The NBA finals we hate to love

 

Stephen Curry and LeBron James are all but set to square off in the NBA Finals yet again, and that’s a good thing. (Getty Images)

THE NBA is peaking right now in a way it hasn’t since the end of the last century. It has a cavalcade of superstars, all riveting and unmissable in their own way (James Harden is an efficiency machine, Kawhi Leonard is the next evolution in two-way players, LeBron is LeBron and Russell Westbrook is almost levitating with his talent and energy … and that’s just four guys).

Optically, the game is lovely to look at in a way we’d almost forgotten: It is free-flowing but organized. It is less a clichéd mostly-wrong “jazz” game and more a bunch of tight, hyper-talented members of a traveling rock show that find a new way to play your favorite hits every night. The game is better, more compelling and healthier than it has been since the peak of the Jordan age.

So I suppose it makes sense that everybody is complaining about it. I feel like all Ive heard about the NBA for the past two months is how messed up it is. “Why aren’t these playoffs more fun?” “Why do they do the postseason awards like this?” “Why are there so many days off?” “Why aren’t I currently eating a cookie?” We grouse about what we enjoy the most; we only demand something be perfect if it’s already amazing. But we lose perspective. It’s all going to be fine. This is all going to pay off, very soon.

Back when Kevin Durant signed with the Golden State Warriors last Fourth of July weekend, a certain narrative among casual fans set in: The NBA isn’t going to be as much fun this year because we already know the teams that are going to meet in the NBA Finals. It will be the same two teams who have met in the past two NBA Finals: The Golden State Warriors and the Cleveland Cavaliers. “The regular season is pointless,” you heard. And then the NBA went out and gave us one of the most compelling regular seasons in recent memory.

We had a four-way MVP race in which there were no wrong answers — not that it stopped us from shouting down those who disagreed with our choice anyway. We had breakthrough seasons from teams like Utah, and Milwaukee, and Washington. We had the end of an era (probably) for the Clippers, a dynasty that never was. We had a defending champion in Cleveland that for much of the season looked listless and chaotic, and a superteam in Golden State that suffered injuries and some drama while still rounding into its best self. You had Joel Embiid! And most of all, you had the game itself, as exciting and fast-paced as it has been since, what, the ’70s? Only one team in the NBA (Dallas) didn’t average more than 100 points per game. You saw a show every night.

But we wanted more. So we get to the playoffs, and suddenly, Cleveland and Golden State — two teams we kept picking at all season to find flaws; two teams that we constantly hectored for not being as flawless as we seemed to demand them to be; two teams that caused us to rage any time they dared rest one of their best players during the grueling regular season — are their best selves again. They’ve stormed through these playoffs, with Golden State not losing a single game and Cleveland only losing for the first time Sunday night (but with LeBron James still holding a death grip on the Eastern Conference for the seventh consecutive season). And now, our original complaint is back: The two teams we thought would make the Finals are going to make the Finals. Even though the regular season was riveting, we are pretending that we weren’t enjoying it all along because the Cleveland-Golden State final was coming. “The regular season was bad.” (It wasn’t.) “The playoffs aren’t exciting enough.” (Maybe? But just you wait.) “The Finals are just going to be same two teams.” (Yes, yes, glorious yes.)

Because that’s what all this has led up to. Yes, we’re almost certainly going to get that NBA Finals that we were expecting. But to pretend that we didn’t have a blast along the way — that this hasn’t been one of the best shows in sports every night since October, from Westbrook to the Rockets’ resurgence to Durant settling in with the Warriors to a freaking defending championship team in Cleveland of all places — is to be purposely dense. If a few rocky playoff series leading up to that point is the price we have to pay to get these NBA Finals, it will be well worth it.

After all, don’t act like you’re constantly compelled by the conference finals anyway. LeBron has won the last six, and he hasn’t really broken a sweat in one since the Pacers series four years ago. The Thunder gave the Warriors a legitimate run last year, but if anything, that now just seems like a windup for Kevin Durant’s offseason decision and the end of a Thunder era rather than a series with memorable games we still can’t stop talking about. (And before that, a Western Conference Finals series hadn’t gone seven games since the Lakers-Kings series in 2002.) Last year’s historic NBA Finals essentially eradicated any other playoff series that season from the brain, and how could it not?

That is almost certainly going to happen again, and it’s to our benefit. LeBron James will surely rebound from a difficult Game 3 against Boston by putting up triple-double nights over the next week and the Warriors will finish off the Spurs. Then, on June 1, we will have the rubber series, the third-go-around between the Warriors and the Cavs, the most electrifying team of this generation against the most dominant player, with everything each team cares about on the line. We will not be thinking about the sluggish playoffs then, or predetermined matchups, or anything like that. We will just be so, so lucky to get to be there for the show. Sure, it’s still 10 days away. That can feel like a long time when one is an impatient child. But we’ll get these series finished off this week, and then we can all relax for Memorial Day, and then it’ll be here. Just 10 more sleeps until Warriors-Cavs. It’s almost here. We can complain all we want now, but it’s just empty grousing. On June 1, the complaining will stop. We’re almost there. We can all wait. Waiting is good for you; anticipation heightens the experience when it finally arrives. The payoff here is going to be worth it. The payoff is the reason for all of it. – www.sportsonearth.com