(Extremely loose Rugrats reference in the title. 15 points if you caught the reference)
This NBA Playoffs has been very interesting, with phenomenal games, incredible moments, and a slew of pleasant surprises. But unlike other playoff years, the talent pool has become so evenly matched, that nearly any team can take out any team. The defending champions of the past couple years were eliminated, and the four teams left standing in the playoffs were not in the Conference Finals the year before---nor the year before that. So the question is what the heck is going on? The answer is simple: the hungriest team wins. Not the most talented, the hungriest.
This is why the Magic are gone. This is why the Lakers are gone. This is why the Celtics are gone. Those three teams I mentioned were far too talented to get knocked out as fast as they did. Nonetheless, it has happened, and we are going to have a new champion because these quieter upstart teams are this new-school NBA league of confident, unselfish, and ready to stand up to any Goliath. This explains the surprise-surprise success of the new-look Mavericks, the Hawks, and most shockingly the Grizzlies.
Let’s start with my team, the Magic, shall we? On paper, this was the only team that can truly stop whom I pick as eventual NBA champion, the Miami Heat. They had the excellent center that could clean up house in the front court, the endless pool of shooters, and enough speed to catch pace with the young Heat. But this Magic squad lacked the magic of the Finals squad a couple years ago—which had this young core of talent that shared the ball, relied on each other, and were not afraid of any opponent. Remember, that Magic squad took down two very intimidating teams the Boston Celtics and the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Rafer Alston, Marcin Gortat, Michael Pietrus, and Courtney Lee quietly transformed a Magic team from a good one to an excellent one with its hustle and phenomenal effort. They were the best Magic squad in history—with the exception of the 1995-1996 Magic. Now, we have none of those players and guess what, the first round we disappeared. Nelson got cocky (never liked him), the rest of the squad dismissed the Hawks as a mere road bump, and 6 games later they are sitting at home watching the Hawks give the Bulls a good fight. The Hawks wanted it more. Were they the better team? Hell and no. But they wanted to win. Talent didn’t matter, because if talent doesn’t show up, there’s no hope. And this is why the Suns trade was a wasted opportunity because there was a man on that squad who wants to win just as bad as anybody else in the NBA. And we are talking about Steve Nash.
We are talking about the two-time MVP, playmaking, hockey mentality, incredibly diverse, incredibly talented and starving Steve Nash. While I was against the trading away of Gortat and Pietrus; if we had given the Suns those two, and add Nelson, we could have gotten Steve Nash, and we would have been a Finals-worthy squad. Imagine Nash running around with the equally fast Dwight Howard constantly spitting buckets. It would have been a match made in heaven. Nelson I have criticized time and time again, and the truth is he isn’t a good point guard. The Magic need a good point guard, a good playmaker, and most of all a man that wants to win. Steve Nash fits that bill like no other.
The Celtics is hands-down the best example of this lack of hunger. Unlike the Magic, whom just got cocky and lowered their guard, the Celtics lost the will to win after upper management ruined a perfect team. The Celtics wanted their vengeance after their disgusting and disgraceful loss to the Lakers in the Finals the year before (Ron Artest beat them...…ARTEST). At the frontend of the season, they were playing hard, they were vicious, and were a force to be reckoned with. And then came the Perkins trade, which can now be classified as one of the stupidest trades in the history of the NBA. Want to know where Perkins went? The Oklahoma City Thunder, who are still in the playoffs.
The Boston Celtics lost their bite, lost their identity, and lost their hunger—they were now full of anguish and despair. They barely squeaked by an injury-ridden New York Knicks squad and were hammered by the same Miami Heat team they had figured out so well just a couple months ago. They did have the talent to beat the Heat, but this Boston squad was nothing like the one that won it all years ago, nothing like the one that entered the finals last year, and nothing like the team we experienced back in December.
The Los Angeles Lakers was the most shocking example of them all. This Laker squad was the defending champions; they had won two in a row for crying out loud. They essentially had the same squad. And they were led by a Hall of Fame player and were being coached by the most successful NBA coach in history. And they were facing the Dallas Mavericks, a team notorious for faltering in the playoffs—especially after their NBA Finals collapse. We were expecting at least a good series; somewhere in the 6-7 game range. Instead we got a 4-game sweep. Kobe Bryant played the same, but the heart just wasn’t there. In the midst of the finger-pointing, yelling, blame game, meltdowns, and shocking emotion displayed by Phil Jackson was a team that was exposed to be one that didn’t have the willpower to fight through 16 games to try to earn that trophy again.
Bottom Line: The NBA is evolving rapidly, as the big squads that had dominated in years past were whimpering and faltering against these small, upstart squads. Even teams that lost in the first round put up good fights: the Indiana Pacers, the Denver Nuggets, Portland Trail Blazers, New York Knicks, and especially the New Orleans Hornets. Now we suddenly have the Memphis Grizzlies upsetting, the Atlanta Hawks upsetting, and even the Dallas Mavericks upsetting. Nobody is safe, and the Magic, Celtics, Lakers, and Spurs have learned this the hard way. The talent is spread quite well all over the NBA, which is good for the league, bad for teams that are expected to win.
This year its not just about how well you play, its about how badly you want to win.
"Halt I am lockout! Halt I am lockout!"
(End very very loose Rugrats reference)
P.S. I still miss the NBA on NBC.
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