Miami Heat vs. Brooklyn Nets Big Three: Who Would Win?

While promoting his book ‘Letters to a Young Athlete’ in a 2021 interview with Fubo Sports, former NBA legend Chris Bosh spoke on a hypothetical matchup between his Miami Heat big three of himself, Dwyane Wade and LeBron James and the infamous Nets big three of Kyrie Irving, James Harden and Kevin Durant.

“I’m gonna give the nod to them. I could score pretty good, but they can do things I’ve never seen,” Bosh said. “These guys could just make all jumpers, you know, they’re incredible. All three of them have that ability to be like, ‘that’s not fair.'”

The irony in Bosh’s praise of the Brooklyn experiment reveals itself through the 2012 NBA Finals, where Miami defeated Durant and Harden as members of a different big three. During the first of two NBA Finals victories for the Heat’s threesome, Miami took down a young core of Durant, Harden and Russell Westbrook. Granted, Durant had not yet developed into one of the greatest scorers the game has ever seen, and Harden was still subject to a bench role.

Nine years later, Brooklyn assembled a ‘super team’ of their own, despite their big names only suiting up for 16 games together. Durant and Harden both had secured MVPs at this point, and Irving won a title with James in 2016.

In this hypothetical matchup, Wade picks up Irving, James guards Harden and Bosh is tasked with slowing down Durant. Miami would immediately have the chemistry advantage, given the trio played significantly more games together than Brooklyn’s did. Who wins? While Bosh already accepted defeat, it’s a good bet that fans would likely side with the two-time champion Heat and LeBron James over one of the leagues biggest ‘what ifs.’

Obviously this situation could never truly play out considering Bosh and Wade have both been retired for years, but it’s still fun to play speculator.

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