How the West Will Be Won

After yesterday’s highly anticipated games, I will say again what I have said for weeks or months now: the 2009 NBA Finals will be a rematch, with the losing team’s star player - and the league’s best - out to atone for the previous result. And I don’t think Kobe Bryant and the Lakers will end the season wearing rings. Nope, this year’s championship round will be a repeat of 2007, only this time LeBron James, fresh off his first MVP award, will lead the Cleveland Cavaliers to a victory over the San Antonio Spurs.

For this post, however, I will focus solely on the Western Conference.

I know a lot of people are picking the Lakers to win the title. Even with Andrew Bynum out, the Lakers look incredible right now, with recent wins over the Celtics and the Cavs on the road – not to mention Kobe’s 61 at MSG. The Knicks don't count for much, but the last two wins are important because this team’s fundamental flaw is a lack of “toughness” on the interior, and paramount to those victories was getting some contested rebounds and finishing with contact, as well as defending the post with physicality – in short, Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom both looked very good. Those guys play well and Kobe hits some big shots and they don’t lose, right? What if Andrew Bynum comes back and picks up where he left off? True - in those scenarios, the Lakers are nearly impossible to beat (though I wouldn’t count on Bynum getting them over the hump in May).

The Lakers are a force in large part because Kobe Bryant is a winner who fearlessly makes plays in clutch situations. Even I will admit that he does this better than anyone in the game today. Kobe Bryant is LA’s Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger – capable of extreme calm and heroic action under even the most strenuous of circumstances.

The reason that I don’t think the Lakers will represent the Western Conference in the Finals again is because too often he has to do those things; too often he has to be great down the stretch and in the clutch. It is what is expected of him, and it is what he expects of himself. All indications right now are that you don’t want to bet against KB24 in any situation, not the way he is playing. Not after a week where he scored the most points ever at MSG, beat the defending champs in Boston, and ended Cleveland's home domination at 23-0. The problem here is that these are the first three games they have played without Bynum and already they’ve needed Bryant’s heroics. If he’s asked to do more and more during the regular season, how much will he have in the tank in May and June?

Kobe is getting more adept at scoring without taking his teammates out of the game and picking his spots, and I think that he can carry a winning team doing this, at least for stretches. What I don’t think he can do is beat other elite teams this way on a consistent basis, and this is because the better he plays the less help he gets – his genius is not structured and therefore difficult to sync with.

Conversely, San Antonio follows the lead of a different pair of stoic gentleman: Greg Popovich and Tim Duncan. These two robots go about their business, game in and game out, seemingly without thought, feeling, or expectation. The team has a system, a way of doing things, which takes all conscious effort and emotion out of the game of basketball. People hate this about the Spurs. They hate it because it makes them “boring” and “hard to watch.” Really, they hate it because it allows them to beat their favorite teams.

Take yesterday’s win over the Celtics, for example. It was a game that Boston appeared to be on their way to winning after a third quarter in which they held the Spurs to 14 points. Clinging to a one-point lead with under 30 seconds to play, the Celtics needed one more stop to secure a win. When Tim Duncan set a screen at the top of the key for Roger Mason, I’m sure Kevin Garnett and company were most worried about Duncan rolling to the basket, or popping out for a 15-foot bankshot, and rightly so – Timmy will hit either shot 80% of the time or more, taking the situation into account (I have no stats to back this up - if you don’t believe me, do your own research and post a comment). This isn’t to say Boston wasn’t concerned with Mason, just that they probably didn’t know he would be so quick on the trigger. They probably assumed he would look for Duncan before unleashing a shot himself with nearly 20 seconds remaining on the shot clock.

Roger Mason’s stats this year aren’t that surprising, given what he did last year in Washington and considering he is playing more minutes on a more talented team this season. What can be shocking is his willingness to take game-winning shots. The Spurs system is his auto-tune and, like T.I. and Lil Wayne, Mason is showing some swag.

Is Roger Mason’s ascendance as the neo-Horry the reason I’m picking San Antonio to upend the Lakers? Not exactly. What I’m trying to say is that Spurs basketball is best in the playoffs, as evidenced by their number of titles with Tim Duncan, and the pieces in place now are just as good as any they’ve had in championship seasons since the Admiral retired. Kobe Bryant can hit big shots, and Derek Fisher is a rock, but nobody can match Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobli, Tony Parker, Roger Mason, etc. at the end of games, or the fourth quarter as a whole. The fact of the matter is it almost doesn’t matter who Pop rolls out there – even Michael Finley and Matt Bonner have some big jump shots in them, as long as that’s all you ask them to do. Not even one Kobe Bryant can match the Spurs team performance. He might get a lot of help in a game or two, and he might win a game or two almost by himself, but I don’t think he'll accomplish both of those things and it will not be enough to win 4 out of 7.

After all that gushing how can I possibly pick Cleveland to beat this juggernaut? My next post will explain why the same logic does not hold true for a Cavs-Spurs matchup for the Larry O’Brien trophy.

