Holiday Ball

Holiday season usually mean some combination of family, travel, and sports. I didn't travel to meet family this year and hence my season was more skewed towards watching sports on TV. This time of the year, we have the NFL ramping up, fantasy football peaking or waning depending on how the playoffs treated you, bowl games, and the Christmas Day NBA games. Speaking of Bowl games, there was a great one tonight at Orange Bowl between Michigan and Florida state. Michigan lost by a point. Jim Harbaugh is a great coach. What he has done at Michigan in 2 years is as impressive as what he did in each of his previous stops. But he does seem to suffer a little bit from the bridesmaid syndrome. He takes teams almost to the very top, but falls just a little short in the Super Bowl or the crucial Ohio State game or the Orange Bowl. It doesn't seem like he is screwing things up, but bad luck seems to follow him at the worst of times. However, you can't blame it all on bad luck as some of his failures might be due to his offenses being conservative and not explosive enough to score in the clutch against good defenses. For a former quarterback turned head coach, his teams are pretty defense and run oriented and conservative on offense. In any case, congrats on a good season and let's see where he takes his program. If he stays that is. He is always linked to high profile NFL openings.

In the NBA, the Warriors-Cavs Christmas Day game is still reverberating across the league.  It was great theater and good TV. NBA should have been happy with the show and the TV ratings for that game. It even drew more viewers than the Ravens-Steelers game for the stretch they overlapped. However, NBA did get killed later with the other games going against the NFL. This game in Cleveland was very reminiscent of the thrilling finals these teams played in June in more ways than one. I was very impressed by the intensity of this game from the get-go. It felt like the game 8 of the finals! Unfortunately for the Warriors, the result and the ending felt like the finals too. They came from way ahead to lose a close one. Losing a 14-point lead in the fourth quarter is never a good look, especially for an elite team. Houston Rockets' GM Daryl Morey and the analytics crowd will tell you that it's statistically rare for teams to lose when they are ahead by more points than the number of minutes remaining in the game. Thats true for a normal team, let alone a star-studded championship contender. With all that said, I don't think the dubs have a lot to worry about. They dominated the game even with Curry being MIA. They should be able to handle these Cavs. Unless of course it's an one possession game at the end and the ball in in Kyrie Irving's hands. All bets are off in that case.

In the NFL, the Christmas weekend was great this year with a full slate of games on Saturday plus a couple of games on Sunday and Monday Night Football. This week 17 is going to be weird since it's hard to even figure out which teams have anything to play for. Many stars are going to be resting and the gamblers are going to have a hard time picking winners. Ironically, the best team in the league, the New England Patriots, might still have to play and win since the Raiders are right on their heels and the number 1 seed is still in doubt. The Raiders and Chiefs have a lot to play for as well. The only real contest is the Packers @ Lions Sunday night for the NFC North title. There is still some intrigue on the NFC side, though I won't bore you with all the details including how the TB Bucs can still make the playoffs if 8 things break their way including a tie. The AFC playoff on the other hand is all set and only the seedings are on the line this weekend. The NFL TV ratings since the elections seem to be back on track, but a lot of it seems to be because of the Cowboys. This will continue into the playoffs and we can expect a massive Super Bowl if the Boys make it that far. But the AFC playoffs might have some interesting TV numbers as we have 3 backup QBs among the 6 playoff teams - Matt Moore, Matt McGloin, and Tom Savage.  Whether they throw the ball to their receivers, opposing cornerbacks, or into the dirt, some of us will be watching for sure. But will America watch? Happy New Year to everybody and lets usher in the NFL playoffs and find out.

RIP Sager!

Last week was a sad one in the NBA. America's beloved sideline reporter Craig Sager lost his battle against cancer and the NBA universe paid a great tribute to him. He made sideline reporting fun. He got a lot of attention for his outlandish suits and the reactions to it from the coaches and the stars. Thats probably what made him a star, but he was much more than just his clothes. I liked his demeanor and his casual style of questioning, which he actually leveraged effectively to ask tough questions. We also heard great stories after his passing that we had no idea about. For instance, Dennis Rodman shared with the world how Sager saved his life by talking him out of a potential suicide attempt back in 1993 when he was done in Detroit. No wonder there is genuine affection for him from across the league. I was pleasantly surprised and also happy to see the league going the extra mile to pay tribute to a sideline reporter as if he was a star ex-athlete or a owner. From various eulogies on TNT to Steve Kerr's speech at the Oracle arena to the funky jerseys that several teams sported on the bench, Sager deserved it all. RIP Sager! We will all miss you and your colorful personality.

