Tag: Kobe Bryant

The NBA title asterisk argument, and why it doesn’t make any sense

Here we are, in the middle of the 2021 NBA Finals, coming close to crowning a new champion. As it stands right now, the Milwaukee Bucks have a 3-2 series lead over the Phoenix Suns, with Game 6 scheduled for Tuesday night in Milwaukee. Both of these teams have been through a lot in their journey to the championship series, and whoever wins deserve the time to be celebrated. It’s been said nobody can ever take a title away from a team who wins it. Unfortunately, there are many who will try to take it away, or at the very least, attempt to lessen the legitimacy of the triumph. Regardless of who wins, either the Bucks or Suns will have to hear how (among other things) teams they faced along the way were not at full strength, which is basically saying their paths were made significantly easier. The 72-game regular season is also something that will be thrown in to dump dirt on the potential victory. All of this equals the mastery of the halfway acknowledgement, where you have people admitting the championship run happened, but with an asterisk. Words like phony and cheap are constantly thrown around to explain a team’s quest when it’s perceived they did not exactly “earn” it. Come with me as we look at other title runs that commonly have an asterisk by it, and then talk about why these cases against the winners equate to glorified excuse making.

1999 San Antonio Spurs – Going into this particular season, there was serious doubt a season would even take place. The NBA and the Players Association were in the middle of a lockout, and a deal wasn’t reached until January of that year. As a result, the season was shortened to 50 games, and the All-Star Game was cancelled. With the campaign compacted, it was the Spurs, lead by future hall-of-famers Tim Duncan and David Robinson, who would emerge as the team to unseat the Chicago Bulls as the new heirs to the throne. Of course, the Bulls looked totally different from previous years, as Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman all left the team, and the Los Angeles Lakers, with young superstars Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant, weren’t quite ready to ascend to the throne just yet. To top it off, the Spurs defeated an eighth-seeded New York Knicks team to win the franchise’s first trophy. Bottom line is whoever won the title in this campaign was going to get grief simply because it wasn’t the normal 82-game format. It just happened to be the Spurs. Being a teenager who was growing up in San Antonio at that time, I can say first hand the fans down there didn’t care about the way victory was claimed by their team.

2012 Miami Heat – Like the ’99 season, the 2011-12 was also shortened by a work stoppage. The difference is the powers that be were able to salvage a 66-game season instead of 50, with the games starting Christmas Day. The Heat, with the “Big 3” of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, were coming off of a crushing loss to the Dallas Mavericks in the 2011 Finals. With everything on the line, they were able to come through and get the elusive title James sought after in coming down to Florida from the Cleveland Cavaliers in the summer of 2010. Having said that, the championship didn’t come without its doubts. Besides the season being 66 games, people wonder to this day whether or not the Heat even get to the Finals if the Bulls, who had the best record in the Eastern Conference that year, didn’t lose point guard Derrick Rose to a injured knee in the first round of the playoffs. In the conference finals, Miami needed all seven teams to get by a Boston Celtics team that had Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen all on the downsides of their respective careers. With the team the Heat had, it was not a huge surprise seeing them win, but for the haters out there, these are the excuses they put in front to justify the asterisk.

2015 Golden State Warriors – Unlike the first two case studies, the Warriors actually played a full 82-game season. They also had the league’s best record at 67-15 and the Most Valuable Player in guard Stephen Curry. On the surface, this is the team that should have won it all with all things considered, but the argument comes against them because of their opponent in the NBA Finals, the Cavaliers. It was the first year in James’ return to Cleveland after being in Miami for the last four seasons, and he had another version of the Big 3 in the form of himself, guard Kyrie Irving and forward Kevin Love. On the way through the East, Love suffered an injured shoulder and was lost for the rest of the season, and Irving hurt his knee in Game 1 of the Finals. Now here come the questions. What would the result have been if Cleveland was healthy (One can ask the same question in reverse when it comes to the Cavs’ title win the year after)? It’s always tough because injuries are part of sports, and we never know when, where or who they can happen to. It’s probably fair to say it’s often not the best team who rises to the top, but the healthiest. For LeBron (and the few remaining Cavs) fans everywhere, health will always be a question, but isn’t that the case for many teams in the history of sports?

2019 Toronto Raptors – In a time where we are always looking a story to captivate us, this version of the Raptors was one a person can get behind with ease. Forward Kawhi Leonard was traded to Toronto from the Spurs before the year started, and with that move, the whole country of Canada was being carried on Leonard’s back. The end saw the Raptors winning the title, defeating the Warriors, who were trying to become the first team since the Lakers in the early 2000s to win three straight league championships, 4-2. With this run, there are two glaring points some fans and media will point out to take away from Toronto’s accomplishment. One, James left the Eastern Conference to sign with the Lakers, and teams that had him playing for them had made the Finals eight straight times. Two, the Warriors saw Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson go down to catastrophic injuries. Yes, Golden State was favored to win it all going into the season, but to say they would have won just off of projections ignore the original reason why games are played. It just goes to show why there is an element of luck, good or bad, that goes with the skill, and for the people in the city of Toronto, I struggle to see any evidence of care about how the Raptors brought a title back to not just that metropolitan area, but the country as a whole.

