Love & Basketball? The Fallen Romance With My Ex-Favorite Sport, Part 2

Six days ago, we witnessed one of the most memorable and historic nights in "The Association".  In Oakland, two historic moments occurred: 1) the Golden State Warriors soundly defeated the Memphis Grizzlies 125-104 to become the first team in NBA history to record 73 wins, besting the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls' 72-10 record; and 2) Stephen Curry became the first player in NBA history to make at least 400 three pointers in a single season (402).  Down the coast in Los Angeles, five-time champ Kobe Bryant brought his illustrious 20-year career to an end by being the first player in NBA history to play 20 years for the same team as well as the first to score more than 50 points (60) in his final game on the way to overcoming a ten-point deficit to beat the Utah Jazz, 101-96.  After those two big games and reading Part 1 of this two-part series, O.G. Buddy of the Blog Country sent me an email that said, "Kobe went out to 60 and steph hit 73 w and 402 threes...Is that not enough to pull you back to basketball lol?"  I responded, "Still not kinging it over football, but it works for now LOL!"  As much as I loved seeing such a momentous occasion happen, Bryant and Curry are bookends of sorts as the former signifies remnants of a golden era while simultaneously ushering in a certain attitude in a newer one while the latter embodies certain fundamental elements while epitomizing how the game of basketball has transformed.  So what exactly do all of my convoluted observations mean?  Well, in the second and final part of "Love & Basketball? The Fallen Romance With My Ex-Favorite Sport", I shift focus from my personal connections to my observations of the game itself...

TOUGHNESS IS A RARITY, NO LONGER THE NORM.  As graceful as basketball has always been compared to football, hockey and baseball, there was still more of a rough-and-tumble nature back in the day.  Who can overlook how the "Bad Boy" Pistons featured some of the toughest dudes (and dirtiest depending on who you ask) who ever stepped onto a pro basketball court?  What about all of those hard-fought, vitriolic playoff matchups between the Bulls and the Knicks throughout the 90s--always to the Knicks' chagrin?  These were the celebrity death matches years before MTV made them famous as blood, sweat and tears were more than just a cliche representation of the struggle to be basketball's elite and rivalries were kept going long after the clocks hit all zeros and the towel boys went home.  While many used words like "thug" or "dirty" to describe people like Charles Barkley, Bill Laimbeer, Dennis Rodman, Charles Oakley, Anthony Mason, Xavier McDaniel, Rick Mahorn and Vernon Maxwell, these were the days of the "enforcer" who didn't have to be the biggest statistical juggernaut to be your biggest nightmare on the court.  Blame it on my Ward 8 upbringing, but I often don't have a problem with a little organized thuggery. 

However, I attribute the lack of similar toughness in today's NBA to five main factors.  First--and I'll touch upon this at greater length in a few--the game has moved so much toward the perimeter that even the game's most physically fearsome player was often afraid to use his size and go hard in the paint like he had a main chick, a mistress and a couple girlfriends.  (No...he's not so hood rich and you should know every bit of that reference.)  Second, referees need boxes of Kleenex for every player crying on their shoulder because their opponent grazed them with their arm hairs.  Third, and connected to my second point, I hate everything about the flop because it's one of the worst cries for referee attention ever popularized and I'm glad that the league cracked down on it.  Fourth, as evidenced from people not wanting to see either the Indiana Pacers or the Memphis Grizzlies in the 2013 Finals, you don't hear a lot of people getting behind the blue-collar teams who pride themselves on unified toughness as much as they do the fly and the flashy.  Finally, I wholeheartedly believe that incidents like the Malice at the Palace between the Pacers and the Pistons in 2004 effectively ended the era of the NBA tough guy as the incident grossly manifested when testiness and brolic behavior runs rampant.  David Stern barely wanted guys with cornrows, tattoos and long ball shorts being the faces of the league, so he definitely wasn't having any of that.  I'm not saying that everyone now can be undoubtedly manhandled, but the current tough guys of the league combined on one team would be lightweights compared to the '90 Pistons or the '92 Knicks.