The other big news from the NBA last week thats on my mind is the Cavs stars staying back home for the road game in Memphis. They were all rested as the Cavs are real good and don't need all the weapons all the time. Plus they can afford to lose a game or two and might actually be better off giving their stars some rest since they know they are going to have a long and fruitful playoff run extending the already marathon NBA season well into June. This is really a tough one for me since there are valid arguments to be made on either side. First off, resting players randomly mid-season is a trend popularized by Greg Popovich and right there you know there is a legitimate reason to do it. Pop is no fool! This, among other kinds of rests that he forced on Tim Duncan is probably what extended the hall of famer's career by another 2 or 3 years. Coincidentally, the Spurs retired Duncan's jersey today. There are not many stars in today's sports more synonymous with their team as Duncan is with the Spurs. Congrats to Timmy and the Spurs. But coming back to the topic of rest and why Pop and others do it, teams benefit from it and they are free to do whatever they want. The coach is paid to win a championship for their team. If he decides resting LeBron in mid-December helps that cause, he should totally be able to do it.

But NBA is also entertainment and fans are the customers. There was a guy in Memphis holding a sign that read "I paid $800 and drove 4 hours to see this game." Therein lies the problem. NBA owes it's fans a great entertainment product. This is especially true now since the greedy sports world has moved to "dynamic pricing" the last few years where the already crazy prices are even higher for the Cavs game or the Yankees game or the Patriots game. At least, this was not the case back in the day when sticker prices stayed the same for all the regular season games of a team and only the scalpers charged you more for the sexier matchup. Now that the league itself is doing legalized scalping, they have to make sure the stars show up to justify those prices. I don't know if the Grizzlies charged a premium for LeBron, but I would guess they did. It's in the league's best interest to ensure LeBron plays if he can except when he is injured. Stars like Jordan and Kobe always played and honestly, you are a professional athlete paid millions to play basketball. Is it too much to ask that you show up and play? I understand the season is long and rest does the body some good come playoff time, but the league must start enforcing some rules and make some changes to make sure this random resting doesn't happen.

The other thing that gives me pause aside from the "team should do whats good for them" argument is that, we have traditionally accepted stars and starters resting the last game or 2 of the season in preparation for the playoffs. In fact, this is so common that most fantasy football leagues wrap the season up in week 16 week and don't even play week 17. This end of season resting happens in all sports. So how and why is resting in the middle of the season different or worse? I don't have a great or a legally enforceable answer to that, but it is worse because fans do expect some uncertainty at the end of the season. If Cavs were playing the Grizzlies on the last day of the season, fans probably might expect LeBron and even some of the Memphis stars to be possibly rested. So they may not plunk down 800 bucks for those tickets. It is a lot harder to predict mid-season which game or when these stars can or will be rested. NBA can't run it's business like this. Though I have to agree I don't know how they can legislate against this either. They can't tell the coaches how to do their job. They can't say resting is allowed in game 81 and 82, but not games 15 or 36. They also can't differentiate between coaches not playing a bench warmer versus not playing LeBron James. Even if they make these rules, what happens if the team cooks up some fake injuries to rest the stars or start LeBron and bench him after 3 mins?

The league can't do much, but it can remove back-to-back games and make the season a little less stressful for the players. That will also improve the quality of the regular-season games as the league today loses a lot of good matchups to the dreaded tired legs from back-to-backs. Aside from that, I don't know how the league can control this, but I do know they have to. NBA is a business and all the owners have a collective responsibility to make it work. May be they just get them all in a room and ask them to cut it out. May be outlaw resting through an agreed convention rather than bargained regulations. I love coach Pop, but this is one ugly contribution of his to the game. Customer is king and NBA better internalize this notion. Stars drive this league and their game is the product. People pick up the schedule as soon as it's released and check when LeBron is coming to town. When the Warriors are playing the Spurs etc. If the league can't deliver on that schedule, we have a problem. Commish Adam Silver has been good with a lot of things including the Sager celebrations. Hope he steps in and gets this fixed too. If you need rest against a bad team, play hard for 20 mins, blow them out, and rest the second half. This is exactly what Jordan did when he came to my town back in the day. He played, he dominated, and he rested, all in one night.  I paid a premium, saw him play, and went home happy. Everybody won. It's not that complicated. Just play!

