It’s hard to believe that a year has gone by since I was writing about the Boston Celtics vs. Los Angeles Lakers NBA Finals.
In terms of 365 days of interest, this was the most engaging NBA season of all time.
Instead of late October, this year’s NBA season began when the buzzer sounded on Game 7 in Los Angeles. We had just witnessed one of the hardest fought NBA Finals of all time and the storylines were already building for Kobe Bryant’s quest for ring number six, since Phil Jackson was returning and Pau Gasol was emerging as one of the best power forwards in the game.
On the other side, the Boston Celtics had fought the Lakers down to the final minute and had done so on the road, without Kendrick Perkins. Although the Celtics looked old, there was a sense that these two historic rivals would meet again in 2011 for essentially Game 3—the rubber-match finale—of their NBA Finals matchups.
But then the NBA landscape experienced a seismic change. Rumors were swirling around that LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, Amare Stoudemire and Joe Johnson were having a secret meeting, a “player’s summit” of sorts, that involved discussions of where they would sign in the off-season. Suddenly, teams like the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers didn’t seem like the favorites, but instead teams that had enough money to sign these players like the Chicago Bulls, Miami Heat and New York Knicks. Even lowly teams like the New Jersey Nets and Los Angeles Clippers were now in the conversation to become championship caliber. They were all just one signature away.
The speculation of what was going to happen next swirled around for the entire month of June. On July 1, the free agent window opened up, and the rumors really started to speed up.
While there was definite interest in where Dwyane Wade and Amare Stoudemire would go, the summer was all about LeBron, and rightfully so, no player changes a franchise as quickly and effectively as LeBron James.
So throughout the course of a week, six different teams came to meet with LeBron James in his home. The Chicago Bulls said, “Hey, you can play with Derrick Rose, Luol Deng, Joakim Noah and Taj Gibson, and we still have leftover money to bring in another guy.” The Clippers said, “We have Eric Gordon, Blake Griffin, Baron Davis and Chris Kaman, throw you into that starting five and we are the new main attraction in Los Angeles.” New York said, “Hey, c’mon, it’s New York! You’ll be rich, famous and Mike D’Antoni’s offense will get you like 60 points per game,” and the New Jersey Nets made the, “You will become a billionaire LeBron” approach.
Then came Pat Riley of Miami. We will never know what was said in that room, but apparently Riley put all his championship rings out on the table and asked LeBron to try one on. He made the case to LeBron, that in Miami, he would not win just a championship ring, but instead become the leader of a dynasty. I feel like after 30 minutes of a Riley ego-trip speech, LeBron cut him off and said, “Dude, relax, me, Dwyane and CB decided this four years ago, I’m just pretending like I’m hearing all the options out fairly.”
The final group was Cleveland. The Cavaliers situation had extended past the NBA world and was now rocking the lives of every Michigan State Spartans fan this side of East Lansing (have no idea if that is the right usage of ‘this side of’, but does anyone know how to use that effectively in a sentence?)
For a few fearful days, Spartans fans held their breath as Tom Izzo hopped on planes and toured around Cleveland. Fortunately, Izzo was never able to get a hold of LeBron. When it suddenly became clear that LeBron was probably not ending up in Cleveland, Dan Gilbert had no sales pitch left.
Well, ok, hear me out here. I know you are at god status in East Lansing and are widely considered to be one of the best college basketball coaches living today and have a student section named after you and are completely happy and satisfied with your current life, but, well, I mean we have Mo Williams and well, JJ Hickson is pretty good and Ohio is a slight step up from Michigan and…PLEASE TAKE THE JOB! PLEEAASEE!
What was Cleveland going to offer LeBron James? They had so much money tied up in salaries like Antwan Jamison that they really couldn’t just go out and sign another guy. Also, how are they going to pull off trades? Do you think any general manager in the Eastern Conference, or really the NBA for that matter, would say, “Oh sure, let me give you the missing piece you need to make LeBron’s team unstoppable, we’ll get that to you right away! Did you want to give him my wife and daughter too?”
The two things Cleveland had going for them were the maximum contract and the loyalty argument. In Cleveland, LeBron could have signed the biggest contract out of any of the other places and become the highest paid player in the league. The problem with this, is LeBron had options in New York and New Jersey that would have ended up with him making 10x more off the court than he did on it. At least.
So then it was down to the loyalty argument that carried through not only until The Decision, but for the rest of the year, maybe the rest of his career. LeBron was lovable in Cleveland, he was electrifying to watch, he was the hometown kid, he was the savior to a struggling sports city, how could he leave all of that?
