Wait, what? The NBA is back already? It seems like only yesterday we were celebrating the Miami Heat’s third championship by littering Biscayne Boulevard with seemingly endless streams of exploding confetti. Actually, it’s been only three months, so maybe that’s not such an unreasonable feeling. The Heat enters year four of the era of the Three Kings with the same expectation it’s had for the past four years: win a championship.
Monday will mark the first game of the preseason and the opening game of the team’s 2013-14 campaign. The majority of the attention will be on off-season acquisitions: former Heat forward Michael Beasley and back-up center Greg Oden. They’ll face the Atlanta Hawks, a team that has been predominant in the Eastern Conference for the past several years. But they, like almost every other team in the NBA, have realized their attempts to equal the Heat are foolish and basically blew up their roster in the hopes of restarting their franchise to match Miami. But everyone knows the Hawks will be just another 15 bystanders to witness another year of Heat greatness.
Mon., Oct. 7, 7:30 p.m., 2013