Captain Obvious here: Klay can play!

I have had a busy few weeks and missed blogging. When you take a break like that, you would like to come back with a big bang sports story. I can't believe I missed even the Cubs' championship (more on that later). Or the NBA season, the Warriors, and Russell Westbrook. And then there are the great NFL games that I have missed blogging about the last few weeks. But today, Klay Thompson gave us all a great story on a drab late-fall, early-winter Monday night that featured a horrible 41-10 MNF game between the mediocre Colts with a great quarterback and the horrible Jets with a quarterback who can be mediocre at his best. Klay Thompson dropped 60 points in 29 minutes. His average points per minute in this game was almost as high as Wilt Chamberlain's in his 100-point game.

The Warriors are playing great right now and their offense is so fluid and effortless with the addition of Durant to the already lethal shooting combo of Klay and Curry. Things have come together real well, especially on the offensive side and the most surprising thing so far has been how the big 3 have had to sacrifice very little in terms of their shots and points. The big 3 have been close to their average number of shots from last year and that has to be good news for the team's chemistry. But tonight, they all deferred to Klay as he was in one of his zones. It reminded me of the game 6 in the Western Conference Finals last year against Durant's OKC or the regular season game couple of years back when he scored 37 in the third quarter against the Kings. He is as combustible as the other 2 MVPs in his team and I am glad his offense can still shine brightly under the new regime.

The early returns suggest the dubs have absolutely nailed the Durant addition and the offense is working just as they drew it up. This team can only get better, though none of this matters until they get to June. They are the presumptive Western Conference champions and the same goes for the Cavs in the East. The Cavs are playing great to justify such expectations as well. The Clippers and the Spurs are the other impressive teams and as always, the Western conference playoffs are going to be off the chains as kids used to say 15 years back. As for the NBA regular season, the dubs will keep us entertained. There are two other noteworthy individual performances to keep a close eye on. Russell Westbrook just got his 6th straight triple double and he could very well average a triple double for the entire season. That would be amazing to say the least.

The other surprising NBA stat of the young season is James Harden leading the league in assists. Mike D'Antoni has converted him into a point guard and it seems to be working wonderfully so far with Harden scoring a tonne as usual, but also dropping dimes in addition. I am curious to see if Harden can keep the assists going. NBA is going to give us a lot to talk about this winter and spring. Tonight belonged to Klay. Even the 10-2 Raiders who were at the game had to take a picture with Klay after his 60 point performance. East Bay right now has a lot of good sports going on. The Raiders somehow found the time to take in a Warriors game despite their short week leading into the huge Thursday night game in Kansas City. But who can blame them. The Warriors have been must-see TV for a couple of years and are now graduating to can't-miss TV.  The Warriors game at Clippers on Wednesday and the Raiders game against the Chiefs on Thursday are both can't-miss events this week.

I did miss blogging about several events in the last several weeks and can't possibly touch them all to catchup. But I do want to give a shutout to the Chicago Cubs for winning an amazing World Series in 7 games and destroying the curse of the billy goat. There is so much to write about the World Series, but the story for me is the Cubs President of baseball operations, Theo Epstein. It's time to put this guy in the Hall of Fame already. For him to cure almost 100-year curses in 2 major baseball cities and deliver championships to both Boston and Chicago is unbelievable. He did what he was hired to do in Chicago and he did it in exactly 5 years. The dude never has to pay for a drink in both Chicago and Boston ever and deservedly so. How does he top this? May be switch sports and win a championship for the Clippers or Knicks or the Cleveland Browns! And he might just do it.

Pigs Get Fat. Hogs get Slaughtered!

I hate to be the guy quoting Mark Cuban. He is one of those guys who is smart because he is a billionaire and not exactly the other way around. He has mastered the art of making one sensible point out of every 4, but sounds thoughtful saying all 4 despite the obvious .250 batting average. He said about 2 years back that NFL is too greedy and is going to suffer some setbacks. He called it a hog and said it's ripe to get slaughtered. As a recent article on Yahoo sports pointed out, he might have gotten this one right. NFL is suffering through some horrible TV ratings and attendance this year due to a variety of reasons. This week's Thursday night football triggered this whole thought process in my mind as 2 horrible offenses were on display. I am glad Arizona earned a season-saving win and I am also 50% sure that with Carson Palmer, at least their offense would have looked less putrid. By the way, is there anything more nebulous than being 50% sure!