When LeBron began talking about how his mom helped him make the decision during The Decision, it seemed like this story was going to end with LeBron saying, “Cleveland is my home. I’m staying a Cavalier.”
As angry as Cleveland, and a lot of the rest of us became when he said he was going to Miami, now seems somewhat irrational. In New York, he would team up with Amare Stoudemire who had question marks surrounding his knees. In New Jersey he would be in a Cleveland 2.0 situation. In Los Angeles, he’d be a sideshow to the Lakers. In Cleveland, he would watch the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers battle for the next couple years and then be on the losing side of battles against the Chicago Bulls and this new Miami Heat team with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh.
To win championships, LeBron’s only two real options were Chicago and Miami. While both situations would have been championship caliber, LeBron chose to team up with his close friends, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. Other than Chris Paul and his high school buddies, Wade may be LeBron’s best friend in not just his basketball world, but his off the court life too. LeBron probably never could have imagined how hated he would become by choosing Miami, but how much easier is it to carry that burden when you have your closest friends to share it with.
The chaos over The Decision followed by the Celebration seemed to last the entire month of July. All until Kevin Durant stole our attention.
Kevin Durant’s run through the FIBA World Championships not only gave us a new superstar to cheer for, but he also showed he was ready to be a top guy in the NBA. He was carrying this team on his back, and even though the international competition might not be the same as an NBA game, Durant suddenly looked like a Kobe Bryant figure rather than just that young kid who scores a lot.
The timing could not have been better for Durant’s rise. With 90 percent of NBA fans hating LeBron James and hating this new Heat team, Durant became a source of hope that maybe the Heat wouldn’t be the new dynasty. He was praised for his humility, his silent contract extension and his loyalty to his teammates. With Russell Westbrook also emerging, along with the memory of the Thunder pushing the Lakers six games, there was legitimate hope that the Thunder could be a top team in the league.
So now it’s September. Shaq is in Boston, Carlos Boozer is in Chicago, Chris Paul and Carmelo Anthony hinted at joining Amare Stoudemire in New York. Suddenly, there’s so much anticipation building for the 2011 regular season, that we began paying attention to the pre-season. Honestly, I didn’t recall the NBA even having a pre-season until this year.
The end of October comes and we have the Boston Celtics, the old Big Three, going up against the Miami Heat, the new Big Three in game one of the regular season. The Celtics win! Even though it was just one game, and Dwyane Wade was not back to full strength, there was a sense of hope that the Heat would not be this 72 win dynasty after all, and that a team like the Boston Celtics was still the team to beat out East.
This belief became even stronger as the Heat started out 9-8 and the Celtics had another early season run. Now that the Heat would have to go 64-1 the rest of the way to surpass the Chicago Bulls NBA record for wins, there became a bit of irrational hope that maybe the Heat would only be an average team and that LeBron would be ringless once again.
This changed quickly. The Heat got hot and rattled off 20 of their next 21 or whatever the streak was. The LeBron return home to Cleveland was one of the most anticipated games I can ever remember, playoffs included, and in the end, James put on an absolute show.
The Heat was carrying the bulk of attention for the regular season, but elsewhere, other teams and other players were grabbing headlines too. The San Antonio Spurs were suddenly good again, the Dallas Mavericks were not far behind, Derrick Rose and Kevin Durant were both showing why they are the best young players in the league and quietly, LaMarcus Aldridge was putting up monster nights, carrying a hobbled Trailblazers team into the playoffs. Carmelo Anthony trade rumors were driving us crazy and Chris Paul re-emerged as the point guard we once knew, and had even led his batch of New Orleans Hornets to an early undefeated stretch.
However, nothing became more engaging than Blake Griffin hilights. It seemed like every other night, Sportscenter’s Top 10 would end with Griffin flying over people, posterizing big men like Timofey Mozgov and making the casual fan want to tune into a Clippers game.
In an 82 game season, it’s easy to lose interest and wait until the playoffs begin, but 2011 gave us non-stop action and storylines all the way up to the All-Star break. In the All-Star game we saw Blake Griffin jump over a car, Kobe Bryant dominate, stripping the ball from Dwyane Wade multiple times and Kevin Durant going FIBA 2010 down the stretch. After the game, we saw Carmelo Anthony get traded for almost the entire New York Knicks starting lineup, Deron Williams mysteriously slip over to New Jersey and Dwight Howard Los Angeles Lakers rumors going from sheer madness to, “Wait, this might happen?”
One of the biggest All-Star break trades was also the most surprising. Kendrick Perkins was sent to Oklahoma City, and Boston Celtics’ title hopes seemed to shrink as the Thunder’s now became legitimate.
