MIAMI — LeBron James looked at the assembled talent in the Miami Heat locker room, and one word came to mind.

“Scary,” he said.

Translated, that means James thinks the Heat will be even better than they were a season ago. Oddly, James' teammates expect the same from him.

After a season where he won just about everything besides Powerball — his third MVP award, his first NBA Finals MVP award and, of course, his first NBA championship — James is going back to work. He and the Heat convened for their annual media day Friday, the prelude to Saturday morning's opening practice and the first step toward what the Heat hope is another championship push.

“We can be better than we were this past season,” James said, on the day when he got sized for his first championship ring. “Are we better right now than we were just a couple months ago? Of course not. … But we have the potential to be better.

“We have the potential to be a lot better. That is scary.”

Chances are, the Heat will have to be better than they were last season to hoist another championship trophy next June. As if they weren't the team on radar screens across the NBA already once James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh decided to team up in Miami during the summer of 2010, winning a title will only make them more of a target.

And then adding a player like Ray Allen, whose last NBA game was Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals in Miami when he played for the Boston Celtics, only raises the ante that much more.

“We have one target,” Celtics coach Doc Rivers said Friday. “And that's Miami.”

There was plenty going on around the Heat on Friday, some of it newsy, some of it more humorous, as typically is the case at a media day.

Udonis Haslem was followed by a camera crew to, as he said, document “The Little 12,” what he calls everyone not in the “Big Three” club of Wade, Bosh and James.

Haslem's cameras might have been the only ones not on James, who hasn't spoken publicly much since the Olympics ended.

“He's not on cruise control, no,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said when asked about James. “He's as driven a professional as I've been around. He understands not only his legacy, but team legacy and the opportunity that this team and organization has. And he savors that. He's the ultimate competitor.”

James averaged 27.1 points, 7.9 rebounds and 6.2 assists in this past regular season, then upped the ante to 30.3 points, 9.7 rebounds and 5.6 assists in the playoffs.

Monster numbers, and the Heat can't wait to see what he does for an encore.

“Do it again,” Bosh said, when asked what to expect from James. “Just continue to be himself. He's a hard worker, naturally. He doesn't have to repeat what he did last year. This year's a new year. It's going to present different challenges and we're going to have to overcome them.”

James said he found time to work on some aspects of his game during the offseason, though he obviously didn't have anywhere near the same break he had after the 2010-11 season — which was lengthened by a lockout, and didn't have an Olympics in there, either.

“He's on a hell of a run,” Shane Battier said. “It's almost like throwing a no-hitter. You don't want to talk about it. You just want to ride it out and see where it goes. But if there's one guy who could top what he's done in calendar 2012, it's No. 6. I wouldn't count him out or bet against him.”

Note: Washington Wizards point guard John Wall will be sidelined about eight weeks with a knee injury. The team announced Friday that the former No. 1 overall draft pick has been diagnosed with the early stages of a stress injury to his left patella.

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