Back To Earth

A couple weeks ago, as I was watching the Mavs/Warriors games on TV in Oakland, and the crowd was insane, and the teams were running up and down the court, hitting 3's, talking shit, and the crowd was going more insane; and meanwhile, out east, an exciting Bulls team was handling the defending champs, the Rockets/Jazz were battling out a seven-game series, and we were on our way to a sure-to-be riveting Spurs/Suns series, I said to myself, "You know, if the NBA was always like this, I would like the NBA as much as college." I mean, the quality of ball is much better, the personalities are much better, the rivalries are more authentic (side note: I know college rivalries are more intense, it's just that pro rivalries are born out of an incident or active dislike of each other. Duke hates Carolina because they have to; they are 7 miles away, and it's bred into the fans and players. There have been a few heated moments, but for the most part, the rivalry lies with the fans. They have always hated each other and will always hate each other. The Lakers hate the Suns because they had an intense, emotional series last year, and Raja elbowed Kobe, and D'Antoni trashed a bunch of the Lakers in his book, etc. etc. For an example. I love how pro rivalries change, and escalate, and you can see new ones emerging all the time. End side note.)

Anyways, my NBA bandwagon hit a patch of black ice, and I was thrown through the windshield in the wreck. The feel-good Warriors ran out of steam against Utah, the Bulls inexplicably collapsed, the Cleveland/New Jersey series was completely unwatchable, the refs (especially in the G.S./Utah series, where the Warriors couldn't blink wrong in Game 5 without getting a T or a flagrant) were out of control bad, and, of course, there's the Horry Debacle, which I could write a couple thousand words on but won't. Now we're headed for a Cleveland/Detroit, San Antonio/Utah conference finals. Cleveland is arguably the most boring team I have ever watched. Detroit and San Antonio are no baskets of cherries, either. I enjoy Deron Williams and Dee Brown, but the rest of the roster sucks. I couldn't imagine a more boring conference finals, unless maybe I was watching the Detroit Shock and the Cleveland Rockers (and yes, I had to google those WNBA teams.) We're headed for another Detroit/San Antonio finals, which is bad, and worst part is, I don't want to root against that, because the alternatives are even worse. The best part of the next month will be the lottery. Fannnnnn-tastic.