The Mavericks were the better team. They're more athletic, deeper, better-coached, they play harder, better defensively, they have a better owner, and MUCH better chemistry. But they lost, because, as I've stated before, the NBA is about superstars. The Heat had Wade and Shaq. The Mavericks only have Nowitzki (who I'll get to in a minute), who isn't as good as Wade or as impactful as Shaq.

 

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I won't Gloat about my Pick

I actually picked the Heat to win this title two years ago, and again after the conference finals. But I won't take credit for it, because I already admitted that I thought I was wrong about the pick after game 3, and because of the officiating controversy (which I don't have an opinion about, I'm just leaving the possibility open...).

 

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We can now agree about Nowitzki

After his 50-point game, everyone and their illegitimate child proclaimed with glee that 'THIS IS THE BEST PLAYER IN THE GAME'! Except for me, I was wrinkling my nose while sheepishly asking: 'Really? One good game on a great team makes a jump-shooter the best player in the game?' Well, time has passed, Dirk has come back down to Earth, and everyone has backed down from their ridiculous assertions. In two weeks Dirk has returned to his proper place: a very good all-star who isn't capable of carrying a team on his back to a title. Wade put Dirk in his place with a worse team behind him, that's all you need to know.

 

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Anyone else feel terribly for Stan Van Gundy?

I was going to just call this a 'coup', but then I thought, why not make an analogy? Yippee! (I apologize if this is too literary, I'm in the mood to reference the Iliad, though this analogy doesn't stick to that storyline)

Agamemnon goes to war against Troy with an army led by a cadre of badasses in Achilles, Diomedes, Odysseus, etc. They're on the cusp of victory, but then Zeus, in his obtuse machinations, flings lightning bolts at the kneecaps of all of Agamemnon's heroes, crippling all of them! The Trojans, led by Hector (the Michael Jordan of the actual literary war) beats Agamemnon's crew back to their boats, nearly annihilating them. But then, just as Achilles and the boys recover from their injuries, Menelaos stabs Agamemnon in the back and takes over! Achilles, with divine help, kills Hector, and they run rampant over the Trojans and win the war. Menelaos re-bags his wife Helen and is hailed as a hero. Paris even joins the two in bed for a twisted bigamist orgy.

Alright, that was awful. But everyone knows what happened, Stan was robbed.

 

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The Future

Who wins next year? It's very interesting. I don't think that the Heat can do it again, Shaq's declining too quickly, and that chemistry isn't going to be improving anytime soon (if it did, Wade *could* lead a team that talented to a championship without Shaq, but I doubt this will happen). So who's in the running? My pick has to be the Spurs, but here's a breakdown of the levels of probability:

1 - The Spurs. Only team with a dominant post-player in his prime.

1a - Wait for it .... the .... MAGIC. Yes, Orlando. Only because of Dwight Howard. But this hinges on a number of variables. What kind of offseason will they have? Will Dwight Howard continue to push this notion of being a clone of Kevin Garnett (which would be a disaster)? It's uncertain, but Howard is looking like the only current player who could potentially join the pantheon of Shaq/Duncan/Olajuwon/Jordan/etc.<br>And the Heat, they're still a possibility. A touch more probable than the following two...

2 - The Mavericks and the Pistons. Two very good teams who are dependent on others to win a title. 'Dependent' in that they need a little bad luck to happen to their superstar-led opponents.

If none of the first three teams win it, I'll be surprised. If none of these *five* teams win, I might spontaneously combust.

Though I just wrote a blog about the unraveling of the Pistons (before it became fashionable, by the way), that's not what I'm going to gloat about. I'm going to gloat about my defense of the Heat after their series last year, after which everyone treated Detroit like the second best team in the NBA even though they barely beat a team whose two stars were hobbled (if playing at all).

This is mainly in response to the pervasive opinion that Detroit is a fantastically worse team than last year ... uh, if Shaq and Wade had been healthy last year, would the outcomes of the two series (assuming that the Heat pull it out in 6, as I officially predict them to do) have been any diffferent?

It's all about perception. Three points:

They had an excellent regular season. As a former Mariners fan I can tell you that regular seasons don't matter very much (*cough* 116 wins).

Detroit wasn't that good in the first place, for reasons I've mentioned several times before.

The players are acting up, which makes the situation visibly dysfunctional. They're acting up because they, like everyone else, had unrealistically trumped up expectations for themselves, and they're placing the blame on their new coach (couldn't POSSIBLY be them! They're World Champions!).

Everyone shut up! In any year, with any coach, Detroit is supposed to lose to the Heat. Miami has two superstars, Detroit has zero. The NBA is about stars, all Detroit has is five very good starters. That's good enough to work through the terrible East and get lucky against a weird West team (the Lakers), but nothing more.

Everyone shut up about Riley and Van Gundy, too. Van Gundy did the same damn thing Riley's doing. But, again I have to mention the injuries they suffered last year.

Two years in a row I've predicted that either the Spurs or the Heat would win the title, looks like I'm going to be right two years in a row.