and I jump, and I’m thankful. Everything hap- pens for a reason. I look at it as a blessing.”
leem@washpost.com
EZ SU
D5
FOOTBALL INSIDER 2010
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