2020 Lakers – I probably don’t have to explain why this case is questioned, but for research purposes, here it goes. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the season, and sports in general, stopped as we know it, and there were questions about the season being canceled altogether. From March 11 to July 30, the season was in limbo, but it did return to resume playing in Orlando, where teams met to play in the NBA bubble. Needless to say, the circumstances the players were facing were unlike any they have faced before. So with that being said, mental and emotional toughness was going to be key for the team that could rise to the top. It ended up being the Lakers, but people would be quick to point out how the “break” really helped James and newly-acquired forward Anthony Davis by helping their bodies recover from the grind of the regular season. Davis has a detailed injury history, and James, as great as he is, was showing signs of the wear and tear of a long career that has seen countless runs to the Finals in previous years. In other words, critics say L.A. would not have won the title if it wasn’t for the pause in action.

So there are five cases detailing why some fans and media want to put an asterisk on these title runs, but to be honest, the people who have these opinions sound dumb and jealous. If their favorite team, or in the case of the media, their pick to win, came through for them, they are not complaining or talking about the perceived pitfalls they want to throw on the winners. They would put a more positive spin on it, saying how their team was tenacious and showed the heart and grit necessary to complete such a task. Also, it’s quickly forgotten all of the other squads had the same circumstances to deal with. It’s not like there was a different set of rules put together for the team that hoisted the Larry O’Brien trophy. To sum it up, the asterisk argument holds no water with these scenarios, and it won’t when the Bucks or Suns get their moment to shine sometime this week. That does not mean people won’t try to fill the broken cup with BS. We’re just left to decide if we want to take the cup, and that decision should be easy if things are looked at by principle instead of who is involved.

Did the Mavericks start a new trend with GM hire?

Looking at the NBA landscape, there were a number of places where change was taking place, but this was especially true in the case of the Dallas Mavericks. In a span of four days, the Mavericks saw events that included a damning story published by The Athletic questioning the pecking order under team owner Mark Cuban, a parting of the ways from then-general manager Donnie Nelson and the decision by Rick Carlisle to step down from the head coaching position (Carlisle is now the head man for the Indiana Pacers…again). All of a sudden, a franchise that seemed to be stable was in chaos, and Cuban was left to make decisions that will alter the course of the team for at least the next decade. The man chosen to be the next head coach of the Mavs is Jason Kidd, the former point guard who was on the team when Dallas won their only championship in 2011. Kidd also coached the Brooklyn Nets and Milwaukee Bucks before finding an assistant coaching role under Frank Vogel with the Los Angeles Lakers. This move is the one making the headlines simply because of the pedigree Kidd brings as a player and coach, but it’s the GM hire that, at least to me, is the more intriguing.

Enter Nico Harrison, a former executive with Nike, as the man chosen to lead basketball operations for the Mavs. At face value, replacing Nelson with a man who doesn’t have any experience in an NBA front office is unconventional at the least, but there could be a underlining method to Cuban’s methods. By being a Nike exec, Harrison has been able to build relationships with numerous players, most notably being the liaison for the late Kobe Bryant in his second year with the company. One of those relationships is with Luka Doncic, the team’s budding superstar who Harrison is tasked with building a championship contender around. That in itself is a monumental chore, considering Dallas plays in the rough and rugged Western Conference, and the roster has more than a few areas needing improvement. The hope for Cuban and the Mavs fan base is some of those relationships Harrison has created can be beneficial in bringing a few of the better players in the association to Dallas, and ultimately, erase the fact the franchise hasn’t made it past the first round of the playoffs since that 2011 title run. At any rate, I believe Cuban is willing to do anything possible to bring a title back to Big D, and while the move to bring Harrison in as GM can be questioned, it may be revolutionary depending on the results.

When we looks into the inner workings of a league’s teams, most of them go with a person who has worked their way up in the franchise, or with someone who is at least familiar with front offices around the league, to be a general manager. It’s not common the people who hold these positions come from a source outside of the league. If there is a model for an awkward GM hire working to the tune of championship results, look no further than the Lakers. L.A. brought in Rob Pelinka, a sports agent whose clients included Bryant and Nets guard James Harden, to be their GM in 2017. Pelinka, was able to help sign forwards LeBron James and Anthony Davis, bring Vogel in as the head coach (along with the aforementioned Kidd as an assistant), and build a roster around superstars James and Davis to win the NBA championship last season in the bubble. When Lakers owner Jeanie Buss decided to hire Pelinka as the GM, we could perceive it was because of those business relationships he developed as an agent for a big reason why he got the job. In other words, there are other walks of life that help to get a person in tune with the landscape of a business. While the hire of Pelinka is not exactly the same as Harrison taking over as the Mavericks GM, the fact they come from different entities to operate an NBA team is.

Speaking of those relationships, I personally never believed it when people say business is just business. That theory sounds like a copout more than anything else, and here’s why. Anytime we get into business with someone, there is a period of getting to know that person or group to some degree. In that process, a certain amount of trust has to be built, or the deal will not get done. While this is going on, a friendship may grow out of that. I say all of this to point out there is always a personal aspect to conducting business, and when those relationships are produced, it can lead to bigger and better things down the line. So when we look at what Cuban did with bringing in Harrison, he understands this very narrative, because if he did not, this move does not get made. I guarantee those relationships Harrison developed with the players will be crucial if Dallas is to bring free agents in that can produce a championship contender.

If we are being honest with each other, we can say not much is guaranteed in life or business. One thing we do know is the race to stay ahead of the trends is hotter than ever. If there is a way to revolutionize an industry or organization, the powers that be are going to attempt to find that. Cuban is known as a visionary, and he obviously believes brining someone who earned his reputation at a shoe and apparel company to run his team will get the desired results he desperately wants. Such is the life of a businessman. One either wins big or loses big, and it will be interesting to see if this is a gamble that pays off for Cuban at the end.