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bronze medalist. In DimeMag.com columns following the signing, I took to calling him "And Bosh," because his name is always mentioned last. LeBron, D-Wade and Bosh. D-Wade, LeBron and Bosh. There's no other way. Whereas James endures arrows of criticism for allegedly conceding that he couldn't win a championship as the clear-cut No. 1 marquee superstar, Bosh's move to Mi- ami meant that during his prime years, he would never be able to disprove the more damning accusation: That he was never a No. 1 star to begin with. ericks in six games, however, the media and message board harpoons aimed at the three big fish would have one believe the Heat were an utter failure. Why? Because negativity is the fuel that powers sports media in the 21st century. Because some 90 years after the Golden Age of sports journalism, we are now drowning in the Mother-in-Law Age, where finding something to complain and nag about has replaced the art of storytelling. Where controversy lives longer than celebration. LeBron James knows this. But how bad can a team be whose third-best player is a top-20 tal- ent in the league? Or to put it another way: How great can they be? There was a reason why James, well-versed since his early days as a high school bas- ketball phenom in the art of media savvy, felt confident enough to tick off predictions of six and seven and eight NBA champi- onships for the Heat at the now-infamous post-signing, preseason party at Miami's AmericanAirlines Arena. And there was a reason why Year One for the Big Three – which would have been considered a resounding success for any other NBA team – has gone down in the Easy-Bake version of history as a flop. Put- ting a team on the floor that was complete- ly remade from the season before, bringing together three soloists for a jam session when each has grown accustomed to being a bandleader, and expecting a champion- ship right away probably was too much. But the Heat just had so much talent and so much confidence, a championship was the only acceptable outcome. Miami still made it to the 2011 NBA Finals. When they lost to the veteran Dallas Mav- The two-time NBA regular-season Most Valuable Player averaged 26.7 points, 7.5 rebounds and 7.0 assists last season for the Heat. He was named All-NBA First Team and All-Defensive First Team. He led the league in field goals made and Player Efficiency Rating, and finished in the top 10 in scoring, free throws and steals. He was Miami's best player throughout the playoffs, and even in the NBA Finals series after which his name was tied to the word "choke" more than a mixed martial artist, James still averaged 17.8 points, 7.1 rebounds, 6.8 assists and 1.6 steals. This season, James has been even better. He's averaged 29.2 points, 8.5 rebounds and 6.8 assists through early February, hitting a career-high 55 percent of his field goals and 41 percent of his three-pointers. Still not good enough to keep James off this year's Forbes list of America's Most Disliked Athletes. The King ranked sixth. "I'm an easy target; if someone wants to get a point across – just throw LeBron's name in there," James said after his re- actionary tweet to Blake Griffin's instant classic dunk on Oklahoma City's Kendrick Perkins (among the rest of the world's 13 million or so reactionary tweets to the same dunk), drew the ire of Perkins. "You could be watching cartoons with your kids and you don't like it, you say, 'Blame it on LeBron.' If you go to the grocery store and they don't have the milk that you like, you just say, 'It's LeBron's fault.'" The newly-acquired villain label is espe- cially fascinating when you consider that, when he was coming out of high school nine years ago, James was being called the next Magic Johnson not only because of his third-eye passing ability, but also because of his winning smile and childlike enthu- siasm on the court. Now in his ninth pro season, he sees exactly why his image has gone from the kid in the white suit on Draft Night to the man in the black hat. He sees that from here on out, anything less than a championship, anything less than historic crunch-time playoff performances, and this season will mean less than the last. And nobody ever accused LeBron James of not having amazing vision. "That's the problem with our league. Sometimes people just evaluate the last minute of games, or you evaluate the last 30 seconds of games, and forget about this is a complete 48-minute game," James told assembled reporters after a Jan. 29 win over Chicago in which he had 35 points and 11 rebounds – including a Play of the Year can- didate in which he hurdled Chicago's John Lucas III in mid-air for an alley-oop dunk. But he and Bulls superstar point guard Der- rick Rose each missed crucial free throws down the stretch. "But we understand where you guys come from," James added. "We understand what makes the headlines, and D-Rose had an unbelievable game. But you guys are all talking about his missed free throws. You also talk about my missed free throws. It's the league, it's the world we live in." The Mother-In-Law narrative of 2011, of course, says that LeBron was a failure. That Wade, who averaged 25.5 points, 6.4 rebounds and 4.6 assists last season, was a failure. That the Miami Heat were a failure. That narrative was the preface to this season. "It's kind of good that that year is over," Wade said early in Miami's abbreviated training camp. "Now we can move forward and focus on the team that we want to be." Your job? Just watch, and between searching for a reason not to like the Miami Heat, at least try to realize what you're witnessing. 66