Mavs-Cavs game chat, starting around 8pm ET.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
The Case for Kobe
Although it gets said a lot, It’s not true, strictly speaking, that the purpose of a pro basketball team is to win a championship. We certainly want them to act as if that’s their purpose –– since it’s almost always more fun to watch a successful team play –– but in reality their purpose is to entertain.
In light of this, it’s time to gather support for bringing Kobe to Dallas, for which I have a great rally cry: Make the Regular Season Fun Again.
Last year, the Mavericks were a blast to watch in the regular season. Winning 41 of 45 games can make just about any fan giddy, even while we were all simultaneously terrified of the possible playoff disaster that became reality. This year, there will be none of that. Dallas could win 70, or 80 for that matter, and we’d all still be forced to shrug our shoulders and repeat the mantra: nothing matters till the playoffs.
And while I’m sure the local play-by-play guys will stop harping on it eventually, I live in Massachusetts. That means I only get to see nationally-televized games, where the announcers will talk about it every single time.
That got old last year, and this year it’ll be beaten into the ground with a fury we can hardly imagine.
Not to say we should give up Dirk, even if the Lakers wanted him. Kobe has never proven he can win anything by himself. But alongside another superstar, we might be looking at a different story. So I say, if the Mavericks have a chance to get Kobe and Dirk on the same team, they should give up whatever they have to in order to make it happen. That means package Howard, Harris, and Dampier if you have to. Certainly send Howard and Terry if you get the chance to keep Harris.
Getting Kobe is a great scenario for a fan: personality conflicts would likely disappear, as Kobe would suddenly turn into a great guy, like when Shaq went to Miami or TO came to Dallas. Then there’s the chance of getting to see him score 50 points several times a season, and if he ever finally exploded for 105, he’d do it as a Maverick. (This is like the Rangers getting Nolan Ryan just in time for his 6th and 7th no-hitters, his 5000th strikeout, and his 300th win.)
Can you imagine how much of a relief it will be, when the game is on the line, not to worry that Dirk will miss the big shot and disappoint us once again? Kobe can miss those all season, and at least no one will be saying it’s because he doesn’t have guts. And of course, Kobe has tons of championship experience, and he might genuinely help Dallas’ chances of winning it all some time (or 3 times) in the next few seasons.
But all that’s just gravy. Here’s the real issue: if we don’t trade for Kobe, we’re facing 82 games of the most meaningless basketball any of us can imagine. It’ll be like watching the pre-season out there. And I know we all said the same thing going into last year, but this time it’ll be for real.
Going back to where I started: basketball is supposed to be entertainment. I’m sure there will be exciting individual games, but the real fun of an NBA season comes with arguing with your friends about whether the team has what it takes to win it all, or whether your best player has a shot at MVP. If ever there have been two moot points, they are these two questions for this squad.
So unless the team crumbles early in the season and has to make a big push just to make the playoffs (which would create some drama, at least), there’s no way this group can give us what we’re really looking for. That’s November, December, January, February, March, and April we have to sit through, and I’m not really prepared to do that.
So let’s hear it: Bryant for a Brighter 82.
In light of this, it’s time to gather support for bringing Kobe to Dallas, for which I have a great rally cry: Make the Regular Season Fun Again.
Last year, the Mavericks were a blast to watch in the regular season. Winning 41 of 45 games can make just about any fan giddy, even while we were all simultaneously terrified of the possible playoff disaster that became reality. This year, there will be none of that. Dallas could win 70, or 80 for that matter, and we’d all still be forced to shrug our shoulders and repeat the mantra: nothing matters till the playoffs.
And while I’m sure the local play-by-play guys will stop harping on it eventually, I live in Massachusetts. That means I only get to see nationally-televized games, where the announcers will talk about it every single time.
That got old last year, and this year it’ll be beaten into the ground with a fury we can hardly imagine.
Not to say we should give up Dirk, even if the Lakers wanted him. Kobe has never proven he can win anything by himself. But alongside another superstar, we might be looking at a different story. So I say, if the Mavericks have a chance to get Kobe and Dirk on the same team, they should give up whatever they have to in order to make it happen. That means package Howard, Harris, and Dampier if you have to. Certainly send Howard and Terry if you get the chance to keep Harris.
Getting Kobe is a great scenario for a fan: personality conflicts would likely disappear, as Kobe would suddenly turn into a great guy, like when Shaq went to Miami or TO came to Dallas. Then there’s the chance of getting to see him score 50 points several times a season, and if he ever finally exploded for 105, he’d do it as a Maverick. (This is like the Rangers getting Nolan Ryan just in time for his 6th and 7th no-hitters, his 5000th strikeout, and his 300th win.)
