Well, the Finals are upon us: I took the day off yesterday from a morning review because I plan on keeping up on daily developments through the weekend.
So far though, there hasn't been as much talk or hype surrounding this series as I thought there would be. Most of the talk had to do with Timmy's comment to the media, and LeBron's response. Cooler heads have prevailed: most people are sizing up the accomplishments of the two teams, more than framing the thing as a rematch, as I thought they might. Maybe this is appropriate, when a Finals has so much historical baggage riding upon it, and was held again with the same teams last year. There's no new news about the rosters involved, no new profiles to make: we know all the players in the story, so nothing can be unearthed. It can only be reviewed and revisited. So that's what people are doing.
I also have the hunch that people are generally unsure about what will happen: Miami, quite frankly, is an unknown quantity this year compared to last year. The books have the Spurs winning it (and I do too), but the books also had Houston winning the Portland series, and it became evident thereafter just how obvious a mistake that was. I think people just need the first game to get going so we can figure out what stories it is possible to tell.
Meanwhile Spurs writers continue to show themselves to be some of the best in NBA reporting. Out of the many around, I liked the one by Stephen Shepperd at Pounding the Rock the best. He emphasizes that unlike Indiana, the Spurs haven't approached this season with Miami as their motivation. This is probably because it was too painful a loss to think about, but also because they thought this year they could be better. Which they are. "Contrary to popular belief," he says,
the Spurs didn't set out to exact revenge against the Heat at the beginning of the season. ... It was about not letting the pain that ended the season carry over to the 2013-14 campaign. Focusing only on Miami would've limited San Antonio's dominance over the entire league (see: Indiana Pacers). No, this season carried implications that were much bigger than LeBron, Wade, and Bosh.
We'll see what happens.
Next, the All-NBA teams came out yesterday--Lillard and Aldridge both made 3rd Team All-NBA, so Blazer fans can be quite happy. What no one is happy about is that James Harden made the first team. Ethan Sherwood Strauss sets everyone straight in a gem of an ESPN.com column:
Many possessions are “get-fouled-or-bust” for Harden, who (not that it should matter in the voting) presents one of the least aesthetically pleasing styles among the NBA's stars. He takes flopping to the “difference in kind” degree he takes bad defense, bending rules until they comically break like splintered cork bats on a baseball field.
Of course there is the horrible, almost bizarre lack of defense--Harden looks like a brain-addled out of breath 54 year old on the pickup court at times, making mistakes you almost didn't think were even possible--but it is this argument about his offense that is the most damning case.
It's unclear whether Harden developed this style because Houston put upon him the pressure to carry the team--a pressure that except for two weeks in the last part of the season he showed he could not handle--or simply because it capitalizes on his most developed and, quite frankly, amazing talents: an ability to see the court and to read the defense that in another player on a different team with a different philosophy would have developed into a transcendent ability to pass the ball.
Watching Harden alternates between being fascinating and being absolutely kill-me-now-I-can't-watch-another-minute-of-this frustrating. And despite what Sherwood Strauss says, I do think the aesthetic argument matters. It's not that there's an aesthetically right version of basketball to play--it's just that if someone's game is ugly or beautiful, that counts for something. And Harden's is, right now, in the way he has developed it, ugly.
Finally, William C. Rhoden yesterday had an interesting piece on just how much the news of the sale of the Clippers has overshadowed the talk about why the team had to be sold. Money talks, and it has silenced what promised to be a good dialogue on race amongst owners.
What's bad isn't so much that the news has shifted so quickly, as the sheer crassness of the fascination with the money itself that followed the sale. We went from talking about the most concrete exploitative situations, to oohing and aahing about the possibilities for other NBA teams now that we know the sale of the Clippers went for $2 billion. There's also not enough rage about just how Sterling made out in the deal. Partly, the news of his mental condition probably has something to do with this ambivalence. But Rhoden reminds us how significant a vote by the owners could have been.
He also reminds us that the players, coming into negotiations for the next CBA, should also remember all this:
Indeed, the only losers in the Sterling affair are the players, who must be mystified, if not infuriated, by the millions and now billions of dollars flying around N.B.A. franchises. Even the most apolitical, singularly focused player has to be bothered because athletes do not directly share profits. Donald Sterling’s words might have been insulting, but this must be a slap in the face.
The next CBA has to absolutely be a fight to get money and privileges back in the hands of the players, for the sake of the league's health, but also morally as a case made against abuse by owners in general.
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