wolves/nba

The Miami Heat last summer successfully wooed three of the NBA's greatest stars, an unprecedented courtship that so far has produced a 52-victory season and winning streaks of 12, nine and eight games. There was a historic night earlier this week when LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh each scored 30 points and produced double-double stats in the same game.

But don't give up hope just yet for a team that makes its only Target Center appearance of the season Friday night.

There's still a chance the Heat won't continue to disappoint.

Five months ago, NBA Commissioner David Stern declared before the Heat's home opener that, despite what he sensed was public opinion to the contrary, the season still would be played without the championship trophy immediately being mailed to Miami.

Now, with less than two weeks remaining in the regular season, James will win fewer games with this rock-star entourage he refers to as "the Heatles" than he did last season with Cleveland, a team that without him has won only 14 games.

Of course, the concept of success is all relative.

"Everybody says that the Heat's struggling, the Heat's not that good," Timberwolves forward Michael Beasley said. "Well, they got [52] wins. I would love to be not that good. Y'all can talk about me all you want if you give me [52] wins. You can say everything: His feet's too big or his head's not the right size. I'd be happy with [52] wins."

Beasley played his first two NBA seasons in Miami and reached the playoffs last season before he was traded to the Wolves last summer in a deal agreed upon only minutes after James announced his big Decision to play for the Heat.

Immediately, media members speculated. They asked not whether the Heat would win the championship, but would it challenge the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls' 72-10 season.

That question was answered early in the season, when the Heat started 9-8.

"Everybody in their organization knew it was going to be a learning process," Beasley said. "Ever since the first game they lost, everybody has been criticizing the Heat. It's not going to work, talking trades already, talking coach is getting fired. At the end of the day, they're still going to be a playoff team. At the end of the day, they're still going to be in the second or third round, maybe even in the championship.

"You think three of the best players in the league is going be something special, but the Knicks are going through the same thing. They got two of the best players, but they just got to jell. ... I would love to go through all that controversy right now."

Wolves forward Kevin Love says he'd still take the Chicago Bulls in a seven-game series over Miami, Boston or Orlando in the East.

The Bulls, like the Heat, remade themselves last summer when the most awaited free-agency class in league history came and went. But the Bulls, unlike the Heat, quickly figured out their pecking order. It starts with point guard Derrick Rose, who in only his third season has become this year's NBA MVP favorite.

"At the end of games, you know who's going to have the ball in their hands and it's going to be Derrick," Love said. "There's no talk about whether it's going to Bosh or whether it's going to Wade or whether it's going to James."

There's no question that the Heat will depend, whether in the regular season or playoffs, on their three stars to score. Sunday's victory over Houston, when all three stars scored 30 or more points, showed that.

"That's why we get paid the big bucks," Wade recently told reporters. "That's the reason why we're all here. ... Offensively, the ball is in our hands 99 percent of the time and Mike Bibby has it 1 percent."

But the Heat still continues to decipher who will defer to whom, and when. That's a process that has Miami chasing Chicago for the East's top spot, a process that ended any talk of a historic regular season long ago.

It also, believe it or not, makes the Heat something of an underdog entering the playoffs two weeks hence.

"I think some people might look past them," Love said. "It's hard to say that when you have those three players. I just feel like on that team, that's all they talk about. They could be a little bit overlooked. All those guys are going to turn it up at playoff time when it comes time to turn it up."

Jerry Zgoda • jzgoda@startribune.com