In any case, the game was played in front of a half empty Levi (I will come to that later) and the TV ratings cannot be good for a Blaine Williamson Gabbert versus Drew Emeric Stanton matchup - middle name references in honor of their criminally bad QB play. The two wizards combined for 286 yards. Thats like the equivalent of 50 yards in 1995 if you adjust for the passing game inflation in the NFL over the last 15 years. NFL shamelessly puts this on national TV and has been doing this for a few years now with the Thursday night football (TNF). Ironically, I felt like this was the first year the teams have finally learned to play semi-decent on Thursday nights, but a game like this is still a good reminder that TNF is a horrible idea. TNF epitomizes the greed that Cubes pontificated about. Aside from the scant disregard for player health and practice time for the teams, TNF also takes away one of the traditional strengths of the NFL - limited availability and appointment viewing.

With the upcoming Saturday schedule, we are going to have NFL on TV 4 nights a week soon and I can pick and choose when and what I want to watch. That usually affects the ratings in the long run, though the overall advertisement revenue might be good enough for the hogs on Park Avenue. People will start skipping Sundays now because their team has already played on Thursday or the best game of the week is on Saturday or whatever and the league will soon be dealing with a splintered and non-committal viewership thats not on the hook on Sundays. MNF has suffered a drop in ratings for 3 years in a row and nobody knows why. You can blame this year on the election cycle, presidential debates, Manning's retirement, and Brady's suspension, but I think the story goes deeper than that. The health problems this sport creates has driven a lot of viewers away already. I cringe at many hits during a game and I don't know how long I can keep watching like that. These are the same hits we were celebrating 10 years back due to our ignorance about what they were doing to an athlete's body. Ignorance was truly bliss in the NFL.

Rules have been changed to dilute the product, but it is still a brutally violent sport. It has a long way to go in this path of player safety and this sport won't even look the same in 10 years. It may or may not be interesting to us, but thats why the suits get paid the big bucks. They need to maintain an interesting product while injecting these athlete safety related changes periodically. But the real threat to the NFL is not that the game will look different on the field, but the players are going be very different too. Most parents are going to keep their kids out of it. This will drastically affect the pipeline delivering top athletes to the sport in addition to having a huge impact on it's popularity as most families won't have any personal connection to it. Football will become the next boxing where only the poor and the desperate kids take to it as a way out of their harsh lives. You could argue this is already a reality in sports in general and football in particular, but this will become more pronounced in the coming years for the NFL.

For a sport already facing these existential challenges, short-sighted and greedy maneuvers like TNF only make things worse. TNF helps nobody - not the players, ticket holders, or the TV audience. If TNF is the symbol of NFL's greed, their stadium deals and the ticket prices are the cherry on top. Levi stadium being half empty on a Thursday night is no surprise because going to watch that horrible Niner team is only going to cost you much more than what you have already paid for the tickets for very little enjoyment in return. You have to take time off work and fight through weekday traffic to get to the stadium by 5 PM Pacific to park, a simple act that will cost you routinely 50 bucks or more these days. A ticket for a mediocre seat that itself should cost no more than 50 bucks will cost you upwards of 100 bucks, or 200 bucks for a "premium" game like the season opener or when the Pats come to town. How can a horrible team play a "premium" game? And the watered down beer is 12 bucks. Basically, only the upper middle class and the rich can afford tickets in these modern day stadiums and they neither have the time nor the interest to sit there in the cold and cheer for a horrible team. Another side-effect of the TNF is, it's hard for the "road warriors" to make the trek for the game because it's in the middle of the week.

In our social network driven, self aggrandizing, A.D.D culture, most of these fans just want to see and be seen at big events. If it's not an "event," they want no part of it. So when the team is bad, everybody is trying to dump these tickets online and nobody who can afford it wants it. If it's a winning team with a superstar or two, then everybody wants in and the casual (but rich) fan is there. The team then rips you off even more every year and the prices keep going up with no signs of ever coming down. Sports are the only remaining monopoly operating in our supposedly democratic, marginally free-market society. There is nowhere to go but to your local team if you are a sports fan. They can do whatever they want and they often do. The personal seat licenses in football stadiums, with it's various disguised monikers, are the best example of a greedy monopoly making all the money it can with no conscience. NFL teams are charging 50,000  dollars for PSLs for the better seats in these new stadiums for a sport with 8 home dates! They force you to buy 2 more pre-season games that even the referees don't want to show up to. That is 25% of the regular season. So if you were to sell some of the tickets from the regular season to try and break even, it's virtually impossible between the pre-season overhead and other online transaction fees for those 5 or 6 games you can realistically sell. That is if the team is good. Good luck if they are bad!