Can you imagine how much of a relief it will be, when the game is on the line, not to worry that Dirk will miss the big shot and disappoint us once again? Kobe can miss those all season, and at least no one will be saying it’s because he doesn’t have guts. And of course, Kobe has tons of championship experience, and he might genuinely help Dallas’ chances of winning it all some time (or 3 times) in the next few seasons.
But all that’s just gravy. Here’s the real issue: if we don’t trade for Kobe, we’re facing 82 games of the most meaningless basketball any of us can imagine. It’ll be like watching the pre-season out there. And I know we all said the same thing going into last year, but this time it’ll be for real.
Going back to where I started: basketball is supposed to be entertainment. I’m sure there will be exciting individual games, but the real fun of an NBA season comes with arguing with your friends about whether the team has what it takes to win it all, or whether your best player has a shot at MVP. If ever there have been two moot points, they are these two questions for this squad.
So unless the team crumbles early in the season and has to make a big push just to make the playoffs (which would create some drama, at least), there’s no way this group can give us what we’re really looking for. That’s November, December, January, February, March, and April we have to sit through, and I’m not really prepared to do that.
So let’s hear it: Bryant for a Brighter 82.
Friday, September 7, 2007
Heart of a Warrior
This past May I wrote a post suggesting that the idea of having the heart of a champion is overrated in the NBA, largely because it seems that dominant big men (in particular, Shaq and Duncan) have ruled the NBA in recent years simply by virtue of their size and skill. I’ll gladly admit that Jordan won with heart (though having Pippen on the team didn’t hurt), but with most anyone else I have my questions.
However, there clearly are times you can perceive a notable lack of heart (think: Chris Webber), and this is what Dirk has been accused of. This summer I was surprised to find the same conversation about heart going on in a very different forum: Homer’s Iliad, the story of the Trojan War, written more than 2500 years ago.
The Iliad tells the story of the Greeks trying to sack Troy to win back Helen, the stunningly beautiful wife of a Greek soldier, who had been kidnapped by Paris, a prince of Troy.
Over and over again in the story, its characters talk about warriors in the same terms we use to describe athletes. I don’t know what real battle was like in ancient Greece, but people who listened to Homer envisioned mythic warriors who fought face-to-face at close range with sword and spear. They taunted each other aloud as they fought, and they took the weapons and armor of their fallen foes as plunder of war and as marks of honor. (They also held chariot races and boxing matches on the battlefield in honor of fallen comrades, seeking to display their valor in sport as fiercely as they did in battle.)
Centuries later, under the Roman empire, people apparently wanted to witness this kind of glorious battle so badly that they threw gladiators up against each other in the Coliseum, making battle and sport one and the same thing.
Today, we still have our images of great warriors--think Rambo or Jack Bauer--but it seems to me we save most of our warrior language for professional sports. This is where the Big German comes into play, and the light that the Iliad casts on him isn’t favorable.
Dirk, people say, has great skill but lacks heart. In the Iliad, people say the exact same thing about Paris, the prince of Troy who kidnapped Helen from her Greek home and took her as his bride, but who is a better lover than a fighter. A couple of quotes from book 6 will help show what I mean.
The first is spoken by the beautiful Helen, who apparently loved Paris at one point but has grown resentful that the entire city is about to be sacked by the Greeks just because Paris won’t send her home with them. She says,
Guess whose side wins the war.
However, there clearly are times you can perceive a notable lack of heart (think: Chris Webber), and this is what Dirk has been accused of. This summer I was surprised to find the same conversation about heart going on in a very different forum: Homer’s Iliad, the story of the Trojan War, written more than 2500 years ago.
The Iliad tells the story of the Greeks trying to sack Troy to win back Helen, the stunningly beautiful wife of a Greek soldier, who had been kidnapped by Paris, a prince of Troy.
Over and over again in the story, its characters talk about warriors in the same terms we use to describe athletes. I don’t know what real battle was like in ancient Greece, but people who listened to Homer envisioned mythic warriors who fought face-to-face at close range with sword and spear. They taunted each other aloud as they fought, and they took the weapons and armor of their fallen foes as plunder of war and as marks of honor. (They also held chariot races and boxing matches on the battlefield in honor of fallen comrades, seeking to display their valor in sport as fiercely as they did in battle.)
Centuries later, under the Roman empire, people apparently wanted to witness this kind of glorious battle so badly that they threw gladiators up against each other in the Coliseum, making battle and sport one and the same thing.
