LeBron James has no regrets about the year 2010.

James says he will "absolutely" consider 2010 to be a great year, despite the negative backlash he faced when he left the Cavaliers for the Heat as a free agent in July.

He also says Miami is starting to feel more and more like home and that he's thrilled about the way the Heat have played the last month.

Miami has won 16 of their last 17 games.

Chris Bosh, in response to his critics, says that he wants to concentrate on increasing his rebounding totals this season.

"For some reason, people think I can't play basketball. I'm a very good basketball player. I can perform when it's time. For some reason, coming into this situation, people were just nitpicking. It gives me an added sense of motivation to do well because I know more people are watching, and just to shut them up. To be frank," he said.

"Ten is my number. I'm going to get there. It's going to be a little tougher than it would if I would have gotten off to a better start. Once I get to 10, I'll be happy."

Bosh is averaging 8.1 rebounds per game this season after posting a career-high 10.8 with Toronto last year.

For his career, Bosh has averaged 9.3 rebounds per game.

Erik Spoelstra met with Amar'e Stoudemire and his agent, Happy Waters, at midnight on July 1 for two hours.

Stoudemire met with the Heat that night while the Knicks sat down with Joe Johnson and Mike Miller.

The forward did speak with New York coach Mike D'Antoni on the phone in the first few hours of free agency.

"It was a very good meeting," Spoelstra told The New York Post. "He was a confident guy. My sense was his main concern was to go somewhere he can win."

Stoudemire had intense interest in Miami, but he ultimately signed a $100 million contract with the Knicks.

The Heat went harder after Chris Bosh than Stoudemire because of Dwyane Wade's personal friendship with the former, according to sources.

Avery Johnson responded to LeBron James' controversial comments about contraction by saying the league might be better of without a team like the Miami Heat.

James said Thursday that he'd like to return to the days when teams had three or four stars and that contracting the likes of the Nets and Wolves might be a good start to achieving that.

"I disagree," Johnson told reporters. "Maybe the league would be better if we didn't have three stars on one team."

LeBron defended his comments on Monday, saying he never suggested the NBA eliminate teams and that he wasn't sure what the word "contraction" even meant.

LeBron James has attempted to clarify his comments on the possibility of contraction in the NBA.

James says he never intended to advocate contraction when he said the league was "watered down" when compared to the 1980s.

"That's crazy, because I had no idea what the word 'contraction' meant before I saw it on the Internet," James said.

"I never even mentioned that. That word never even came out of my mouth. I was just saying how the league was back in the '80s and how it could be good again. I never said, 'Let's take some of the teams out.' "

On Thursday, he told reporters that he would like to see more stars playing together instead of them being spread out throughout the league.

The comments came at a strange time with the NBA's collective bargaining agreement set to expire after the 2010-11 season.

"I'm with the players, and the players know that," James said.

"I've been with the players. It's not about getting guys out of the league or knocking teams out. I didn't mean to upset nobody. I didn't tell Avery Johnson to leave either. I didn't say let's abandon the Nets, and not let them move to Brooklyn or let's tear down the Target Center in Minnesota. I never said that."

The first game between the new-look Heat and the defending-champion Lakers drew the highest television rating for an NBA regular-season game on ABC since 2004.

Miami's 96-80 victory over Los Angeles earned a 6.4 fast national rating Saturday.

The rating is up 45 percent from the Lakers-Cavaliers game that aired in the same slot in 2009.

It's the best since a 7.3 for another Heat-Lakers meeting on Christmas six years earlier.

The Miami Heat?s LeBron James and the Golden State Warriors? Monta Ellis today were named the Eastern and Western Conference Players of the Week, respectively, for games played Monday, Dec. 20, through Sunday, Dec. 26.

James led the Heat to a 2-1 week, which included road wins over the Phoenix Suns and Los Angeles Lakers. James averaged 27.3 points, 9.0 rebounds, 7.0 assists and 2.33 steals for the surging Heat, which has won 14 of its last 15 games. On Christmas Day, James recorded a triple-double in Miami?s 96-80 victory over the Lakers, posting 27 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists.

Ellis? 39.7 ppg led the league for the week and helped Golden State to a 2-1 mark, which included wins over the Sacramento Kings and Portland Trail Blazers. Ellis topped 36 points in all three outings, including a sparkling 44-point performance on 15-of-20 shooting from the field in the Warriors? lone loss of the week, a 121-112 setback vs. Houston. Ellis also chipped in with 7.0 assists and 3.0 steals on the week.

Chris Bosh turned down a Raptors offer to trade the forward to the Cavaliers earlier this year, according to a source in Toronto.

Bosh would have received a maximum contract as a result of the deal, roughly $10M more than he received from Miami.

A source says the Cavaliers also tried to acquire Chris Paul.

LeBron James sent shock waves through the NBA on Christmas Eve when he made comments supporting the contraction of teams.

James said the league has become "watered down" and that he would prefer a deeper pool of talent with fewer teams, like the league enjoyed in the 1980s.

One prominent agent told Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports that the two-time MVP doesn't understand the influence of his comments.

"How do you say that right before collective bargaining? Does he get that he's advocating to reduce the number of jobs in the league? LeBron has no idea what happens when he says [stuff] like this," the agent said.

Derek Fisher, the president of the National Basketball Players Association, has responded to comments made by LeBron James about possible contraction in the NBA.

"Hopefully the league can figure out one way where it can go back to the '80s where you had three or four All-Stars, three or four superstars, three or four Hall of Famers on the same team," James told reporters on Thursday night. "The league was great. It wasn't as watered down as it is [now]."

The union is in negotiations with the league for a new collective bargaining agreement, so it was a curious time for James to make a comment that supports fewer jobs in his field.

"I don't necessarily agree with [James' comments], but at the same time I understand and respect the fact [that] 460 opinions won't always be alike," Fisher said Friday.

"I don't think it's my place to tell one of our guys what they should be thinking or feeling or saying, but I don't necessarily agree with the sentiment."

Fisher doesn't feel that having a high-profile player like James take a stance that isn't in line with the group will compromise the union's bargaining position.

"I don't know if it necessarily hurts our cause," Fisher said. "It's surprising I would say, I guess, maybe to a lot of people but I guess I'm just a realist in that regard. Even in the past when there have been guys that made comments that have been deemed detrimental to the cause, it's unrealistic to think that you have almost 500 people in one group and everybody is going to say the same thing and have the same responses to certain questions."