NFL is the biggest hog on the farm and even the other fat pigs like the MLB, NHL, or the NBA are no match for their greed. Roger Goodell is spearheading a system now where the fans just can't win and if their team can't win either, fans get pissed off in a hurry. NFL is being dumb by leading us all down this dirt road to a point of no return and they will get slaughtered in due course. Either that or they are being super smart and are well aware they are sitting on a diminishing asset. Their response to the clear and present danger confronting their sport seems to be, let's make more money while we can and are milking us all to their heart's content before the oncoming slaughter.

Football is rolling already.

The NFL season kicked off in style and is off and running in full force already. We got some great games, fantastic finishes, and good story lines as always. The Carolina at Denver game on Thursday night kicked things off  with a close finish. Despite my reduced expectation for that game, it gave us fans exactly what we wanted. Trevor Siemian's play and Cam Newton's beating were the headlines from that game. Cam is an absolute baller. He had a great game despite the monster hits he suffered. Both the man and his game are large and the zebras are having problems officiating him appropriately. Some of the hits were brutal, especially for a QB, and the flags were nowhere to be found. This may change how the Panthers play Cam in the near future. They need to protect him. They should cut down on his scrambles and runs, though a lot of his hits in this game happened in the pocket. But why increase his exposure anyways? He is too important for the reigning NFC champions. Big win for Denver and Siemian. The Broncos have a good team with that defense and a running game centered around C.J.Anderson.

It's been a while since the Raiders were the top story of the week. They sure were the headliner this week as coach Jack Del Rio went for 2 and a win at the end of regulation instead of a tie and overtime. I have never seen that in the NFL. Definitely not in week 1 with a young team trying to make the playoffs for a franchise coming of several horrible years. You see such calls once in a while in college but only towards the end of the season in the NFL with real bad teams that have nothing to play for. Del Rio nailed it here and this win should give the Raiders a tonne of confidence and self-belief. Saints D is horrible and the Raiders D didn't play much better either, but the Raiders are going to truly believe they are playoff-bound after this road win. It's about time for the silver and black. Packers, Chiefs, Giants, Lions, Cowboys, and the Patriots won close and exciting games on this fun NFL Sunday.

That last game in that list between the Patriots and the Cardinals was a heart-breaker for us Cards fans. Kicker Chandler Catanzaro missed what should have been a game winning field goal. The Super Bowl dreaming Cards lost to Hoodie who came in without his pretty boy QB, super star TE, and couple of other key players and still stole a win. Tough loss for the Cards who have to be now satisfied with a good week for David Johnson coupled with a decent performance by Carson Palmer and live to fight another day. They better win next week against Tampa Bay. Dolphins almost knocked off the Seahawks, but "almost" doesn't get you a "w" in the standings. The Monday night games were duds as  Pittsburgh crushed Washington and the Rams looked so horrible that the LA fans probably want them to move back to St. Louis after just one game. The Rams made the 49ers look like world beaters. Blaine Gabbert and the Niners offense were turrible as Chales Barkley would say, but they still won 28-0. Kaep's protest is spreading as many NFL players either kneeled, locked arms, or raised their fist during the anthem even on 9/11. Peaceful protests continue. As always, injuries in the NFL blows and Keenan Allen's season-ending ACL tear was unfortunate. Poor guy can't catch a break.

No more Honey-dues!

There is a funny radio AD playing these days. I think it's on Fox Sports radio and is a promotion for the upcoming NFL season. It warns all women that they should be ready to "lose" their boyfriends and husbands to football. The implication being that men are going to be glued to their TVs watching football starting soon. No time for honey-dues rest of the year! It's a funny AD, but also a fairly accurate depiction of the American reality. Most Blue-blooded American males and some females are so in love with football, both college and pro, that weekends will be exclusively reserved for appointment TV watching if left to their own devices. Thats the power of football and fantasy and gambling only help turbo-charge football's popularity. Every year, the pain of summer's exit is offset by the pleasure of football's arrival. College ball started last weekend and served as a nice appetizer before the main course, the National Football League.

