Well … I’m happy.

I’m sorry, it just seems that the last week in sports were really boring. Since I can’t just run a best-of-Cade column or rehash an old article with a new twist, I’ll write a happy column.

Last semester, I wrote an article about the NBA and who would contend for the title this spring.

Guess what? Some teams for which I did not predict greatness, achieved it anyway.

Three teams that come to are the Detroit Pistons, the Atlanta Hawks, and the Miami Heat.

Since the Hawks have achieved their success through boring ideals such as defense and fundamentals, I won’t discuss them.

I will never discuss the Pistons because I severely dislike that franchise, but I will discuss the wonderful Heat.

If you were in a coma for the past six months or so, you may be wondering why I was surprised Miami is as good as it is.

This would have been before Juwan Howard flew from the flames of controversy and shot back into Washington.

Heat Head Coach Pat Riley courted the next superstar Howard to Miami and had him sign a huge contract.

The contract soon became null and void after David Stern accused the Heat of salary-cap violations.

Howard quickly darted back to the Bullets, and they agreed to the exact same deal. This can be remembered as the biggest mistake made by an NBA player this season.

Riley wasn’t happy with Stern, (what else is new) and accused the league of making rules to stop the Heat franchise alone. He threatened to fight the ruling, but Stern one-upped Riley and said that if he fought the ruling, he might have fun watching Heat games from the bleachers for a year.

Riley backed down mainly because the Heat revolve around his essence, and need him to win. Obviously a very good choice and he signed aging star Dan Marleje instead.

And without Howard, the Heat are currently the second best team in the Eastern Conference and have many role players to thank for it.

Howard doesn’t look so good. Playing on a Bullets team that is looking seriously overrated has not been good for his future or the Bullets and all the money they dished out to Howard.

I don’t care who you are, but you have to be happy about how this one ended up. The money-grubbing superstar chose the dollars over loyalty to his newfound team (Howard signed with the Bullets before Riley had a chance to counteract) and is looking terrible.

The “little coach who could” stopped fighting a league that has obvious problems with him, and returned to his winning ways. Even if you don’t like Riley, you must admire what this year’s team is accomplishing. The league even came out looking a little stupid after this whole affair. I know it seems impossible, but maybe in a few years the salary cap will be redone so that we the fans can understand it too. Then and only then can we know who was in the right on this whole situation. It certainly wasn’t Juwan Howard.

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Cade Remsburg is a senior in journalism and mass communication from Ames.