For the first time since 1993, when Sir Charles Barkley tipped the scale roughly a biscuit less than 300 pounds, I’m looking forward to a truly entertaining NBA Finals. Sure, last year’s Finals were competitive, but as a defense-oriented series utterly devoid of charisma, it was painful enough to make a grown man demand an epidural.
For the next 10 days, die-hard fans of the hardwood can kick back and enjoy watching the two best teams in the NBA, teams with starkly contrasting styles and charismatic personalities struggle to earn the honor of being called the world’s best basketball team.To their respective credit, each team is led by an outstanding coach – one coach, Pat Riley, already has four rings to his credit and a guaranteed pass to the Hall Of Fame, while the other, Avery Johnson is the wunderkind coach in only his first full season at the helm.
Most of all, NBA fans casual and hardcore alike are ecstatic to finally have what is sure to be one of the most compelling series in a very long time. Replete with storylines, could this mark the beginning of the Next Great Era in NBA basketball -- a confluence of events, born of accidents and design, as well as the new and old, all culminating on the grandest of stages? Albeit only rarely, it has happened before:
1957. The Celtics begin their dynasty with a thrilling 7-game win over the St. Louis Hawks in what was arguably the greatest championship series ever played. It not only marked the beginning of the Russell Era (11 titles in 13 seasons) based on team defense and a devastating fast break, but the beginning of the end of the NBA racial quota system. The Celtics often played as many as four black players together in an era when most teams were only carrying two or three on the entire roster.
1977. The Sixers versus the Trailblazers. This was the supreme object lesson of the superior team beating the more talented team. As the NBA absorbed the best of the ABA prior to the season (and 10 former ABA players wound up in the 1977 All-Star game), Julius Erving and George McGinnis were swept up by the Sixers, as well an assorted array of lesser known stars who introduced a more wide open style to the NBA. Although Philly took the first two games against a Blazers’ team that featured Hall of Famer Bill Walton at his best, the Blazers ultimately swept the next four games to take the title.
1984. Magic Meets Larry. The league gives us Celtics-Lakers (Version 2.0) and catapults the league to even greater heights. Bird and Magic finally meet in an epic East vs. West showdown. Hollywood versus Beantown. It was the Lakers “Showtime” versus the Celtics so-called "blue collar" power game. And, somewhat like the Larry Holmes/Gerry Cooney fight, the series also featured a slight tinge of racial undertones (yes, it played a role). Add in eight Hall Of Famers between the two teams, and Jerry Bruckheimer and Brett Ratner combined couldn’t have scripted it any better. These two powerhouses would meet in 1984, ‘85, and ‘87, giving us the basketball equivalent of the Ali-Frazier Trilogy. Each series set ratings records and featured transcendent basketball, yet as jazz artist Sade would croon that year, it was never as good as the first time.
1991. The Bulls begin their decade of dominance with a decisive thrashing of the aging Lakers. Air Jordan receives the torch from Magic, and then ushers in an era where the NBA took professional basketball to The Next Level, and truly became a global giant.
2006. Welcome to the present, and the future -- an era surely to be defined by its balance between the great all-around game of the 1980s and the urban mystique of the New Millennium Baller. Even more remarkable, for the first time in league history, a Finals team is being led by a European-schooled baller.
While Hakeem Olajuwon hailed from Lagos, ####ia, he learned his game in Houston. Tim Duncan may have started off backstroking in the Virgin Islands, but his game was honed at Wake Forest. In contrast, Dirk’s game was based and developed entirely in Europe.For all the justified hype surrounding Dirk’s enhanced low-post game as well as his willingness to take it to the rack, his status as “Un-guardable Force” owes its roots to his Euro-honed game.
To be sure, like many of his H1-B colleagues, Pau Gasol, Andres Nocioni, and Boris Diaw, Dirk is a big player with small player skills. At 7-0, Dirk is too tall for smaller players to guard, and he has too much perimeter game for the game’s bigs a la Shaq.
Of course Dirk wasn’t the first such player bringing this package, but Dirk’s enhanced game is the embodiment of the best of the New Era. It is hardly an accident that the NBA is getting the same infusion and impact from global talent in the 21st century that black players provided in the 60s and 70s. Players like Wilt, Russell, Elgin Baylor, “The Big O”, et al, took a grounded one-dimensional game and expanded it to the three-dimensional spectacle it is today.Of equal impact, the improvisational skills of an Earl Monroe, Connie Hawkins and Julius Erving should be credited for bringing the urban flow of the Rucker Park game to the mainstream and redefining the NBA game as the ultimate creative sport.
