“I feel better than winning championships”… “This is crazy, man, it’s crazy.”
–Kobe
Clippers Get Trashed!
The Utah Jazz just sent the Clippers home in the first round of the NBA Playoffs. How? The Clippers on paper seem to have a big three: Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, and Deandre Jordan. Each are arguably one of the best 3 guys at their position in the whole league. How they managed to lose in the first round to Gordon Hayward and an aging Joe Johnson still baffles me. They should be competing for titles, but instead they are dumpster diving, yet again.
So should the Clippers break their nucleus and start over? The truth is the Clippers don’t have an option. Both Chris Paul and Blake Griffin have player options and can return if they want to. The Clippers themselves may not have a choice. But aside from that, I think they should keep their core together and at least be good.
I understand that everyone wants to think they are striving to put together a championship team, but only one team wins. Being a Jazz fan, they never won a championship, but 18 years of being really good was still a ton of fun. Blowing up the Clippers and starting over sounds good, but in reality they will be mediocre bottom feeders. The Clippers are putting together fifty win seasons and because of injuries haven’t had that many great chances. The choice between winning 50+ games with an outside shot of making the Western Conference Finals, sounds a lot better, than 5-6 years of trying to rebuild and sign a Chris Paul and Blake Griffin type player. Also, don’t forget one big fact:
The Clippers are the Clippers
If you think you are going to rebuild this team into a winning team think again. This is by far and away the most success they have ever had and I doubt they get back to this level anytime soon. You have the Donald Sterling curse, karma, plus your owner is a bafoon who couldn’t even realize the iPhone was going to be a success. Stick it out and until you only win 40 games a year, enjoy them as long as you can.
The Class and the Classless
How should they feel about him? You know, listen, I’m not going to tell people how to feel or not to judge or what have you. I just think that what he represented for the city was something larger than basketball. I think that he arrived at a time where the city was also on an upward trajectory, a 20-year-old young man in an aspirational city. People kind of snicker and kind of sneer when we talk about that kind of stuff, but my guess is you’re probably not doing that right now. “You know, we talk and you guys would hear me say, this connection to this community, and the typing would stop and the eyes would roll. But I was saying that truthfully and authentically because I know how this business works, and I know that these days are possible. And we need to recognize what exactly took place here over the last eight years and recognize it and celebrate it. “They should feel thankful, grateful. They should not – I can’t tell them not to be disappointed, but the one thing I would also say is the city should be incredibly proud of what they’ve helped create for the Thunder. It’s not possible without that. They need to carry that on. They need to carry on the spirit and the fight and the grit, because that was here before the Thunder. That was here before the Thunder, that spirit, that ability to continue to press forward. That’s in the water here. “I think all of us, Kevin included, was a beneficiary of that approach and what’s in Oklahoma. So my message would be, carry on. Carry on and continue to be proud of what it is that you represent. It’s much bigger than the Thunder.”
Contrast that response to how owner, Dan Gilbert, responded when LeBron James left Cleveland in 2010.
James J. Parziale for the NY Daily News:
Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert isn’t feeling bittersweet about LeBron James’ decision to join the Miami Heat.
He’s just bitter.
James’ migration from his hometown Cavs to South Beach to join Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, Pat Riley and Miami Heat inspired scathing words from the man who used to sign his pay checks.
In a statement released on the Cavaliers website, Gilbert ripped James in an open letter addressed to the team’s fans.
“I PERSONALLY GUARANTEE THAT THE CLEVELAND CAVALIERS WILL WIN AN NBA CHAMPIONSHIP BEFORE THE SELF-TITLED FORMER ‘KING’ WINS ONE,” Gilbert wrote.
He went on to say James’ actions were a “cowardly betrayal” and that the Cavaliers would work harder than ever for the fans of Cleveland. But LeBron remained the focus of Gilbert’s ire.
“Some people think they should go to heaven but NOT have to die to get there. Sorry, but that’s simply not how it works,” Gilbert wrote. “This shocking act of disloyalty from our home grown ‘chosen one’ sends the exact opposite lesson of what we would want our children to learn. And ‘who’ we would want them to grow-up to become.”
Stark contrast between class and classless. The Thunder will be much better off without Durant, than the Cavaliers were without LeBron.
Durant’s Departure
Royce Young writing for ESPN.com:
He was going to stay. He was going to plant his flag. He was going to finish what
he started. Anyone who was around the team saw Donovan’s hiring as the start
of a new era, a fresh start and the first step in retaining their franchise player.
Durant felt it, too.What changed?
…But there was always concern that Durant would be persuaded — that outside forces would sway him. Those close to him talk about how he’s impressionable and impulsive, and the moment Durant agreed to meetings in the Hamptons, his future hung in the balance. In reality, he had one foot out the door.
…He said his decision would come down to “who I’m going to be playing with and the people I’m going to be around every single day.” Most assumed that meant he’d choose the people he’d known the past nine years. Westbrook. Collison. Presti. Weaver.
Instead it was Curry, Thompson and Green.
Durant didn’t want to be the leader anymore. The Warriors’ “Strength In Numbers” mantra wasn’t just a catchphrase. It was what he wanted.
This piece gives great insight on what went into Kevin Durant’s decision. It reads that Kevin Durant’s inner circle wanted him to go.
