{"id":145771222,"date":"2024-06-19T12:31:06","date_gmt":"2024-06-19T12:31:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/?p=145771222"},"modified":"2024-06-19T12:31:06","modified_gmt":"2024-06-19T12:31:06","slug":"checking-in-on-nba-history-post-finals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/?p=145771222","title":{"rendered":"Checking In On NBA History, Post-Finals"},"content":{"rendered":"

“BANG!” – Mike Breen<\/h2>

Nazis unwelcome: here\u2019s my post about moving this blog off of Substack soon<\/a>. I might put this stinger on every post until then to try to irritate Nazi Sympathizer Hamish McKenzie<\/a>. I might forget\/get bored and stop. Not today though!<\/em><\/p>

It was a legitimately great NBA season. Anyone who tells you different is racist (I\u2019m 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<\/a> 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\u2014it\u2019s another year where we got to high-level men\u2019s professional basketball for nine months. That rules. <\/p>

And hey, now we get three months of high-level women\u2019s professional basketball. That rules, too. <\/p>

\"File:Dr.<\/figure>

So\u2014wanna talk some NBA history? It\u2019s one of my favorite things to do, and it\u2019s my blog, soooooo<\/p>

Talking About History In The Moment Is Silly But Worthwhile<\/strong><\/p>

It\u2019s 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 \u201cJohn Fetterman is a traitor to the working class\u201d but then follows it up with \u201cand that\u2019s why I got smallpox on purpose.\u201d Defining a team\u2019s season or a player\u2019s career by how many rings they get is reductive and existential crisis-inducing. You can just enjoy basketball. It\u2019s worth it, to enjoy basketball. <\/p>

\"Jason<\/figure>

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<\/a>, and Cedric Maxwell in the ranks of Finals MVP winners. Boston fans now have another set of players to sort and rank at parties (\u201cdude no way you\u2019re taking Tatum over Hondo!\u201d \u201cyou\u2019re the one who just said Horford would manhandle Cowens!\u201d). 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 \u201cthere\u2019s always next year.\u201d<\/p>

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. <\/p>

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. <\/p>

There\u2019s No Such Thing As Building \u201cThe Right Way,\u201d But It Helps To Be Good Every Year<\/strong><\/p>

A lot of irritating people are talking about how the Celtics \u201cwon the right way,\u201d 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\u2019s not the way the Celtics won. It\u2019s a bogus narrative anyway. <\/p>

\"Once<\/figure>

What the Celtics did was stubbornly hang on to Tatum and Brown even when the Kevin O\u2019Connors of the world were yelling \u201cblow it up.\u201d You can\u2019t have two stars who do such similar things, they keep getting bounced in late rounds, they don\u2019t have enough<\/em>\u2014all of that was always nonsense, and a bunch of people who didn\u2019t write the story while the ball was in the air<\/a> now want to talk about building the right way. <\/p>

(sidenote: I\u2019m not really calling anyone specific out, more talking about the General Sports Discourse. Kevin O\u2019Connor might have gotten something right for once in his life and said the Celtics should keep both Tatum and Brown, idk). <\/em><\/p>

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. <\/p>

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\u2014after 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\u2019 misfortune because they stayed good<\/em>. It\u2019s worth it to play competitive basketball. <\/p>

<\/figure>

Of course, the Stockton-Malone Jazz were good year in and year out and they never won anything. <\/p>

Parity Is Fun (So Are Dynasties)<\/strong><\/p>

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\u2019t. The coronation of Anthony Edwards as every bit That Dude that Hustle<\/em> made him look.<\/p>

Like said, Wemby looms. But it is a talent-rich league, and none of these guys have made themselves inevitable yet. <\/p>

\"File:T\u00fdn<\/figure>

\u201cTalent-rich,\u201d by the way, is not a way I\u2019d describe a team that started Greg Ostertag. \u201cInevitable,\u201d though, is a great way to describe Jordan and Pippen in the 90s. <\/p>

We\u2019ve Seen An Era Like This Before<\/strong><\/p>

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. <\/p>

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. <\/p>

There will be no Hakeem Olajuwon erasure on this blog, but the 1990s, of course, belonged to this guy: <\/p>

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