This incredibly successful playoff season has displayed all of the diversity of the new NBA, and the teams in the finals embody this. Besides Dirk, the flexible style that Dallas employs on offense is the perfect platform for the diverse talents of Jason Terry, Devin Harris, Keith Van Horn, Jerry Stackhouse, and the emerging game of Josh Howard. For their part, the Heat features the total floor game of Dewayne Wade, the third year guard already on the fast track to NBA immortality. His game complements the old-school power of Shaquille O’Neal, who is quite possibly the last great back-to-the basket, low-post center we will see for a long time. For all of D-Wade’s nascent greatness, Miami will go as far as the classic skills of their centers O’Neal and Alonzo Mourning take them.
Even with the Three-peat Lakers of Shaq and Kobe, and the success of the Duncan-led Spurs, we can classify more recent times as a barren era for NBA fans since 1993. The league allowed lesser-talented teams to dictate pace by employing slowdown tactics and physical defense better suited for the NFL. The credo seemed to be; if you couldn’t beat ‘em, beat on them.The league also suffered from the weakening effects of overexpansion and poorly schooled younger players.
That down period the league suffered from has ended. The wave of superb young players from the US and abroad that have emerged, combined with the rules changes designed to improve offensive flow, have helped to give us a fantastic playoff season and brings us to the precipice of the most anticipated NBA Finals in recent memory.
Perhaps best of all, these Finals mark the dawn of the NBA’s next great era at last.
Glad to see someone took it down to the wire farther than I did. LOL. Good job Midnight. Some great memories and examples of important Finals matchups. Magic vs. Bird saved the then mightily struggling NBA with that rivalry.
As you state, there is plenty to grasp your attention in this series. This is the ultimate test that will once and for all prove that the International game can help develop tremendous NBA caliber players. It is becoming harder for teams to pass on the "Next Dirk" Andrea Bargnani with each passing Dallas playoff series.
If that isn't enough there is D'Wade. If nothing else, he alone makes watching this Finals a must.
In my opinion this is your best post of the competition. You mixed in the past with the present and even a bit of the future very nicely. You brought together many elements of importance regarding not only the Finals of this year, but historically.
From a "sports" standpoint this is perhaps one of the best, if not the best assignment 3 I have read so far. I still have one or two more to get to.
I think it flowed very nicely and reiterated something I agree with 100%. This is the most interesting NBA Finals I can think of in a long-long time, maybe ever. It rivals the Lakers-Celtics of the 1980's but for far different reasons. It's fresh, new,and history is about to be made with a guaranteed first time NBA champ.
Good insight. Although he's not as versatile as Dirk and what Diaw is becoming, you have other guys like Ming and guys like Ginobli who show they have the skills without attending American universities...
This is an exciting time for NBA fans, and you've captured the zeitgeist (like how I threw in one of the five German words I know? That's for Dirk) really well. You covered your bases thoroughly here. Extensive and easy to read. Good work. Best of luck with moving on to the next round Dr.
I liked it from the title all the way through. Good historical perspective that strengthens the case that this could be one of those special series. Great job, and good luck with the contest.
The World has caught up the USA in basketball. Look the NBA MVP is from Canada and the 2nd place vote getter for the MVP was from Germany and the most improved player was from France.
DrMidnight - This is good analysis. I like the angle you took about this being a series that catapults the league into a new era. I agree with it completely. The recaps of the key series of the past was enjoyable too, and I think you captured the essence of a huge period of time very succinctly.
DrMidnight - nice job of taking us back in the past. You're right - this series does usher in a new era of the NBA, and I'm looking forward to the next decade of the League. Good luck this week.
Very nice post Midnight. Great retrospective on the top Finals series. The facts in the Russell/Celtics run is astonishing.
Do yoou think, with the onus on team ball, team defense and the fundamentals, the NBA will move that way? As you mention Gasol - who was labeled to thin and not tough enough, Nowitski, who was labeled soft but have both turned out to be much tougher than expected, Nocioni, who is tough as nails, the NBA will look to Europe more and more? Could this mean Darko may not have hit maturity yet and when he does, with the fundamentals in his back pocket, he could step up?
Great piece Midnight, got me thinking - which I am guessing is your point... and all of ours.
Northside, I think the league has plenty of guys with sound fundies who were born in the lower 48.
But the NBA isn't a place where most guys can learn to play the game. The two years of college should help. (Pity that the owners had to be protected from themselves.)
The international game with the wide lane and zone defenses put a premimum on guys with passing skills and an outside shot, even the big men. Short list (Schrempf, Yao, Okur, Sabonis...)