Today, we still have our images of great warriors--think Rambo or Jack Bauer--but it seems to me we save most of our warrior language for professional sports. This is where the Big German comes into play, and the light that the Iliad casts on him isn’t favorable.
Dirk, people say, has great skill but lacks heart. In the Iliad, people say the exact same thing about Paris, the prince of Troy who kidnapped Helen from her Greek home and took her as his bride, but who is a better lover than a fighter. A couple of quotes from book 6 will help show what I mean.
The first is spoken by the beautiful Helen, who apparently loved Paris at one point but has grown resentful that the entire city is about to be sacked by the Greeks just because Paris won’t send her home with them. She says,
I wish I had had a good man for a loverThe next quote, from Paris’ warrior brother Hektor, is a little more generous:
who knew the sharp tongues and just rage of men.
This one--his heart’s unsound, and always will be,
and he will win what he deserves.
My strange brother! No man with justice in himWhat's especially interesting to me here, in light of the Dirk analogy, is that Paris is primarily an archer, which means he shoots from long range but gets accused of lacking the will to fight up close. And even though the Trojans do have their fair share of more forceful warriors (like Hektor), and even though Achilles has a frankly unfair advantage, being divine on his mother’s side, at the end of the day Helen is Paris’s wife, and the battle is his to fight. But instead he largely stays in the background, whereas Achilles becomes the aggressor.
would underrate your handiwork in battle;
you have a powerful arm. But you give way
too easily, and lose interest, lose your will.
Guess whose side wins the war.
Friday, July 20, 2007
I knew it
An unnamed NBA ref has been caught betting on games he worked? Please let it be Bennett Salvatore...
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Hope for next year?
My attitude for next year, since the Golden State series, has been: Screw it. Let the Mavericks coast through the first 4 months of the regular season, then try to turn it on near the end like the Spurs and Shaq’s Lakers. Limit Dirk and Howard to 30 minutes a game for the regular season, and see how they do going into the playoffs rested. Even if it doesn’t work, it couldn’t possibly be as bad as this season, right?
Avery might be ready to try something like that: http://www.star-telegram.com/287/story/140077.html.
Avery might be ready to try something like that: http://www.star-telegram.com/287/story/140077.html.
Friday, June 1, 2007
Deja Vu?
I better make two disclaimers before I go on with the post: (1) LeBron has the potential to be the greatest player in the history of the NBA; (2) I didn’t watch last night’s game.
But I couldn’t help noticing that in espn.com’s experts round-up, no one compared last night’s game to a game last year that was eerily similar. Try this: beginning with 16 minutes left in the game, the team’s star exploded for 29 points to take a 3-2 series lead in the conference finals.
LeBron finished with 48/9/7. In game 5 of last year’s western conference finals against Pheonix, Dirk ended up with 50/12/3 (see my earlier post. The games had important differences: LeBron is a lot younger, has an awful team (the rest of them shot 0/9 in those last 16 minutes), and scored those 29 points in a close game on the road. He also scored the last 25 in a row for his team, including all their points in two consecutive overtimes. Dirk had a lot more help, and his performance quickly turned his game into a rout at home, so there presumably was less pressure on him for a lot of those points.
On the other hand, Dallas had finally beaten San Antonio for the first time ever, and they were trailing by 7 in the fourth quarter, facing the prospect of going back to Phoenix down 3-2. They also were playing a Phoenix team that would have Amare Stoudemire back the next year, which meant there was a very real window closing on their opportunity to get to the finals in a tough conference. Plus Dirk had had questionable playoff performances in recent years, and he was staring at a playoff legacy that could live or die by that series.
I don’t think that I’m just being a Mavs homer to make the comparison between these games. After game 6 against Phoenix last year, Mark Stein wrote, “Dirk Nowitzki has answered all the questions.” Bill Simmons said it was probably time to add Dirk to the NBA Pantheon. After the finals, though, the conversation sounded a lot different.
As for last night’s game, its “specialness” surely was enhanced by the recogniztion that LeBron might become the Greatest Ever, and we just never know when it’s going to happen. For Dirk, people were waiting for him to fail; for LeBron, people are just wondering when he’ll succeed.
In any event, here are the two players’ lines for those final 29 points of their respective games:
LeBron: 16 mins, 11/14 FG, 5/9 FT, 0 rebounds, 0 assists.
Dirk: 14.5 mins 8/10 FG, 10/10 FT, 8 rebounds.
As you may have noticed, Dirk shot better from the field and the line, and he also had a slight, 8-0 edge in rebounding down the stretch. LeBron was literally a scoring machine for the end of the game, but I think it’s also fair to point out that every assist and every rebound by a Cavs player over those last 16 minutes was by someone not named LeBron.
Here’s the thing: James might go on to become the Greatest Ever, and if so this game will be seen as a major starting point. But he has a significant “out”: if the Cavs make it to the finals and get beat 4-1 by the Spurs, no one will be surprised. They’re a bad team, playing in a bad conference against a Pistons team that wakes up every morning and thanks God that they play in the east. In the west, these two teams proably would have been seeded 6th and 7th, and there’s a good chance they wouldn’t have made it out of the first round. (Although perhaps I shouldn’t throw rocks in a glass house.) As great as LeBron was last night, if they hold on to beat Detroit, I’ll still take the Spurs in 6 for the championship, and most of the experts say the same thing.
But there’s another really important difference between Dirk’s 50 last year and LeBron’s 48 last night, and it’s the really depressing point that my brother brought up. For LeBron, it’s only going to get better from here. Dirk may have already peaked.
But I couldn’t help noticing that in espn.com’s experts round-up, no one compared last night’s game to a game last year that was eerily similar. Try this: beginning with 16 minutes left in the game, the team’s star exploded for 29 points to take a 3-2 series lead in the conference finals.
LeBron finished with 48/9/7. In game 5 of last year’s western conference finals against Pheonix, Dirk ended up with 50/12/3 (see my earlier post. The games had important differences: LeBron is a lot younger, has an awful team (the rest of them shot 0/9 in those last 16 minutes), and scored those 29 points in a close game on the road. He also scored the last 25 in a row for his team, including all their points in two consecutive overtimes. Dirk had a lot more help, and his performance quickly turned his game into a rout at home, so there presumably was less pressure on him for a lot of those points.
On the other hand, Dallas had finally beaten San Antonio for the first time ever, and they were trailing by 7 in the fourth quarter, facing the prospect of going back to Phoenix down 3-2. They also were playing a Phoenix team that would have Amare Stoudemire back the next year, which meant there was a very real window closing on their opportunity to get to the finals in a tough conference. Plus Dirk had had questionable playoff performances in recent years, and he was staring at a playoff legacy that could live or die by that series.
I don’t think that I’m just being a Mavs homer to make the comparison between these games. After game 6 against Phoenix last year, Mark Stein wrote, “Dirk Nowitzki has answered all the questions.” Bill Simmons said it was probably time to add Dirk to the NBA Pantheon. After the finals, though, the conversation sounded a lot different.
As for last night’s game, its “specialness” surely was enhanced by the recogniztion that LeBron might become the Greatest Ever, and we just never know when it’s going to happen. For Dirk, people were waiting for him to fail; for LeBron, people are just wondering when he’ll succeed.
In any event, here are the two players’ lines for those final 29 points of their respective games:
LeBron: 16 mins, 11/14 FG, 5/9 FT, 0 rebounds, 0 assists.
Dirk: 14.5 mins 8/10 FG, 10/10 FT, 8 rebounds.
As you may have noticed, Dirk shot better from the field and the line, and he also had a slight, 8-0 edge in rebounding down the stretch. LeBron was literally a scoring machine for the end of the game, but I think it’s also fair to point out that every assist and every rebound by a Cavs player over those last 16 minutes was by someone not named LeBron.
Here’s the thing: James might go on to become the Greatest Ever, and if so this game will be seen as a major starting point. But he has a significant “out”: if the Cavs make it to the finals and get beat 4-1 by the Spurs, no one will be surprised. They’re a bad team, playing in a bad conference against a Pistons team that wakes up every morning and thanks God that they play in the east. In the west, these two teams proably would have been seeded 6th and 7th, and there’s a good chance they wouldn’t have made it out of the first round. (Although perhaps I shouldn’t throw rocks in a glass house.) As great as LeBron was last night, if they hold on to beat Detroit, I’ll still take the Spurs in 6 for the championship, and most of the experts say the same thing.
But there’s another really important difference between Dirk’s 50 last year and LeBron’s 48 last night, and it’s the really depressing point that my brother brought up. For LeBron, it’s only going to get better from here. Dirk may have already peaked.
Dodged a Bullet
I think maybe the basketball gods were just being merciful to Mavericks fans this year. Can you imagine if we had beaten the Spurs again, gotten to the finals again, and then gotten beat by LeBron just like Wade last year?
My brother says the Mavericks have officially missed their window. Might be.
My brother says the Mavericks have officially missed their window. Might be.
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