A better basketball site.
For intelligent readers, from veteran writers.
Keep scrolling down. Good stuff here.
PHILADELPHIA – The hard truth of life in the NBA is that once you’re down, it’s nearly impossible to get back up.
The haves always seem to have it.
The have-nots seem to be perpetually buried near the bottom. Or worse, in the middle of the pack, where there’s little chance of finding that rare gem in the draft and not much hope in free agency, either.
Before Game 4 of their Western Conference first-round series against the San Antonio Spurs, the Los Angeles Lakers handed out white towels to fans at the Staples Center.
Apparently, someone in the marketing department didn’t understand symbolism. By halftime, those towels had become flags of surrender for the Lakers, the biggest underachieving team in the history of the NBA.
Dwight Howard offered his own symbolism, figuratively throwing in the towel midway through the third quarter. Unwilling to grit his teeth and bang and bump his way through all of another telling, embarrassing loss, he got himself ejected, starting his offseason of uncertainty with an hour’s headstart on his teammates.
Dwight Howard, human surrender flag. Yeah, there’s the sort of toughness you want to build a franchise around.
When Mike Brown was hired by the Cleveland Cavaliers last week, there were multiple feelings of déjà vu. One was obvious – Brown was returning to a team that had fired him three years earlier.
We have all been here before.
But the other was more subtle and had to do with the fundamental reality not only of today’s NBA, but also of today’s professional sports.
“Not two, not three, not four, not five, not six, not seven.”
Those are the infamous words by LeBron James when he first became a Miami Heat that people will always remember. It was obviously a huge deal at the time due to its cockiness and the fact that it was said before the newly formed trio ever played a single game together on the court. When he said it, we all assumed that James was speaking for himself as well as for Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. Wade, however, will apparently be satisfied if he gets no more than a third ring. Here’s what he had to say about the matter, from Tim Reynolds of The AP:
“I feel like I need three rings. After that, I’m playing with church’s money,” Wade told The Associated Press. “I’ve always said that if I can end my career with at least three rings … I’ve already had a special career, but it would put me in that special group that only a few can say that they’re in. It would mean a lot. It would mean a lot. It would mean a lot.”
Life without Kobe Bryant for the Los Angeles Lakers began Sunday night, and it wasn’t so bad. In fact, it was pretty good.
With Dwight Howard having a big game and Steve Blake somehow outplaying Tony Parker, the Lakers defeated the suddenly struggling San Antonio Spurs and need just one more win to clinch a playoff berth.