The league has already been pulling guys like Tony Parker, Manu, the late, great Drazen Petrovich (who might have been the International Poster Boy a decade ago, if not for his tragic passing). By osmosis, and by the fact that these guys will take the jobs of less sound players, this can't help but raise the level of everyone's game.
As for Darko, in Orlando, he's started to show that Joe D knew what he was doing by drafting him. Thing is, Detroit will regret that trade twice. Once by passing on Bosh, Melo, and Wade for him and again by trading him for next to nothing.
The following error in the 1st paragraph, "it was 'as' painful enough to make a..." is indicative of the all-to-obvious mechanic's problems that plague your great basketball perspective. It's a shame too.
Second, you overwrite by adding, or better yet, failing to subtract words that are completely unnecessary.
As I have stated before regarding your writing, you are either a reader's dream, or an editor's nightmare. Thus said, your shot at winning the NGSII rests on whether the competition committee (judges and bloggers combined) prefer a polished sportswriter, or one that can be molded. Great style and perspective is one thing, but mechanical problems are annoying and thus, something altogether different.
Nonetheless, this is an absolutely fantastic retrospective, buffered by contemporary insights. It’s a shame that it is marred by your inability to self-edit. You still earned a very high score with this one.
I thoroughly enjoyed the retro flava. (I had to google some of the facts, as always.) You really take it to the next level. This is clearly your gift.
With regards to the clear and present immigration imperative, I wonder if the "team" game can be attributed to a different value system and ultimate performance rather than the "euro" moniker?
To be specific, how much differently has the game of basketball been marketed in other parts of the world (a la soccer) which has netted different skills? You know my passion about the NBA not owning the game. I used to revel in watching the US destroy the [amatuer] international competition until the world closed the gap, based on government funded pro teams. Of course, we responded, and began to crush again.
You eloquently pointed out the subtle differences in the rules outside the US which leads to more skills development. I am just saying that several of the NBA and NCAA rules were changed as a result of ONE superior performer, in order to maintain an equitable balance on the court.
The "big basics" of the world might resurface, ultimately, out of the "lower 48" again, if the trend of "more team oriented, less individual performer" proves out. Meaning those teams continue to win consistently. I resent that team play is attributed to outside the US. And more importantly, I, for one still, appreciate Logoman, His Airness, The Big A, Russell (our first Black coach in the finals; the fella with the 11 rings) and Superman.
You know Shadow, I agree with you that plenty of team ball is played by American players. D-Wade, LeBron, Bosh...plenty of players have a team-first edge. I think in the past, there were and are plenty of players who simply did not understand the game well enough to play that way. Sure, there are selfish players, but I think ignorance was more of the problem.
As far as the international game, call it cross-pollenization. :-) The US still plays the best game in the world. I would like to see the Developmental League adopt the trapzodial lane, and the NCAA to extend the 3-point line for starters. The other change would be the widen the court about 4 feet and lengthen it about 5 feet. The players are too big for the court we use now.
I think you were top 4 material for an NBA based NGS. Distressing to see the judges not display the full results, breakdown of voting vs. judge scores, etc but your showing as a repeat top performer was very impressive.
Yeah, it stinks that a work that I thought was my best got the lowest score. 2.44? wow...but the judges have kept the process consistent (in its hidden-ness :-), so I don't expect to see a change.
I think that perhaps I wasn't "entertaining" enough for some people - most of the other blogs were not all that heavy on basketball - so if that is how people judge, I'm going to suffer in comparison.
I also have some thoughts about one of our peers, but I'll keep it to myself for now.
Thanks to everyone for reading, and I'll keep posting. Much love!
Midnight - Somehow that 2.44 integrates the judges & the voters. I can't imagine how the judges could give you a low score on that. Voters are unpredictable and I think your point about the "entertaining" factor relates to that 50% more than the Dime/Peter/Tom segment.
I stand by my comment that this was the most solid true NBA blog in this round. I thought you did a great job and have a lot to feel proud of. Congrats for a job well done.
Dr., it's been wonderful competing against you in the finals, and I want to commend you on a job well done it making it as far as you did. There is no questioning your abilities as a writer, and I know if you keep at it great things lie ahead for you. Congrats on a really impressive run!
G.H. Brooks (aka "Dr. Midnight" to his loyal fan base) is a 2-time Next Great Sportswriter (NGS) Finalist. One would think that bringing game like that would net me *something* - a cool icon to mark my site, some love from Fox Sports, cash, but noooo... :-)
I'm broadcasting live from New York City after a hiatus from the blogging scene, takes on life, sports, and whatever passing thoughts are shooting through my head. The good and bad ..passionate, logical, and on point.
It's a G Thing.... you can look me up at newjack1@eart hlink.net