Week one in college football usually features a bunch of cupcake games. It was a pleasant surprise this season as we had a whole bunch of stellar non-conference matchups last weekend. We can all thank three major reasons for this positive development. One, the increase in neutral site games and the financial ramifications of this ensured these sites got some meaty matchups. The 4-team playoff also means one loss does not completely destroy a team's season like in the old days. Superpowers are more willing to take on great challenges, especially early in the season. Also, the playoff committee looks at strength of schedule. This means teams are better off playing some real games instead of scheduling North East Appalachian state at home during the pre-season. With all that said, most teams are back to playing North East Appalachian state in week 2 coming up here. But week 1 was truly awesome and they will all be jumping into their conference contests soon anyways.

We got to see fun non-conference games like Stanford-V-Kansas State, LSU-V-Wisconsin, Notre Dame-V-Texas, Florida State-V-Ole Miss, Texas A&M-V-UCLA, and USC-V-Alabama. Most of the games were close contests with a couple of them even requiring overtime. It reminded us right away why we love football and what we have been missing for the last 7 months. Only the most hyped game of them all, Alabama-USC, disappointed as Alabama annihilated USC. Alabama seems to be on a planet of its own and even it's SEC counterparts didn't look too great in week 1. Neither did Pac-12, though Pac-12 might still be a deep and dangerous place. These games also featured amazing freshmen QBs. Quarterbacks are coming into the NFL more and more prepared and it turns out, the high school QBs are coming into college well-rounded as well. Just another sign of how professional and well-organized the entire sports pipeline has become.

That was fun, but the main event starts tomorrow. Super Bowl rematch on Thursday night kicks off the NFL season. The excitement of NFL being back is undeniable, but I have to admit, this season opener is a little less exciting than usual. Peyton Manning's retirement and the unknown Trevor Siemian working under center are the main reasons for it. However, in real football terms, there is probably not much missing for Denver from last year as Manning was just a name and a shell of his former self. But he was still Peyton and must-see TV every week for the fans. Tom Brady will be missing in action too due to his suspension and that takes a lot of excitement out of the Pats-Cards Sunday Night matchup. I am still excited for it as this is a very important season for Arizona. The Kaepernick story is still out there and I am happy and proud of him. He has really started something interesting here and the story is going much better than I expected for him personally. He is talking well on the issues, making some adjustments like kneeling instead of sitting during the anthem, attracting support from fellow athletes, and is raising general awareness on a tricky topic. Kudos and good luck to Kaep.

Kaepital Punishment!

Colin Kaepernick is being put through the wringer this week over the national anthem and flag controversy. He refused to stand up during the anthem in protest over the racial and social injustices happening in the great nation of ours. Every time some athlete refuses to salute the flag or refuses to stand for the anthem, he or she is asking for a lot of criticism and attention and Kaep should have expected this. He sounds like he is comfortable about making this statement and seems prepared to face the wrath of the general public. I commend him for his courage and for standing up for what he believes in. It's not easy to be the rebellious outsider and he is being one here despite his on-field and injury troubles. In general, most people, even his critics, seem to agree that this country bestows on him the right and freedom to protest in peaceful ways and they don't have a problem with that. I am on that boat as well. I am glad he is doing what he feels is right and I will never be the one to argue to take that right away from him. However, many people don't agree with his opinion and his approach here. Disrespecting the flag or the anthem is an emotional issue for most people and they are going to spew a lot of venom towards him.

A topic like this also becomes a political topic, especially in an election year, and is not confined to just sports talk shows. In any country, flag, anthem, nationhood, and military are all related concepts, but it's an even direct straight line from the anthem to the military in America. This is probably due to the fact that the country is pretty much in one war or the other at all times. So a lot of people look at any perceived slight to the anthem as disrespecting the military. In reality, the flag and the anthem stands for nationhood and is all encompassing. It is actually even bigger than the military, but many people see the military and veterans when they see the flag or hear the anthem. While insulting the concept of America and our nationhood is far more controversial in spirit, it goes after some abstract concepts and people are not that offended. But any criticism of the military is personal and directly offensive to many Americans. Military is too real and close to heart for people as they may have sons or daughters or cousins or neighbors serving right now. Or they may have lost their granddad or uncle to wars of the past. What Kaep is questioning here is certain fundamental concepts of our nationhood and how our culture works today. I don't think he is anti-military, but thats the perception he has to fight and the angle he has to explain whether he wants it or not.

