The NBA this year was awesome. Dallas flirted with 70 wins and played two great regular season games against Phoenix, a team that had a 15 and 17 game winning streak. Then there was the Suns game with the Nets in which the teams combined for 318 points.
Gilbert Arenas established himself as the most entertaining player in the league. Future Hall of Famer Allen Iverson was traded to the Nuggets, forming a dream duo with Carmelo Anthony. Kobe Bryant is still good and LeBron James isn't bad either.
The league also switched to a more up-tempo style, with nine teams averaging at least 100 points per game. Last year only five teams averaged that many points and in 2003-04, only two teams averaged that many.
What made all this better was that the playoffs initially appeared to be an improvement. Golden State was 33-39 on March 26 and a playoff afterthought. They then won nine of their final 10 games to sneak into the playoffs and followed that by destroying the best team in the league.
The Warriors series with the Jazz was short, but entertaining. The Suns and Spurs second round series was incredible for many different reasons. The Bulls toyed with coming back from a 3-0 defecit and put on the first watchable Eastern Conference series.
And now we've reached the Conference finals, and I'm done. After a season this great, we're left with Detroit, Cleveland, San Antonio and Utah. Thanks, but no thanks.
Detroit is great, but boring and without a true superstar (sorry Chauncey). Aside from LeBron, Cleveland is a bad team. I actually enjoy watching the Jazz, but in all honesty they have no chance against the Spurs, the most evil team to ever step on a basketball court. Not only are the Spurs the most boring and personality-deprived teams of all-time, they also eliminated the two most entertaining teams in the playoffs already.
While there are plenty of great things to take from this season, I can't help but be left with a bitter taste from a disappointing ending.
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3 comments:
Denver and Phoenix are the two most entertaining teams in basketball?
I would have guessed Dallas and Phoenix, but then again Golden State was pretty impressive entertainment wise, and neither of the latter two teams even got a shot at San Antonio.
Perhaps Utah and San Antonio are the same teams, how frequently do you see them in the same place at the same time? Oh wait, that would be every other night during their Western Conference showdown.
I'm sorry about your Suns Davey, but the beauty of basketball is that great teams continue to win, maybe once D'antoni wakes up to the fact that seven seconds isn't going to win his team a championship, he'll finally invest in a defensive specialist on his staff, and make Steve Nash at least pretend like he's playing defense.
I think the NBA has once again allowed the Detroit Pistons to play thug ball although the referees did a better job the last two games of squelching it.
I'm not going to say Phoenix got screwed outright, but I think because of two arcane rules, Phoenix had a great chance to win an NBA championship hampered by the league. And Bruce Bowen's non-suspension also hurt this series as well.
And David, I think there are a lot of basketball fans who have become increasingly disenchanted with the NBA. It's the selfish play. It's the very poor officiating. It's the loud music blaring over the P.A. systems, and it's the fact that the playoffs take TWO MONTHS to complete which is outrageous.
I hope it didn't come off as me complaining about just the Suns losing, because it's more than that. The Eastern Conference playoffs have been unwatchable. The Western Conference was outstanding this year, and we're left with UTAH v SAN ANTONIO! What? Sorry, that just completely turns me off.
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