Thoughts Midway Through The NBA Finals
Man, that Game 4 was kind of crazy. I checked the score on ESPN's website sometime in the first half, saw "45-21", and figured we might as well write this one off as just another bad road game for the Celtics. Then I go and check the score again some time later and whoops, it's a five point game. What the hell, Lakers? I was happily watching Burn Notice, and now I've got to switch over to the game to see how this plays out, and my remote doesn't work so well anymore, so the button pushing gets a bit aggravating. Still, that was pretty cool how Boston pulled that off*.
After the game was over, I was perusing some of the Internet sports sites, and I started to think about whether the expectations we as fans, and the media as well, put on players is fair. I noted a lot of people after the game proclaiming that all those "Kobe/Jordan" comparisons need to stop right now. After all, Jordan's teams never blew 24-point leads at home in the Finals, though I'm curious what folks will say if Kobe leads his team back to win the Finals, down 3-1, and with such an ugly loss. What I've been thinking about is, was Kobe the one making those comparisons? Was he telling people, "Hey, I'm better than Jordan"? I'm sure he was, at least a little. Choosing 24 as his new number a few seasons ago, when Jordan was 23, certainly seemed significant**, but I'm still not sure who's really been pushing those comparisons. And if it isn't Kobe, is it really fair to dump on him for not living up to comparisons he wasn't making? I know, he's the best player on the team, one of the best in the league (possibly the best), he ran off Shaq*** and Phil****, and so I think it's fair to question why he couldn't help his team hold the lead, or retake the lead once they'd lost it (though, I'm not sure how weak interior defense is Kobe's fault).
Let's use another example, Kevin Garnett. The big rap on KG is that he usually doesn't step up his game in the 4th quarter. Most of the time he plays at the same (extremely high) level he played the first three, sometimes he looks panicked, and every so often he comes up big*****. But the games where he's not taking over on the offensive end outnumber the ones where he does, so he gets Magic Johnson and Charles Barkley dumping on him******, or Skip Bayless calling him Kevin GarNot*******. It raises the question if these people ever watch him play. Garnett likes to distribute the ball, get his teammates involved. Sure, there are times that's not a good idea, but is it worse than Garnett taking a lot more shots, regardless of how many players guard him? Garnett's biggest strength is his defense. if he starts taking more shots, then he probably has less energy for defense, and looking at some of the guys he's had as teammates (Wally, Cassell, Kandy Man, Nesterovic), that probably isn't advisable. Is it the money Garnett makes that causes people to expect him to dominate offensively? Is it that he has always been the most talented player on his teams, and one of the most athletically gifted in the league? I know Garnett tends to take responsibility for these things (such as admitting he needed to be more aggressive attacking Gasol after Game 3, which was true) , but I can't recall him saying he's the best, he should take all the shots, everything should run through him. That isn't the style of player he is, and you'd think that'd be recognized to the point people would stop giving him shit about it.
* I'd prefer to give credit to them for good defense, rather than harp on the Lakers for choking.
** Though didn't Kobe say it represented playing hard all the time, like 24 hours a day, or something to that extent?
*** Though Shaq was the one that demanded a trade, I believe.
**** For a little while, anyway.
***** Game 7 in the 2nd round against the Kings, being the prime example.
****** I would love to see Barkley beat the Spurs or some of those early Nowitzki Mavs' teams with Wally Szczerbiak and Troy Hudson as his two best teammates, or Olowakandi at center. And I'm sure Magic's brand of "no defense" would have done splendidly against the Duncan/Robinson Spurs.
******* Skip, it isn't funny. At all. Nor was it ever funny. You are a feculent sack of regurgitated cud. And you could not get a hit off Randy Johnson, even at this stage in his career, because, if there is hope and love in the world, Big Unit would drill you in the kidneys with the first pitch, and assuming you stepped back in, plant the next one in your ribs, then your knee, feet, elbow, until you got the message.
posted by CalvinPitt @ 1:48 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
I think part of the MJ - Kobe comparisons is that everyone (fans, press, Kobe) wants Kobe to be Jordan. I mean, if Jordan was the greatest player ever, that means, what we have now isn't, and no one wants to watch anyone other than the best (being the American way and all). So we've all been waiting for him to take on the mantle since he was 18, and if he doesn't, no matter the fact that he's one of the 12 best players ever, his career will be a disappointment. It doesn't help that he's a gigantic asshole (and possibly worse than that). The one thing about Jordan, that Kobe has yet to do, is to make everyone around him better. Jordan could be commanding, even demeaning to his teammates, but he always raised their game. Kobe can't do that, because he's an asshole, Jordan was just insanely competitive. All that said, if Kobe can lead his team back to win this finals, there's probably no stopping his canonization from becoming at least the number 2 to Jordan's #1.
Garnett, on the other hand, raises the game of everyone around him, but to his detriment. He's so busy getting everyone else to play at such a high level, his game suffers (or at least seems to). He would be a great player-coach.
One last thing, you seem to have some unresolved issues with Skip Bayless, did he kill someone close to you or something. I mean, the dude was such an asshole of a sportswriter he didn't even make it 2 years writing at the Chicago Tribune, so I kinda understand, but dude....
That's a good point about the desire to feel we're watching the best right NOW. That probably explains (or is related to) the inevitable "Greatest Player/Greatest Play/Greatest Game EVER" labels that get thrown around any time anything remotely outstanding is happening.
As to Skip, nah, I don't know the guy, he just irritates the hell out of me. He reminds me of a cousin I had who would take the opposite side in any discussion, just because he liked to fight, which tended to lead to him going years between talking to relatives (he and our grandmother went over a decade without speaking when he started giving her crap about her religion one night. You do not discuss religion with her.) The thing is, sometimes my cousin was kind of cool, so that made up for it. I've never seen a "cool" side of Skip Bayless, just the guy who always seems to take the opposite side of an argument, and nothing any athlete does is impressive enough. I'd be willing to put some of that on ESPN asking him to do that, but Skip's said he isn't disagreeing just to be contrary, that he believes what he says, which i find kind of hard to swallow, but it seems to put all of it on him, so that works for me.
Also, I think this was me resolving the issues. I haven't even watched Skip on anything in probably a year, so this is just repressed dislike held over from back when he used to fill in on PTI, and when I was dumb enough to watch him argue with Woody Paige on Cold Pizza. I feel much better now.
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