Nothing changes without protests and major social ills are not easily reformed without disruptive and controversial movements. Aside from Kaep having the right to do this, I do relate to the issue and his cause as well. So, it's hard for me to criticize Kaep at a moral, ethical, or political level. But I am still going to criticize him for sports reasons. As sports fans, we all know his career has been in a downward spiral and is just returning from an injury which seems to have physically weakened him quite a bit. He does not need this distraction right now and the last thing he needs is for the league or teams to blackball him. It's also a huge distraction for his teammates at the start of a season which is probably going to be rough on them anyways. I always ask myself and others "is the juice worth the squeeze" when certain decisions has to be made. Basically you need to do a cost-benefit analysis at every turn in life. The juice is definitely not worth the squeeze for Kaep. He thinks he has a platform and is using it for the grater good of the society. He is, but his platform is not as big as he thinks it is. America loves winners and stars and he is neither right now. NFL will have no problem casting him side in a heartbeat. The platform is a lot bigger for Cam Newton or Tom Brady, not for Colin Kaepernick right now. Thats the sad truth.

At the end of the day, the flag is purely symbolic. Respecting or disrespecting the flag has very little effect on real life. He is going through all these pains for making a largely symbolic gesture while also risking his future. Instead, he would be better off continuing to tweet about it, join the "Black Lives Matter" movement, go on marches, or donate money to the cause. All those actions are a lot more impactful and much less controversial. It will have zero impact on his teammates or his future and achieve better results for the cause. You may ask if I am asking him to compromise his values or his beliefs for some peace or  a better career or more money. Isn't that spineless? Yes and no. Life is all about compromises. One of the reasons we like sports is that you either win or lose at the end of every game. There is a finality and clarity to it that our everyday lives rarely offer. Real life, unlike sports, is not binary and doesn't happen in black and white. It usually happens exclusively in the grey area. So compromises and finding an amicable way forward is often the most effective approach in life. I am all for disruptive movements, but 2016 Kaep with these niners is neither the right person, time, nor the place for this. If I were him, I would have found other ways to contribute to the movement in question. Thats just me and of course Kaep is his own man.

Kaep chose to do what he believes is the right thing to do.  I am OK with it, but I am afraid the country may not be. The supposedly liberal Bay Area will criticize him, but may not be that rough on him. His situation on the road will be much worse. Then again, he may not be in the team long enough to even get on the field either at home or away. He did not look good on the field last week and there are rumors that the niners might cut him. That can be another tricky situation for coach Chip Kelly because any action against Kaep will now be perceived as a reaction to this controversy even if the team just makes a purely football decision. Thats not good for Kelly who came in with some racial accusations leveled against him and did not cut Riley Cooper in Philadelphia after Cooper was caught using the N word. Now, a Kaepernick punishment will be compared to that and might even cause some resentment in the locker room. The other interesting aspect here is how racially divided the support or opposition for Kaep has been among his peers. Breaking news folks - race matters in America! Almost to the exclusion of everything else. Going after the flag or the anthem is always a ultra touchy subject and we may not have heard the last of this controversy. I will bottom line this as follows. I like athletes making socio-political statements. I support Kaep's right to protest peacefully and I even support this particular cause. But his particular method of protest is not smart and might end up distracting his team and hurting his own future. Also, the reaction he is facing is to be expected. I wish him good luck and he is going to need every bit of it.

Gold Rush

The Rio Olympics has finally kicked off. Glad it has begun given all the negative news around Rio and these games. When the events eventually start, things typically seem to work out fine.  Even if the issues persist, at least the focus and media's attention shifts to the games and the event is always declared a success. Unfortunately, some horrific injuries have headlined day 1. Hope things get better as the games continue.  Olympics and such big events in developing countries have mostly been financial disasters and nothing more than another avenue for corrupt politicians to get rich. Countries still keep going for it due to the egoistic visions of their powerful leaders. Sadly, the poor people in those countries are the collateral damage as always. I sure hope Brazil gets out of this misadventure in one piece and the games are a success when its all said and done. Let the gold rush begin!

