A month or so ago, I shared my plans with ya'll for the upcoming NBA season. As an LA Lakers fan, my time would be spent following Kobe Bryant and his Lakers as they venture in to a weird world. Kinda like opening that wardrobe door and venturing in to Narnia, no one really knows what's going to happen with the Lakers and their many intriguing parts this season. That's enough to pull me in, get me knee deep in the Laker's story line.

However, there's another story line that will play second fiddle. Nothing will take up my attention more than the Lakers, but the Miami Heat will come close. They've obviously lost their man, Lebron James went home after moving to Miami to help get a few rings. He did the business and then left, now the Miami Heat are in a very weird position.

Dwayne Wade was once the best player in the NBA, depending on who you asked. Regardless, he was top 5 material. The Dwayne Wade we've seen in recent years hasn't really been the best Dwayne Wade, he hasn't really needed to be at his best. It wasn't about him being at his best, it was about him doing what he needed to to win. 

Now the Miami Heat will need Wade to be pretty darn close to his best. Wade's had well documented knee issues and their strategy to rest him for the playoffs kinda worked - he played in the playoffs, he went back to back and logged decent minutes, but it also kinda didn't work as he wasn't really as good as the Heat would have liked. But then again the Heat in general weren't really as good as they would have liked.

Wade's gonna have to play nearly every game and play superstar minutes. He's gonna be relied on heavily, can he step up? Who knows, that's why I'm tuning in.

I'm also tuning in to see Chris Bosh. The NBA is such that certain teams get certain amounts of exposure, which meant that unless you were thoroughly invested in the Toronto Raptors and/or the NBA as a whole, you wouldn't have been too fond of Mr Bosh before his move to Miami. That move put Bosh in the spotlight and now we all know he is and he somehow is possibly the most mocked NBA character there currently is. Bosh is obviously pretty good, he was an All-Star with the Raptors and now we get to see what he's got. 

Our perception of Wade and Bosh has been fuzzled in the big 3 era. We don't really know what they're about because they've had to alter their styles for the greater good. This season we'll get a good look at how good they are.

There's a whole crew of guys who will need to be on point as well - Mario Chalmers probably jumps out at you as someone who'll you will keep tabs on, but for me it's the coach Erik Spoelstra and the godfather Pat Riley. This is still their team, they assembled a championship team and dominated, now they must take a good team and win.

Spoelstra from all reports is a great coach. Once again, this season will provide him with a blank canvas to work his magic on. That's the trend, this NBA season is a blank canvas for the Miami Heat.

Whether they go back to the Finals and give themselves another chance at a championship, or whether they simply do good enough for fans to be happy and for us to say - well they did a good job. The flip side is that they might suck. It's the same as the Lakers - they might suck as well. Whatever happpens, it's gonna be a good journey to watch.