When LeBron James decided to join Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami, anyone with half a brain could have predicted that a bunch of ring-chasing veterans would latch on to the trio in hopes of grabbing some finger trophies. As we’ve seen with the additions of Zydrunas Ilgauskas and the perpetually unchill Juwan Howard those predictions were spot on. Like moths to a flame, ringless old-timers are drawn to teams with good chances at the title.

And while we expected the Heat to accept a bunch of these type of guys, the latest bro to express interest in taking his talents to South Beach is a bit unexpected. However, according to the South Beach Sun Sentinel’s Shannon J. Owens, the lure of a championship might bring an old friend back into our lives.

Another puppet show for the Miami Heat? Somebody call Nike.

Penny Hardaway, the man who inspired original Nike puppet “Lil Penny” in the late ’90s, announced he is interested in competing for a role with the Miami Heat Thursday on an Internet radio show called “The Bottom Line Sports Show.”

“Mentally I was retired and physically I was retired. I was playing recreational ball,” Hardaway said. “But when the decision happened with Chris Bosh and LeBron, I felt like I could really be good in that system.”

“I’m just throwing my name in the hat,” Hardaway said on ESPN’s Outside The Lines. “I’m just one to put my name out there and say, hey, I would love to be one of the guys to be on that team.”

“I just really hope that they give me a great opportunity to come back down and show that I can do the things that I did a couple years ago,” he said on Outside the Lines.

Nope. Big-time nope. I mean, I like Penny Hardaway as much as anyone except one of my high-school friends, but this is a husky pair of Bad Idea Jeans. Even though Penny has one of the best shoe lines ever, that doesn’t mean he should join the Superfriends. Sorry, ’90s nostalgia fiends, but the guy has played a total of 57 games since 2004 and hasn’t played at all since 2008. 

Furthermore, I’m not even entirely convinced that a healthy Penny Hardaway could fit into whatever “system” he thinks is in place for a team that doesn’t even have a complete roster yet. Hardaway was a career .316 shooter from three, which wouldn’t be a great help on a team sure to employ its fair share of drive-and-kicks. And when Dwyane Wade and LeBron James are on the same team, they’ll be the ones driving and kicking. Plus, Chris Bosh took his favorite number. All signs point to nope.

Of course, Penny does have 16 games of experience in a Heat uniform and Miami sure does love its Hardaways, so if he were to come back, the Heat make at least a little sense. Not to mention his return would bring with it Lil’ Penny. We can all get behind that, I think.-Yahoo Sports