Enough about the Heat already

Soaring Southland temperatures remind that overexposure to the Miami Heat could be a real threat this season. …

Heat Coach Erik Spoelstra, grasping the obvious as he, an ESPN crew and hundreds of other credentialed media welcomed Dwyane Wade, LeBron James and Chris Bosh to training camp this week: “Let’s be real, the way this team was built, it wasn’t built for us to go under the radar.” …

Not in the least. …

Maybe UCLA should schedule more games at Texas. …

Texas Coach Mack Brown, still stewing over the Longhorns’ five-turnover meltdown against the Bruins: “I won’t ever forget that game. It was a horrible game.” …

UCLA fans liked it. …

The teams meet again next September at the Rose Bowl. …

Matt Millen may have been a bust as president and CEO of the Detroit Lions, but when the CBS analyst and former Raiders linebacker notes that UCLA’s Akeem Ayers is “ NFL-ready,” few would argue. …

The Bruins’ defensive leader is a disruptive force. …

USC’s schedule of cupcakes has made getting an accurate read on Matt Barkley and the Trojans nearly impossible. …

Ron Artest, switching from No. 37 to No. 15 after wearing Nos. 15, 23, 91, 93 and 96 earlier in his career, has long been fascinated by numbers. …

At St. John’s, he majored in math. …

“Instead of giving Andrew Bynum a book this year,” reader Sterling Buckingham of Canyon Country e-mails to suggest, “perhaps Phil Jackson should give him a calendar.” …

James Loney is the rare major leaguer who might wind up leading his team in runs batted in despite finishing the season with fewer home runs than stolen bases. …

Kendry Morales and the Angels look to be better positioned than the Dodgers to bounce back strongly next season. …

Evan Longoria and the Tampa Bay Rays, neck and neck with the New York Yankees all season in chasing baseball’s best record, rank only 22nd in the majors in attendance. …

On Monday night, when the Rays had a chance to clinch a playoff berth, fewer than 13,000 bothered to show up. …

So much for Alex Smith and the winless San Francisco 49ers as trendy, upstart picks to reach the Super Bowl. …

You watched Jay Cutler and the Chicago Bears rally to overtake Aaron Rodgers and the penalty-prone Green Bay Packers on Monday night and you wondered: Is Brett Favre quarterbacking the third-best team in the NFC North? …

We may never again see the likes of George Blanda, a tenacious “gamer” in every sense of the word. …

Michael Vick is making Andy Reid look like a genius. …

When asked, on a scale of 1 to 10, to gauge his eagerness to return this season after a year’s absence, Clippers rookie-in-waiting Blake Griffin said, “About 20 to 30.” …

Featuring new Coach Vinny Del Negro, a Clippers ad campaign — New Coach; New Attitude; New Energy; New Passion; New Players — omits the two-word promise that would resonate loudest with long-suffering fans: New Owner. …

Drew Doughty of the Kings and four other NHL players are featured in a VanityFair.com photo spread shot by Buffalo Sabres goaltender Ryan Miller, an avid photographer. …

The goal of the project, shot in New York City, is to draw attention to October’s “Hockey Fights Cancer” month. …

Noting that a book written by a former East German sports official reveals that East German athletes used performance-enhancing drugs in the 1970s, Brad Dickson of the Omaha World-Herald writes, “I believe the book is titled, ‘Well, Duh.’ ” …

Fifty years ago this week, Ted Williams hit a home run in his final major league at-bat, ending his Hall of Fame career with 521 home runs and a .344 batting average. …

A Rays-like crowd of 10,454 was on hand at Fenway Park. …

Now that an estimated 1,745 UC Irvine students have established a Guinness world record for staging the world’s largest dodgeball game, maybe the Anteaters can work on reaching the NCAA basketball tournament. …

UC Irvine has never been. …

UCI hosted Kobe Bryant last week on campus, where the Lakers star noted in a question-and-answer session that his favorite quote was, “Rest at the end and not in the middle.” …

You can’t say he doesn’t live it.

jerome.crowe@latimes.com