Big day in baseball today. Ichiro Suzuki got his 3000th hit. A well-deserved milestone for an amazing hitter, arguably the best of this generation. His Seattle years were magical and even now at age 42, he is hitting 0.318 as a part-time player after a couple of sub-par season. I am a big fan of Ichiro and it was really nice to hear that the Mariners fans hung around after their home game to see him get the 300th hit on the jumbo-tron. He deserves that love given his work ethic and humility, which is uncommon state-side. In other baseball news, Alex Rodriguez, AKA a-fraud and pay-rod, woke up today and decided to retire just like that in the middle of the season. Quite unusual, but not his fault since he was requested by the Yanks to get the hell out! I am surprised he walks away with 696 home runs though. He may come back for 4 more later. A weird career that saw the highest of highs and lowest of lows.

A-Rod is one of the most hated athletes of this era who never came off outwardly as a mean, cocky, prima donna. But his fake humility and apparent decency wasn't enough to overcome the myriad lies and PED controversies and didn't go far in buying him fans' love or respect. The 450 million dollars he made playing baseball will go very far though. The man who signed the first 250 million dollar contract in American sports tore up the last 3 years of that 10-year contract only to sign another 10-year contract for 275 million dollars. The only silver lining here for the non-Yankee-fan like myself is that he stole and wasted mostly Yankees' mula and they are still on the hook for the year and change left on that contract. Good riddance is America's collective reaction to the news of his retirement and Yankee fan probably feels no different.

Mark Teixeira has also announced his retirement at the end of the season. While he is nowhere near A-Rod in terms of controversy or as a failure, I can't say Yankees got much out of him either for the 22.5 mill a year that they have been paying him. Yankees have been spending almost 50 mill a year between these two dudes and that might explain their mediocrity over the last few years. I guess the World Series in 2009 makes it all worth it and the Yankees should have a lot of money to spend and start a brand new chapter starting this winter. They also did well being the seller for a change at this trade deadline and have accumulated some nice, young assets. They traded Aroldis Chapman to the Cubs, Andrew Miller to the Indians, and Carlos Beltrán to the Rangers and got 10 minor leaguers in return. Hope we are not staring at another Yankee dynasty starting 2018!

Speaking of the trade deadline, those have been hot and heavy since the introduction of the 2nd wildcard spot a couple of years back. More teams are in the gold rush and the demand for the rentals are high these days. Sellers can get a lot and Yankees did real well. The A's, who have no middle ground and are usually selling aggressively or buying aggressively at the deadline, sent Josh Reddick and Rich Hill to the Dodgers, unintentionally strengthening the division rival of the A's cross-town rival Giants. I thought the A's surprisingly didn't get a whole lot in return, but only time will tell with all these prospects anyways. The Giants also won at the deadline since they got a good starter in Matt Moore and reliever Will Smith from the Brewers. These guys are not rentals and the Giants have them for the future as well. Texas Rangers did very well at the deadline adding Jonathan Lucroy and Carlos Beltran. With all these moves, we are set for the stretch run. The Giants and the Nats have already played 7 games over the last 10 days and the Nats are just 4-3 in those match-ups despite the Giants being in the middle of a horrible 6-14 run since the all-star break. May be this is indeed the Cubs year!

Tonight was supposed to feature the Hall-of-Game in the NFL, but it got canceled due to bad field conditions. Good call by the NFL and they should try and cancel most of the pre-season games to save the players health as well as the fan's wallet. Brett Favre and gang were enshrined yesterday night, but two thumbs down to the HOF for delaying Ken Stabler's induction and doing it the year after he passed away. He deserved to be in much earlier. Favre was the headliner, though Tony Dungy and Eddie Debartolo Jr were interesting inductions as well for me personally along with Ken Stabler of course. Now onto the games. NFL will consume our lives here shortly, but the NBA enjoys a good run in the summer these days with it's free agency. Russell Westbrook wrapped it up in style for the NBA this year with an extension in OKC. Glad he is staying back for a couple more years with the team that drafted him. He should put up some monster numbers next year and this signing gives Sam Presti a safety net and an opportunity to go after another star next year. The Thunder are still a good team and this signing can make them better long-term.

No more fundamental

Big day in the NBA today. Every day has been a NBA day lately. The association has been dominating the sports headlines since mid spring, and today, one of it's modern day legends hung up his spurs, pun intended. Tim Duncan retired after 19 seasons, 5 championships, 2 MVPs, 3 finals MVP, 15 all-star appearances, one all-star MVP, 10 all-NBA first team selections, and a rookie of the year award. