“BANG!” – Mike Breen
Nazis unwelcome: here’s my post about moving this blog off of Substack soon. I might put this stinger on every post until then to try to irritate Nazi Sympathizer Hamish McKenzie. I might forget/get bored and stop. Not today though!
It was a legitimately great NBA season. Anyone who tells you different is racist (I’m joking, but am I?). The In-Season Tournament was a blast, the 65-game minimum for awards should definitely be abolished but led to some fun regular season stuff, All-Star sucked but so what, the first two rounds of the playoffs were legit competitive and showed a lot of teams with promising futures, Victor Wembanyama Endermans over the horizon, and really—it’s another year where we got to high-level men’s professional basketball for nine months. That rules.
And hey, now we get three months of high-level women’s professional basketball. That rules, too.
So—wanna talk some NBA history? It’s one of my favorite things to do, and it’s my blog, soooooo
Talking About History In The Moment Is Silly But Worthwhile
It’s become a little tiresome, the way sports media talks about legacy. Ringzzzz culture is like that guy at the end of the bar who says something spot-on, like “John Fetterman is a traitor to the working class” but then follows it up with “and that’s why I got smallpox on purpose.” Defining a team’s season or a player’s career by how many rings they get is reductive and existential crisis-inducing. You can just enjoy basketball. It’s worth it, to enjoy basketball.
That said, a championship does go in the record books, so the archivists have to do some updating today. Jaylen Brown has joined Michael Jordan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Walton, and Cedric Maxwell in the ranks of Finals MVP winners. Boston fans now have another set of players to sort and rank at parties (“dude no way you’re taking Tatum over Hondo!” “you’re the one who just said Horford would manhandle Cowens!”). Dallas fans have to live with their franchise being sub-.500 all-time in the Finals, falling asleep next to pictures of the 2006 Mavs, 2007 Cavs, and 2011 Heat while mantra-ing “there’s always next year.”
As you might have heard watching literally any broadcast this playoffs, no team has repeated as champs in the last six years. The West has sent six different teams to the Finals in each of those six years, the East four. In a league so defined by dynasties (Celtics, Lakers, Bulls, Spurs, Warriors), that means the record books in the 2020s are going to look interesting.
Side stat that makes the Celtics winning great: now that Al Horford has won a championship? Karl Malone (a child abuser) and John Stockton (an anti-vaxxer and Fox News contributor) remain the players with the most playoff games played without a ring. Shoutout over for that stat.
There’s No Such Thing As Building “The Right Way,” But It Helps To Be Good Every Year
A lot of irritating people are talking about how the Celtics “won the right way,” meaning they drafted their two best players and developed them into superstars. They contended for years, made a billion conference finals, then they finally got over the hump. As sentimental as I get about drafting and developing your own talent, that’s not the way the Celtics won. It’s a bogus narrative anyway.
What the Celtics did was stubbornly hang on to Tatum and Brown even when the Kevin O’Connors of the world were yelling “blow it up.” You can’t have two stars who do such similar things, they keep getting bounced in late rounds, they don’t have enough—all of that was always nonsense, and a bunch of people who didn’t write the story while the ball was in the air now want to talk about building the right way.
(sidenote: I’m not really calling anyone specific out, more talking about the General Sports Discourse. Kevin O’Connor might have gotten something right for once in his life and said the Celtics should keep both Tatum and Brown, idk).
The Celtics got good and stayed good for years. They tried Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward next to Tatum and Brown, they tried to keep Marcus Smart forever, but they won by tinkering and re-tooling around their big stars. They went out and got the best starting lineup in the league, with a backcourt that plays tough-as-nails defense while never turning the ball over. Whatever your feelings about a Boston sports franchise, Jrue Holiday and Derrick White are awesome.
This is the same thing the Duncan/Parker/Ginobili Spurs did, shuffling in a rotating cast of wings and centers (Kahwi, Stephen Jackson, Michael Finley, Steve Smith, Boris Diaw, Tiago Splitter, Fabricio Oberto) and won rings four times from 2003-2014—after the winning 1999 team got too old around Duncan. People might hand-wave this Celtics chip way because literally every good player in the Eastern Conference got hurt at some point, but you know what? The Celtics were in position to take advantage of other teams’ misfortune because they stayed good. It’s worth it to play competitive basketball.
Of course, the Stockton-Malone Jazz were good year in and year out and they never won anything.