SAY GOODBYE TO THE BIG MAN AND SAY HELLO TO THE BIG SHOT.  There's a reason why some basketball aficionados consider Kareem Abdul-Jabbar the G.O.A.T. over Michael Jordan: the six-time league MVP, six-time NBA champion and two-time Finals MVP was one of the most dominant players as well as big men of all time.  I mean, Kobe just retired after playing the same amount of seasons as Kareem and Kareem still has him by 4,744 points.  The 80s and 90s were one of the greatest eras of all time for centers as Hakeem Olajuwon, Patrick Ewing and David Robinson were among the league's leading scorers, rebounders and shot blockers while Shaquille O'Neal, Alonzo Mourning and Dikembe Mutombo were on their heels.  Unless you were as intrepid as Michael Jordan, these guys made you think twice about coming into their house without wiping your feet on the doormat first.  Even if your team didn't have a beast of a center, you were fortunate if you had solid power forwards like Charles Oakley, Larry Johnson, Shawn Kemp, Dennis Rodman, Charles Barkley, Kevin McHale and Karl Malone--many of whom played bigger than their height.  While efficient guard and small forward play has always been necessary, many teams back in the day had a designated sharpshooter like Mark Price, Reggie Miller, Dell Curry, Jeff Hornacek, Dale Ellis, Mitch Richmond, Glen Rice, Dennis Scott and Steve Kerr.

However, many players live on the perimeter and the presence of dominant big men isn't as prevalent as before.  I'm still a huge Tim Duncan fan, but there's only so much that he has left in the tank before he eventually passes the torch to LaMarcus Aldridge like The Admiral did with him.  Dwight Howard was better in his prime and can still get it done, but he's never been as menacing as Shaq--and let my dad tell it, Shaq was only dominant because the older centers had faded and there was nobody left who was as fearsome as he was.  I do fool with new blood like DeMarcus Cousins and Hasaan Whiteside, but they are two of the most well-rounded centers in a league filled with non-threatening big men with limited game.  As far as power forwards go, I've been a fan of David West since his Xavier days, Zach Randolph still plays hard and Draymond Green embodies a lot of that old school toughness as well.  The problem is that when you have trees like Dirk Nowitzki and Kevin Durant shooting better than many guards, that's how you know the game is above and beyond the rim.  Built like a house of bricks at 6'8" and 250 pounds, my biggest issue for years with LeBron James is that he often settled for long-range jumpers instead of playing to his strength as a human locomotive in the low post.  In last year's playoffs, I remember watching Golden State games and screaming at Draymond Green when he kept bricking beyond the arc like, "STOP SHOOTING THREES NOW!!!"  Know your role, playa.

To bolster my point, I had all of these in-depth statistics about the entire league shooting way more three-pointers than 20 years ago, but I'd much rather narrow it down to the two best teams of all time: the '96 Bulls and the '16 Warriors.  The Bulls were No. 3 in three-point percentage (.403), but No. 15 in attempts (1,349); the Warriors are No. 1 in both attempts (2,592) and percentage (.416).  The Bulls ranked No. 4 in two-point attempts (5,543) and No. 11 in percentage (.496); the Warriors are No. 26 in attempts (4,567), but No. 1 in percentage (.528).  The Bulls were No. 22 in free-throw attempts (2,004) and No. 14 in percentage (.746); the Warriors are No. 23 in attempts (1,790) and No. 16 in percentage (.763).  Connecting offensive rebounds to missed shot attempts, the Bulls were No. 3 (1,247) while the Warriors are No. 21 (816).  Both teams were No. 1 in points per game in their respective years, but the Warriors scored 9.7 more points per game than the Bulls.  While neither team was as celebrated for their centers as they were for their guards, Dennis Rodman wasn't jacking up three pointers like Draymond Green will often do.  In a league that plays "small ball" more often than it used to, the game has moved significantly closer to the perimeter and away from the need for dominant big men or taking the ball to the rack to be a scoring juggernaut.