Also, Durant wasn’t enjoying the Thunder’s culture. Colin Cowherd on his podcast on Tuesday explained that Steph Curry texted Kevin Durant and told him that he didn’t care about who was the alpha, but that he just wanted to win. It seemed to matter to Westbrook. He preferred the culture of the Warriors. In Oklahoma City it was a grind, where people people insisted on assigning credit. In Golden State it appeared to be a party, where the host was irrelevant, he wanted in on the party.
The Aftermath
LeBron and Cleveland
Dan Wetzel with Yahoo Sports:
When the improbable, seemingly impossible, was done, when Cleveland’s championship was, at long, long last, won, LeBron James simply went to his knees and wept. There was nothing else to do.
Wept for the accomplishment, his Cleveland Cavaliers defeating the Golden State Warriors here Sunday, 93-89 in Game 7 to become the first team in NBA history to come back from a 3-1 Finals deficit. Wept for the performance, 27 more points, 11 more assists and 11 more rebounds to cap a three-game stretch (averaging 36.3 points, 11.6 rebounds, 9.7 assists while facing elimination) as great as any player, ever.
Wept, too, because of Cleveland, because of Akron, because of The Decision and because of The Return, because of the Drive, the Fumble, the Shot, because of Jose Mesa and Rocky Colavito, because the people and places back home made this bigger than him, bigger than a single team, bigger than it even should be, a basketball game understandably meaning so much to so many.
“Just knowing what our city has been through, Northeast Ohio has been through,” James said. “You could go back to the Earnest Byner fumble, [John] Elway going 99 yards
…Our fans, they ride or die,” James continued. “For us to be able to end this, end this drought, our fans deserve it. They deserve it. And it was for them.”
LeBron’s coming home letter was perfect PR, it was emotional, well written, and effective. Was it honest? I am not naivete enough to believe that if the Cavaliers hadn’t had some important pieces to be competitive immediately that LeBron might not have come back to Cleveland as soon as he did. I do believe that he wanted to bring a championship to Cleveland, he has city pride, and that he was willing to sacrifice a better situation to help out a city that meant so much to him.
The cynic will always point out that Miami looked gassed when he left and didn’t have as much promise. Cleveland had a future #1, plus a star in Kyrie Irving. They were younger and looked more appealing than a washed up Dwayne Wade and an ineffective Chris Bosh. Acknowledging that, I still think Miami was a better situation.
Miami is a first class organization with a great reputation and a culture of winning and professionalism. Miami had proven stars that had led teams into the playoffs. Both, Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving couldn’t check either of those boxes. Organizationally? The Cavaliers were atrocious. They lacked a winning culture, stability, and professionalism. They went through coaches like Kardashians go through men. They needed a complete rehaul and it was unlikely that it could be done unless he did it himself. The letter was a great PR stunt. Charles Barkley, Colini Cowherd, Jim Rome, and many others all loved that letter. All admit that Cleveland had assets and could be a contender with LeBron. But, let’s be honest, in the Eastern Conference who wouldn’t be a contender with LeBron?
LeBron took a worse situation, a lot of risk, and put his career on the line, trusting in himself, as a leader and a basketball player, in order to bring the City of Cleveland a championship. It’s admirable. LeBron says and does a lot of things that doesn’t make him likable, to me. His sacrifice to go back to Cleveland in hopes of bringing them a championship to a city he loved, I applaud. Maybe there are things that I don’t know that make this move self interested, but without that information I choose to see the move as noble. Last Night was a great ending.
LeBron’s place in history
He has always felt out of place and time — out of this world. LeBron has never needed a contemporary, because his race is with the history of the game itself. His greatest rival is and will always be the idea of LeBron James…
Still: James was the series leader in points, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks; he logged only the third triple-double in a Finals Game 7; his block on Andre Iguodala with under two minutes left in the game, with his arms canvassing both sides of the rim and crashing down like the flaming sword of Uriel, will stand as one of the greatest plays in playoff history.
The horn sounded, the benches emptied and in that moment the weight of a city lifted off LeBron James’ squared shoulders… This is the stuff legends are made of, folks, and it’s time we ask: Is James the best we have ever seen? He will forever be compared to Michael Jordan, will be clubbed by MJ’s perfect Finals record and shrugged at by aging players with a warped perception of just how good their day was. But this is six straight Finals for James, with three championships to show for it. He won in Miami, now in Cleveland, and there is a reasonable argument that he has been the best player in every series he suited up in…
Let the debate rage, the pro-Jordan, the pro-Larry Bird, the pro-Magic Johnson factions have at it. Arguments for each have merit. But the most talented player of this generation has just added another trophy to his shelf, the most physically imposing forward in NBA history has just overpowered the team that once seemed destined to be considered the best of it. Any list of all-time greats has James on it; soon, even his fiercest critics will have no choice but to put him at the top of it…
The LeBron conversation has never been how good he is among current players, but has always been in the conversation of the basketball immortals. I don’t think there will be many that will put him outside of the top 5, but many will put him in the top 3, and now some will put him with Jordan. He deserves all of it. He is great, when he needs to be great. Curry still deserved the regular season MVP, he was better in the regular season, but in the playofffs there is no doubt. He dominated the series and showed up when he needed to show up. Hail the King, he is no longer just in the room as the immortals, but has a seat among basketball’s all-time royalty.