Parity Is Fun (So Are Dynasties)
Earlier, I said the first two rounds were thrilling. Think about who we got to see: the 76ers and Knicks looking like they might have finally found some stability, the Thunder ripping out of management-mandated tanking shackles like racing greyhounds. The Pacers playing like greyhounds, if dogs had a concept of front-running. The Nuggets looking like a dynasty until they suddenly didn’t. The coronation of Anthony Edwards as every bit That Dude that Hustle made him look.
Like said, Wemby looms. But it is a talent-rich league, and none of these guys have made themselves inevitable yet.
“Talent-rich,” by the way, is not a way I’d describe a team that started Greg Ostertag. “Inevitable,” though, is a great way to describe Jordan and Pippen in the 90s.
We’ve Seen An Era Like This Before
The Minneapolis Lakers owned the 1950s. The Boston Celtics owned the 1960s. The St. Louis Hawks made a few inroads, but it was a Celtics-Lakers league.
In the 1980s, it was a Celtics-Lakers league, with the 76ers making a few inroads, followed by the Pistons bridging the decade to the 1990s.
There will be no Hakeem Olajuwon erasure on this blog, but the 1990s, of course, belonged to this guy:
The 2000s belonged to the Spurs and Lakers, with exceptions for the 2004 Pistons (best 2024 Celtics comp), the 2006 Miami Heat (the Shaq Lakers with D-Wade instead of Kobe), and the 2008 Celtics, whom Boston can finally stop talking about for ten seconds.
The 2010s belonged to the Golden State Warriors and whichever team LeBron James was running, shoutout to the 2011 Dallas Mavericks, 2014 San Antonio Spurs and 2019 Toronto Raptors.
The 1970s, though?
1970: New York Knicks (the franchise has carried this championship as proof of something the same way I’ve been using the same body wash since a crush complimented it in high school)
1971: Milwaukee Bucks (real ones know how good Kareem was in the 70s, shoutout to Oscar being 2005 Gary Payton before 2005 Gary Payton)
1972: Los Angeles Lakers (Elgin Baylor being 2005 Frank Thomas before 2005 Frank Thomas, and I’ve made myself sad)
1973: New York Knicks (shoutout Earl “Black Jesus” Monroe)
1974: Boston Celtics (see what happens when you stay competitive?)
1975: Golden State Warriors (the less said about Rick Barry the better)
1976: Boston Celtics (I wanna say “Hondo” again. Hondo.)
1977: Portland Trail Blazers (Bill Walton! Dr. Jack! Breaks of the Game!)
1978: Washington Bullets (shoulda stayed in Baltimore)
1979: Seattle SuperSonics (Dennis Johnson here is a little like if Ron Harper won a title with the Cavs in the 80s)
How fun is that? Probably looking at things through a Semi Pro-tinged lens, but all of these teams are weird and quirky and kinda improbable champs. Obviously, Kareem and Oscar and Hondo and Walton and West are all-timers whom you’d expect to win. The Knicks were proto-Pistons/2011 Mavs/2024 Celtics. But the fact that none of them dominated the decade like teams before and after them makes it interesting when you zoom out. That’s what these past six years have been. Does it mean some unstoppable Era of Wembanyama is coming? Hasn’t happened yet with Kawhi, Giannis, Jokic, Embiid, Luka. Hasn’t happened yet.
Hey speaking of Earl Monroe, never cut your hair.
Of course, even though the Utah Jazz have a very long “Stockton/Malone Era” in their history, they failed to make the 90s a decade of parity.
Ban Owners From Championship Celebrations
“Oh my God, anything is possible, I can’t believe it, I always knew Jayson and Jaylen would find a way to get it done, Joey Mazz I never doubted you for a second, Jrue and Derrick I love you guys MarcusSmartWho?, Al Horford your eyes are so dreamy win that ring baby, oh my God I’m so excited—oh cool, here’s a guy named Wyc.”
It’s a player’s league. The fans tune in for the players. Never once have I said or thought, “wow, Jerry Reinsdorf really can’t win a championship without Michael Jordan or Paul Konerko.” Monday night, Wyc called Lisa Salters “Michelle” a whole bunch, and tragically got to keep having a great night. Get the owners out of the celebration. Pick their pockets and fund some public schools while you’re at it.
Larry H. Miller, that car dealership-owning Mormon, at least he had the good sense never to interfere with a championship celebration. There was a good one in Utah, too.
The NBA rules. Basketball is very good.
Sorry you got an email,
Chris