Derrick Rose is my Barack Obama

And you thought this blog would only be about sports.

Just kidding - I imagine the picture alone is clear indication that I have no intention of talking politics.. just trying to capitalize on Barack Obama as a symbol of hope.

In case it wasn't obvious from my worship of all things Michael Jordan, my two favorite basketball teams are the Chicago Bulls and North Carolina Tar Heels. I will talk about both of those teams frequently, I'm sure, but this post is only about Chicago.

Back to Obama. Unfortunately, there are many similarities between our downtrodden economy/struggling nation and the woebegone Chicago Bulls. Both recently are experiencing new leadership from a (relatively) young man who came out of virtual obscurity (Rose was not the most highly touted prospect coming out of HS, or the early front runner for the #1 overall pick, and Obama wasn't a serious Presidential candidate until at least the 2004 DNC). The nation, especially the economy, and the Bulls both will likely get worse before they get any better. Whether or not you think Obama can lead this country to prosperity largely depends on your political leanings, and I won't disclose mine here, but there is little doubt that the Chicago Bulls will be better because of Rose's presence.

As of this post, the Bulls are 22-29 following a 115-114 OT loss against the Dallas Mavericks, leaving them 2 games out of the 8th spot in the Eastern Conference, having just gone 4-3 in their seven-game "ice show" road trip.. but you aren't here for facts.

First, a step back.

When the Bulls won the 2008 NBA draft lottery I was ecstatic because that meant they would either have the rudder to steer their sinking ship or a prodigious post scorer to take pressure off of everyody else. With the rule changes a few years ago favoring perimeter players, and seeing what guys like Chris Paul and Deron Williams did for their franchises, I hoped that John Paxson would end his streak of stupidity and take Derrick over Mr. Beasley. I loved what I saw out of Rose in the NCAA tournament, at least when I wasn't worried about a potential championship game matchup in which he would dismantle Ty Lawson. In the Elite 8 against Texas there was no doubt who won the Augustine-Rose matchup, or who had more NBA potential, and it was easy to see the unselfishness and committment to winning and getting better that every coach, GM, and fan wants on their side. Besides, the only thing Chicago knows to do with talented forwards is trade them before their prime for nothing (see: Brand, Elton; Artest, Ron; Chandler, Tyson; Miller, Brad; Aldridge, LaMarcus; it hurts too much to continue.. but at least we don't have Eddy Curry hahahahaha).

Back to the present.

Nearly everything I have seen from the Bulls this season has made me want to vomit (my only hope for Vinny Del Negro is that he doesn't go down as the worst coach in NBA history), but Rose has been nothing but encouraging. The unselfishness, committment to winning, and desire to improve is more evident than ever, given that he's played more NBA games than college games already. There is really nothing more important than that, but what has me giddy is that despite Rose's biggest shortcoming, his lack of a consistent jump shot, he is shooting 47% from the floor. He is being given space and dared to shoot it, yet he gets to the rim seemingly whenever he wants.. and with such grace! When he can consistently burn people for giving him that space by hitting jumpers, which won't take longer than one or two offseasons, he will be unguardable. He could be a bigger, stronger Chris Paul - which nearly makes me orgasm. Even if he never gets that good, he will undoubtedly be some kind of amalgamation of Rajon Rondo and Tony Parker, which isn't a bad consolation.

The Bulls are serious contenders to get bounced in the first round by Boston or Cleveland as the 7 or 8 seed this season, almost entirely because of Rose. I don't want to bet against my team, and now that Milwaukee is depleted it's easier not to, but I honestly don't see it happening. I don't believe in the Knicks, as a general rule, but Mike D'Antoni will get that bunch of bums into the playoffs before the Bulls somehow, and New Jersey has a stud (Devin Harris) and Clark Kent (Vince Carter: he could have been Superman, but never doffed his suit to show the S on his chest - with the notable exception being the Sydney Olympics in general and the below Frederic Weis dunk specifically) to pair with an emerging Brook Lopez, which adds up to more wins than what the Bulls will finish the season with.



Once Chicago can unload 75% or more of its horrendous roster and get players who don't just want to shoot 25 times to score 20 points.. and spurn over-generous contract offers for tales of sugar plums dancing in his pea-brained head (I'm looking at you, Ben Gordon)...



Sorry, what was I saying? Right, right - once the Bulls rid themselves of flea-ridden dogs (like Ben Gordon) and have basketball players, Derrick Rose will be exactly the kind of leader that I want running the team, and giving LeBron James a run in his quest to match or exceed MJ's title total.

That was quite a bit more than I intended to post, so I will quit while I'm making some semblance of sense.. maybe? More on LBJ's quest for championships later.



P.S. If it seems like my ripping of Ben Gordon is excessive, then you are not a Bulls fan. I only have such disdain for him because of the promise that he once showed, and the fact that it is his attitude and not talent that prevents him from helping the team reach its goals.