In all forms of entertainment, consumers want high stakes, climaxes, and just overall excitement. It’s why we watch great TV shows and movies. It’s why we watch sports. Sports are the ultimate drama, the TV show that never lets us down. So when the clock hit 0.0 on Tuesday night and the Golden State Warriors began celebrating their NBA championship, I thought to myself: that’s it?
Let me say first that the Warriors were a very deserving champion. In fact, they were probably the best regular season team I have ever seen. It just didn’t feel like they had to earn their championship. The moments where they looked like their regular season self were few and far between. When a team wins a championship, I want them to either dominate their outmatched opponents or I want close games in long series and I got neither. I never saw the Warriors truly have to show their greatness.
They never showed their vast superiority to the Pelicans in the first round, even though they swept them. I’m just about the biggest Pelicans fan on the planet and I didn’t think the series would be that competitive. Memphis took a 2-1 lead over the Warriors, but did anyone actually think the Grizzlies would win that series? Steve Kerr made a couple adjustments and it was enough for the Warriors to win the next three games. Through some fluky stuff, the Warriors avoided the Spurs and Clippers and got to play the underwhelming Rockets in the Western Conference Finals. Again, no one really thought the Rockets had a shot, but the Warriors let them hang around in too many games. And finally the Finals. I was rooting for the Cavs even though Alvin Gentry is the Pelicans coach because I just wanted to see superhuman LeBron put Matthew Dellavedova on his back and drag him to a championship or at least a high intensity seventh game. As unrealistic as that was to ask for, I still felt like the series left a lot to be desired. I mean Klay Thompson was terrible in every game but game 2, Draymond Green and Harrison Barnes were awful the first few games, Steph wasn’t himself, Andrew Bogut hardly played, and they still won! I don’t want to see that. I want to see a team playing at their full potential win the title.
As for the rest of the playoffs, they were about as disappointing, except for one series. The NBA season ended on June 16, but it peaked on May 2. That would be Spurs-Clippers game 7. That series was so awesome in a sea full of bad first round series. The Clippers and Spurs took each other to their absolute limits and it resulted in perfection in game 7. Seeing Chris Paul essentially say screw everyone else, I’m doing this my way and then lead the Clippers to a dramatic game 7 win over the defending champs was what we want to see in the postseason.
We only got one other game seven in the playoffs and it wasn’t any good. The three consecutive game winners in the East were exciting, but they capped mediocre basketball games in the Eastern Conference. Wait what’s that? Impromptu rant about open seeding? You got it:
Adam Silver, you have got to see that half of your league’s playoff games are hot garbage. The beat up Atlanta Hawks who would struggle to get out the first round in the West made the conference finals. You have to see that open seeding in the playoffs makes things more competitive throughout the entire playoffs and gives us an overall better product. The players can handle a couple extra cross-country flights in private, first-class planes if it means the overall product of the NBA playoffs becomes much better because the quality of play throughout the playoffs will be much higher. OK, rant over.
Overall, the best postseason in professional sports provided us with a product that really lacked the drama and high quality of play that we have become so used to seeing. We can only hope for better going forward and I think we’ll see that as Golden State begins what looks like their reign over the NBA.
The 5th Quarter 