RealGM

Once upon a time - - I can begin this way because, at 86 years of age, I have been here a while.

I remember when major league baseball had only 8 teams in the national league and 8 teams in the american league. The owners of the last place team in each league, late in the season, and were talking about swapping their entire team with the other team's owner. The only thing that each team would keep? Their name.

It didn't happen because there seemed to be too many tecknical problems for it to work.

Now, the question for you. If the Atlanta Hawks could do this, send the owners, the coaches and all the players to another city for all their's, who would you swap with and who would you hesitate with and who would be a great big, "Oh, No!"

graymule wrote:Now, the question for you. If the Atlanta Hawks could do this, send the owners, the coaches and all the players to another city for all their's, who would you swap with and who would you hesitate with and who would be a great big, "Oh, No!"

86 years!!!

Impressive, my friend.

I've long admired the Miami Heat front office. When Pat Riley went their initially, they were a last place organization who'd only had 1 winning season in a decade.

Now they are the perennial powerhouse of this division.

• Those Tim Hardaway and Alonzo Mourning teams were contenders that always ran into MJ's Bulls.
• The Dwyane Wade/Shaq team actually won the franchise's first title.
• And that opened the door to entice Lebron and Bosh to eventually head to South Beach and make a run at a few more titles.

Now, a decade later, they've gone to two EC Finals and made an NBA Finals appearance as well with this newest iteration.

Pat Riley is a Hall of Famer as a coach and executive. Eric Spoelstra has grown into a top-5 coach in the game today. And 25 years after Riley joined that organization, they are still the presumptive favorite in the division.

Just really impressive.