The second half of the season belonged to the Chicago Bulls, Los Angeles Lakers and the surprise Denver Nuggets. As elder teams like the San Antonio Spurs and Boston Celtics were finally slowing down, the Chicago Bulls began putting on a run taking them from nice little story to best record in the league. The Lakers seemed to once again turn on the switch, nearly climbing their way to the top seed out West, but then slumped the final five or six games raising a whole set of question marks. Even though the Nuggets never seemed like legitimate championship contenders, they were fun to watch and to see them win as the Knicks struggled was another surprising story.
Eighty-two games have never gone faster. The playoff seedings were set and it seemed like these were the consensus contenders:
Miami Heat- They have the Big Three
Los Angeles Lakers- They always turn on the switch
Boston Celtics- They tanked the second half of the season last year and ended up fine
Chicago Bulls- They have the best record in the league and the MVP
Oklahoma City Thunder- They needed a big man presence last year to beat L.A. Now they have it in Perkins.
There was another grouping of the San Antonio Spurs and Orlando Magic, who were given some consideration, but not necessarily considered contenders.
The one top four seed in both conferences not being given a chance was the Dallas Mavericks. The Mavericks had looked like the best team in the league at times throughout the season, but they also had bad stretches and were missing Caron Butler to a season ending injury. On top of that, they were matched up against the Portland Trailblazers, who were starting to get healthy and had added Gerald Wallace.
This theory is relatively new in the making, but I’m starting to wonder if once a team becomes the trendy upset pick, if that in turn results in the better record team going on a run. I don’t really have any evidence besides the Mavericks to support this claim, but I feel like there might be something to it.
When so many people were picking the Trailblazers to upset the Mavericks, to the point when the Mavericks now almost seemed like the underdog, I began feeling both sympathetic for the Mavs and also confident they would beat the Trailblazers. The problem was, I saw there being no way that they were going to get past the Lakers, so considering them as an NBA Champion contender was never really on my radar.
Oh how I was wrong. On two opposite sides of the bracket, the Mavericks and Miami Heat have put on nearly identical, dominant runs. In the first round, the Heat took care of the scrappy Philadelphia 76ers in five games and the Mavericks had a more difficult Portland team on the ropes in Game 4, only to watch Brandon Roy suddenly transform into the Brandon Roy of old, igniting a spectacular comeback. The Mavericks would then win Game 5 and 6 and head off to Los Angeles.
On one side of the bracket, Miami was playing the defending Eastern Conference Champions, on the other Dallas was playing the defending Western and NBA Champions. Both put on an impressive show, Miami winning in 5 and Dallas sweeping the Lakers. After that, both went up against young, scrappy teams, and both schooled their younger opponents down the stretch winning in identical 5 game sets.
The 2011 NBA Playoffs only featured one 7 game series, but every series seemed to be so hard fought. From the start out West, the Grizzlies stunned the Spurs in round one, the Hornets pushed the Lakers 6 games with Chris Paul playing like the best point guard in the league and the Trailblazers/Mavericks series went back and forth. In the East, the Pacers played the Bulls tough every game, the Celtics/Knicks first two games were down to the wire and the Atlanta Hawks upset the Magic.
The Thunder vs. Grizzlies was probably the most entertaining series of the playoffs, but five game series like the Bulls/Heat, Heat/Celtics and Mavs/Thunder all seemed to come down to the wire in almost every game.
As I have always said, the NBA Playoffs are better than March Madness because the two best teams always square off in the Finals. We may have expected this to be Los Angeles vs. Miami or maybe L.A./Boston round three, but there is no question these are the two best teams in the NBA. Both are 12-3 in the playoffs, both have beaten elite teams, not just four out of seven, but often doing it in five games or less. The MVP of the Western Playoffs has been Dirk Nowitzki and the MVP of the Eastern Playoffs has been LeBron James.
The players matched up on the floor next week are not just current greats, but all time greats. Jason Kidd, Dirk Nowitzki, LeBron James and Dwyane Wade are all guaranteed first ballot hall-of-famers. While Kidd is behind names like Magic Johnson and John Stockton and Wade behind names like Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, players they will never surpass, LeBron and Dirk are still capable of climbing higher and higher in the Top 10 of All-Time, at any position conversations.
Guys like Shawn Marion, Chris Bosh, Tyson Chandler and Mike Bibby, who used to be first or second options at times in their careers, are now third, fourth and fifth. The benches include Jason Terry, Mike Miller, JJ Barea, Udonis Haslem and Peja Stojakovic, who have all had solid seasons in their NBA careers.
This may not have been the NBA Finals we expected when the season started 350 some odd days ago, but make no mistake, these are the two best teams in the league squaring off.
This time, I think the winner will need more than five games to do it.
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