LeBron James and Chris Bosh teaming with Dwyane Wade with the Miami Heat in 2010 changed the NBA
The Miami Heat changed the NBA landscape when they acquired LeBron James and Chris Bosh to join Dwyane Wade in the summer of 2010.
The move also helped the CAA Sports agency become a major player in the league. CAA co-owner Mike Levine recently explained in a podcast interview with Will Ventures
"If you go back to free agency in 2010," Levine said. "We were representing Chris Bosh, Dwyane Wade and LeBron James. We were also representing Erik Spoelstra and Pat Riley, who were the president and coach of the Miami Heat. Then we sent the three of them together to Miami to put the Heatles together. That was the really, incredibly important moment for us as an agency."
The move was so monumental because the Heat were the league's most popular and scrutinized team during the Bosh, James and Wade years. You had three of the league's top 10 players, all under the CAA Sports brand, in the same arena on a nightly basis. It helped the Heat were successful, too. They won two titles in four straight appearances in the NBA Finals.
With CAA Sports holding most of that spotlight at the time, Levine said it immediately led to them getting more clients from the next generation.
"I think the next generation of superstars, LeBron, D-Wade, Carmelo, Chris Paul, they understood that being accessible, being visible, being out there wasn't a bad thing," Levine said. "It was actually a really good thing because they built an audience and fan base, which gave them real market power and leverage. That all kind of came to bear for us as agency during the lockout and then following that out with the work that was done during the summer in 2010 really sort of gave people notice we were going to move markets."
Many have also credited that Heat team for the existence of super teams. After that, we saw teams featuring Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Joe Johnson for the Brooklyn Nets. Later, Kevin Durant joined Stephen Curry, Draymond Green and Klay Thompson with the Golden State Warriors.
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Shandel Richardson is the publisher of HeatRoundtable. He can be reached at shandelrich@gmail.com