PLAYERS AREN'T ALWAYS WILLING TO SACRIFICE MONEY, STATISTICS AND POSITION FOR THE SAKE OF RINGS.  Other than the obvious choice in Patrick Ewing, two people who I think about when it comes to their disappointing pursuits for championships are Charles Barkley and Karl Malone.  Never enjoying the same success as Dr. J., Moses Malone and Mo Cheeks during his eight years as a Sixer, Barkley joined Kevin Johnson, Dan Majerle, Cedric Ceballos and the Suns in 1992 for perhaps his best chance at a ring.  However, Phoenix ran up against a buzz saw in Chicago in the 1993 Finals and lost a thrilling six-game series.  In 1996, Barkley sacrificed being the Suns' leading scorer to be the third leading scorer in another quest for hardware with Hakeem Olajuwon, Clyde Drexler and the Rockets.  Unfortunately, they lost in heartbreaking fashion in the 1997 Western Conference Finals to the Utah Jazz in six games.  Meanwhile, Malone of that same Jazz team with John Stockton lost to Jordan and the Bulls in 1997 as well as 1998.  Once Stockton retired at the end of the 2002-03 season, he along with Gary Payton (who suffered defeat at the hands of the '96 Bulls as a member of the Seattle Supersonics), joined forces with Shaq & Kobe in L.A.--knowing that they would have slightly diminished roles, but that it was their best chance to win.  However, they would suffer an unexpected defeat at the hands of the underrated Pistons in 2004, losing the series in five games.  Payton would later win with Shaq in Miami, but Malone never tasted that victory for himself and retired after his only season with the Lakers.

Speaking of which, so remember my opening bit about Kobe Bryant ushering in a new attitude?  Well, one of the biggest reasons why I stopped being a Lakers fan was because of him and Shaq constantly bickering about whose team it was.  Despite winning three-consecutive championships together, they lost their final one as a dynamic duo in 2004 and Shaq--the Finals MVP all three winning years--got pushed out of town to Miami and ultimately played a significant role in the franchise's first championship in 2006 with a young, less egotistical (and healthy) Dwyane Wade.  With Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom in tow, Kobe overcame three struggle years to eventually get back to the Finals in 2008, 2009 and 2010--winning the latter two as well as Finals MVP honors in both.  Fast forward to the Thunder with Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and James Harden, Westbrook was often criticized for taking significant shot attempts away from Durant--especially since he was supposed to be the point guard--while some even suggested that Harden should start at the point.  Even with all of their talent, only Durant was the most steady as Westbrook was inconsistent and Harden's game needed an APB during their 2012 Finals loss at the hands of the "Big Three" Heat in five games.  Come contract time, Harden was not prioritized like Durant, Westbrook or Serge Ibaka and ended up in Houston where he became the featured player.  Although both teams have reached the Western Conference Finals once, neither team has been able to get to the Finals since Harden's departure.  Then you have the reboot of King James and the Cavaliers with Kevin Love on steal from Minnesota and Kyrie Irving, who was clearly the Cavs' best player before they strolled into town.  Since then, there have been regular mumblings about Irving's struggles to sacrifice his scoring to distribute his teammates the ball like a point guard should, James' displeasure with being the primary facilitator and burden bearer (again) and Love's stats declining as he's third in the pecking order.  I'm not saying that you didn't have these issues with the Barkleys or Malones of the world, but you didn't hear about them as much and maybe that's the problem.  Either way, you either want the money, you want the team to be yours, you want to win the statistical crowns or you want to win rings.  Not everybody can have all four.

I don't want it to seem like I'm just this curmudgeonly old man who thinks that no time can ever be "better" than the 80s or 90s basketball.  Everything must change and I'm not so unrealistic that I would expect the game of basketball to be excluded from the inevitable process of evolution.  Whether it was the antics of the Bad Boy Pistons or the infamous 1997 Knicks-Heat fight, I'm sure that the league wanted to tone down on players being tough to a fault.  I've always loved proficient three-point snipers, so I'm not that upset that it's more of a shooter's league with my new favorite player in Steph Curry leading the way.  I don't even find too much fault in players wanting to get theirs or be the Alpha male on the court because 1) it's a business at the end of the day and that stuff translates into more money and 2) you want your best players asserting their greatness.  Most important, I still love teams like the Spurs and the Warriors with rosters full of talented individuals playing at elite levels who set aside their egos long enough to reach the bigger goals.  Despite players complaining to the refs about phantom fouls, taking threes because they can or because they're too fatigued to drive to the basket or not playing their role for the sake of their stat lines, knowing that a few teams still believe in the fundamentals of the game that used to be my favorite of all might just be enough for me to reconsider.  I might not be head over heels about basketball anymore and will ditch it in a heartbeat during cuffing season for football, but if I'm in a bar high-fiving strangers when Paul Pierce hits a big shot that eventually gets waved off, then I clearly still love this game.