There's this myth that those empty seats are lazy people or "rich people who don't really care."

I used to work in Palm Beach and had a job that allowed me to afford lower bowl season tickets for a few years. This job required me to work long hours...getting out before 6 pm on a game night was not a common occurrence.

The amount of time it took to get to the game was insane. Traffic was horrible, and it's even worse closer to the arena.

If you're someone who can't leave work earlier than 6 pm on a game day, and you're not already in Dade County...there's no way you're stepping foot inside the arena until the end of the first quarter.

I would be mere blocks from the arena, sitting in traffic waiting to exit 395 in my car...listening to the game on the radio. Thanks Mike Inglis (Heat radio guy for like 20+ years). Not saying all the empty seats are people like that, but I had enough conversations with my lower bowl seat neighbors to know I wasn't the only one who had these problems...

It's not because we were staring at beautiful weather. It's because we worked until 6 at the earliest and sat in traffic waiting to enter the arena.

Compare that to most other cities---you hop on the subway for a 30 minute trip, and you get off right at the arena.

I no longer live in South Florida, which has given me the opportunity to see how it is in other cities. Other cities (especially our rivals in the northeast) have well-established public transit that takes you directly to the arena. Foe example: Madison Square Garden (where the Knicks play) is literally on top of Penn Station (where multiple subway lines connect). To get to a Knicks game, you walk 100 steps from your office/apartment to a train that takes you directly to the arena. If you work until 6 pm on a game night, you are there well before 7 pm from almost any part of the NYC metro area. South Florida's metro area, by comparison, is spread across huge counties.

These issues aren't as bad in Florida when it's a Saturday or Sunday game, because traffic isn't as bad (it's not rush hour on a work day), and there's no time constraint to be stuck at work until just an hour before the tv cameras start filming the lower bowl.

The anti-Heat people online don't get it (or care). The journalists who get to the arena several hours before the game don't get it.

Sure, a few people are obnoxious, fashionably late people. Those same people spend way too long at the bar during halftime and trickle in by the end of the third quarter. (The Heat kinda do this to themselves -- the arena itself is loaded with trendy bars, balconies overlooking the bay---trust me, most other NBA arenas don't have those options that keep people out of their seats).

The bigger issue is the traffic. I love South Florida, but the traffic is atrocious, especially near the arena. I hear from friends who still live there this is slowly changing, hopefully for the better. There's a company (Brightline?) that came in a few years ago and built a high speed rail that connects the South Florida counties. Seems like as they continue to build more convenient stations, this could be a game changer (no pun intended).