Sorry for the delay. I need to reorganize some things, especially how I hijacked my own blog in order to use as an assignment board for classes last semester. I plan on moving all those posts to a separate, class only blog and making this one again about video games and sports.
Because those are my two loves, and that's the kind of readership I want. <3
Today's topic: Sports.
The NBA playoffs, amirite? I find it funny how I absolutely abhor the regular season of the NBA (it's so boring!) but the Playoffs are just about the best TV event short of the NFL playoffs.
I missed most of the first rounds because school was finishing up and I was too busy writing papers to really follow sports.
Watching Oklahoma bounce the Lakers out of the playoffs was a beautiful thing. It's funny watching Kobe struggle as his team sits around and expects him to do it all. I know I take a lot of flack from sports fans for this, but I feel like Michael Jordan ruined basketball, or at least ruined all the people paid to talk about basketball who lived through that era.
I am so sick and tired of how "basketball experts" praise certain players as being the best in the league, then bash them for not having championship rings. LeBron James gets the brunt of this but it's applied to a lot of other guys. The problem is this type of talk seems to me like it arose during the post second 3peat of his Airness, and everyone who's come into the league since with great expectations has been told by the media and by everyone else around them they are the next Michael Jordan and they are expected to carry and lift their teams to victory single-handedly.
It just doesn't work that way. Basketball is a team game, and while having a super star certainly helps it does not guarantee you a damn thing. Look at how many epic great players were in the league during Michael's stay in the NBA. Are ALL of them failures because they weren't on the Bulls?
The thing time forgot is just how great that Bulls team was. They still had winning records the two years in between Michael's baseball career attempt. Scottie Pippin was a stud player and would have been the lead guy on any other team in the league. Dennis Rodman is one of the greatest defensive players and easily the greatest gatherer of rebounds the game had ever seen. The perimeter shooting of the team was amazing. It was a truly complete TEAM, and it just happened to have the best player in the NBA on that team.
I am going to give you a list of literally every team that won the championship since Jordan retired:
Spurs (x3)
Lakers (x5)
Pistons (x1)
Heat (x1)
Celtics (x1)
Mavericks (x1)
It's a really short list. And it's also proof TEAM MATTERS. Kobe Bryant is definitely one of the all time greatest NBA players to ever play the game, but remember how utterly trash the Lakers teams were post-Shaq before they got that miracle trade for Pau Gasol? He couldn't and still can't win it on his own.
All of those teams, name the start players. Lakers, you have Kobe. But you also had Shaq, Derek Fisher in his prime, Cedric Ceballos and Robert Horry. Lots of good, solid players surrounding him. It was a great TEAM that first three-peat and their recent two championships again had a really phenominal supporting cast. You have Timmy Duncan for the Spurs, and then Tony Parker and Manu Ginobli when those guys showed up. No one ever looked at that Spurs dynasty and said it was just because Duncan could take over a game on his own. He is just a phenomenal player surrounded by a cast that accentuates his skills (which is to say being really, really effing tall). It was always about how great a TEAM they were. The Heat? Again it wasn't just Dwayne Wade but you had Shaq and Alonzo Mourning and a bunch of great perimeter shooters and blah blah. Pistons? Great team, with a bunch of guys who might not even make it at least as first ballots into the hall of fame. Celtics? Bunch of guys past their prime no one expected to single-handedly carry their teams anymore. Mavericks? Just a great team with one of the greatest benches in the league.
But all those start players like Kobe and LeBron think they have to do it all, and when they fall short they get lambasted in the media. It's sickening and downright disturbing. The reason I am cheering for the Heat to win it all this year is so people can stop looking at LeBron, one of the greatest if not the greatest basketball player in the world today, as a failure and celebrate him for the greatness he does on the court.
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