The NBA Finals are well underway and I have tried to watch the majority of it, however with three kids it can sometimes be challenging. Don’t get me wrong I think Daniel the Tiger has some great life lessons for kids to learn, I just wish one episode would have a song featuring a song that includes “you should let your dad watch important sporting events instead of watching this.” I’m sure the writers could think of a way to make that rhyme but I digress.
Again I have been able to see a good chunk of the games and I have some thoughts that I have wanted to put out to the world but they are longer than 140 characters. So this is a couple of observations that you probably didn’t really care about to hear about. Thank you for indulging me.
Lebron James is… ugh.
After LeBron James’ second year with the Miami Heat I have really tried to like him. I think “The Decision” was one of the worst PR moves anyone has ever done which most would probably agree with. He took the “how dare you be mad at me for doing that, I raised money for children” approach afterwards and I didn’t really like that.
He tried to be the villain his first year in with Miami and it just wasn’t his style. This was one of the things that I made me turn toward kind of liking him. In saw an interview he did with ESPN’s Rachel Nichols in 2011.
“I play the game fun, joyful, and I let my game do all of the talking and I got away from that. That’s what I lost last year. Going through my first seven years in the NBA I was always the “liked one” and to be on the other side — they call it the dark side or the villain or whatever they call it — it was definitely challenging for myself. It was a situation I had never been in before, and it took awhile … it took a long time to adjust to it.”
I respected this, I also respected the fact that he is probably the greatest all around player I have ever seen with his own two eyes. However, the sub-tweets, the working out with D-Wade on a day off, the I want to play with my friends stuff and taking the “high road,” drives me crazy.
LeBron seems to be going out of his way to do things that just rub me the wrong way.
More on LeBron…
LeBron James has the most unreal expectations I have ever seen on any athlete ever. Now he certainly brought this upon himself with the “not five, not six, not seven” talk.
But I see a change (albeit slow) in the narrative happening.
I once heard a comedian talk about living with your parents and how things change after a certain amount of time. In your 20s if you live with your parents everyone tells you that enough is enough and you have to get out. Your 30s roll around, you still live with your parents and people tell you you’re pathetic. Then by the time your 40s people change a little and say “man that is really nice of you sacrificing your space and taking care of your parents.”
This may be a bit of a stretch comparison but I feel like people are now starting to see that what he is doing will probably never be seen again. Six straight NBA Finals appearances and the media is currently going through LeBron fatigue.
The same thing happened with Michael Jordan, it would be easy to just give him the MVP award every year but the media doesn’t want to just give it to him every year.
Steph Curry’s struggles…
There seems to be a few things happening. I don’t know if he is 100% healthy. I know everyone has issues when they’re team reaches the finals however, he had two different injuries previously in this playoffs. That is why you are seeing him be way less productive after a big game.
Another thing added to this is the one thing the Cleveland Cavaliers don’t want to let happen is to let Steph Curry get rolling. When Curry gets rolling it is infectious, he can rattle off 12 quick points and it is more demoralizing than anything I have ever seen in basketball.
I remember when the Lakers had their last championship run Shannon Brown would come off the bench and throw down some of the most ferocious dunks. While that did get the fan out of their seats it only got the Lakers 2 points. When Curry goes on one of his runs not only does he get the crowd going crazy but he also gives his team a giant lead or makes sure they are never out of a game.
The Refs…
This has kind of been a theme throughout the entire playoffs but the last two minutes of a game report card makes the refs look really bad and it is messing with me psychologically.
I feel like all it does is make the refs look bad and make the losing team just feel worse. So the refs should have called eight fouls in your favor but they didn’t so you lost by two instead of going to the free throw line to put you ahead. Sorry, I guess?
For me all I am doing now is thinking about the refs. This is something I have never done before. Of course there is the occasional “That wasn’t a foul!” outburst but now I am thinking about conspiracies to extend this series to seven games. Now I think the refs have way more to do with the outcome of the game than I think they really do, either way it’s in the back of my mind now and it bothers me.
Predictions you probably don’t care about…
The Cavaliers will win game six and I don’t think with will be even close. Draymond Green feels like he let his team down by being kicked out for game five and with Andrew Bogut going down for the rest of the Finals, Green is going to try and do too much and it won’t work.
LeBron and Kyrie Irving are also playing about as well as anyone could play right now and I think that play continues in the comfort of their own home.
Game seven comes back to Oracle Arena and I think LeBron and company find a way to pull off the insane comeback.
This also will change the narrative on both LeBron and Steph. LeBron would cement himself as a top five player in the history of the game. I also predict after the parade runs through downtown Cleveland that LeBron strongly considers leaving once again to play with his buddies.
On the flip side people are going to start really cranking up the dislike for Steph, which I think has already happened quite a bit but it will be a story line all season long. The comparisons to Peyton Manning will be in full force.
People are also going to start discounting the Warriors previous championship. “Sure they won but they were more lucky than anything else in their title run.”
Too Ugly For TV Sports 