5 Greatest Players in Miami Heat Franchise History

The Miami Heat are a relatively young NBA franchise, having been added to the league in the year 1988 as part of one of the final few expansions that have changed the NBA to what it is today. Given that they have only 30 years of history, it is a great achievement for them to have won 3 NBA championships within that timeframe.

Some of the most memorable NBA moments have come in games played by the Heat. They have been lucky to have Hall of Fame coach Pat Riley as their team president since the year 2003, which marks the starting of their golden era.

In this article, we attempt to rank the 5 players who've had the greatest impact on the history of the Heat. Longevity is a factor in this discussion, which is why we have not placed Shaquille O'Neal on this list, or have LeBron James at #1.

Read on for the list of top 5 Miami Heat careers:

#5 Tim Hardaway

Tim Hardaway is one of those 'What-if' cases of Hall of Fame talents whose careers were cruelly affected by nagging injuries. Drafted by the Golden State Warriors in the 1989 NBA draft with the 14th pick, Hardaway is one of the few players 6'0" or under in league history to ever make it to an All-Star game.

He was traded to the Miami Heat midseason during the 1995-96 campaign, and he continued to put up All Star-calibre numbers for the franchise despite suffering a serious knee injury that ruled him out of the entire 1993-94 season and deprived him of his elite athleticism there onwards.

He was, however, immense during their playoff run in 1997, when they reached the Conference Finals before bowing out against Michael Jordan's Bulls team. Overall, Hardaway is best remembered for his time at Miami, and this merits him a selection to our top 5 players in Miami Heat history.

#4 Chris Bosh

Chris Bosh was the most understated member of the Miami Heat Big 3 that went to 4 straight NBA Finals and won 2 championships in 2012 and 2013. Already on his way to a Hall of Fame career, Bosh decided to forego a max deal with the Toronto Raptors in the summer of 2010 in order to team up with Dwyane Wade and LeBron James and pursue a title.

Bosh remained one of the best two-way players in the league despite his shot attempts undergoing a significant cut during his time with the Heat. His ability to score from anywhere on the floor allowed Erik Spoelstra to trot him out as a small-ball center in the Heat's much-vaunted Death Lineups.

It's a tragedy that Bosh had to take retirement in 2016, as he would have been a perfect center in today's run-and-gun league that has placed such a great emphasis on shooting bucket-loads of 3-pointers. Nevertheless, Bosh will be a first-ballot Hall of Famer, and much of that can be attributed to the 3rd option role he played to perfection with the Heat during LeBron's time and the commanding way he played as Dwyane Wade's supporting player in the 2 seasons that followed.

#3 LeBron James

James holds the Larry O'Brien and Bill Russell trophies for the 2013 NBA Finals

Rarely do players with 4-year stints at a ball club feature among their all-time greats, but then LeBron James is a different beast compared to most basketball players across the globe. While he kicked off his Heat career with a highly controversial press conference which will forever be known as 'The Decision', he barely put a foot wrong in 4 years with the franchise.

Granted, his only bad playoff series came during his first Finals with the Heat when he played way below his capability against the Mavs. But he more than exorcised those demons by putting in some legendary performances against the Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals in 2012 and against the Spurs in the 2013 NBA Finals.

He averaged 26.9 points, 7.5 rebounds and 6.6 assists per game during his time at South Beach while being selected into the All-NBA First Team as well as the All-Defensive First Team in all 4 seasons. Few players in basketball history have had 4-year spans of such complete dominance on both ends of the court as James had in his stint with the Heat.

#2 Alonzo Mourning

During his 13-year spell with the Miami Heat, which came in 2 spells, Mourning was a standout defender and won back-to-back Defensive Player of the Year awards in 1999 and 2000. He was the defensive anchor for a Heat team that challenged the 3-peating Bulls at their peak, but he was never surrounded with enough talent to win an NBA championship during his first go-around at the Heat.

Even so, he was one of the few players who ever able to slow down the dominant force that was Shaquille O'Neal, while he matched up really well against the likes of Patrick Ewing during his peak years.

Mourning was traded to the New Jersey Nets in 2003, but he returned to the Heat in February 2005. He was an instrumental role player in the Heat's 2006 title run, and he finally bagged the ring that he deserved so richly during his first spell with the franchise. Mourning retired in 2008 and has since been inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

#1 Dwyane Wade

Flash was one of the most exciting players to watch in the league during his prime

How many players in NBA history have carried their franchises on their back to an NBA title in just their 3rd season in the league? Not many. And among all of those players, nobody has had a Finals series that compares to the extent that Wade dominated the Dallas Mavericks in 2006 for one of the most unforgettable NBA Finals series ever played.

Wade was selected by the Miami Heat with the 5th pick in what has now gone down as one of the 3 best draft classes in NBA history in 2003. He was the template for all the explosive guards of the likes of Russell Westbrook, John Wall, Damian Lillard and Donovan Mitchell that we are able to watch today. As a two-way player, peak Dwyane Wade ranks right up there alongside the Black Jesus and the Black Mamba among the greatest players to ever play the 2-guard role.

Wade spent 13 seasons at South Beach and made 12 All-Star teams in that timeframe. His arrival turned the Heat from a bottom-feeding franchise into a playoff team in his very first season. If the Heat had somehow managed to beat the marauding Dallas Mavericks in 2011, he would undoubtedly have been the Finals MVP for the manner in which he put them on his back - people forget how great he was in that series because of James' meltdown at the same time.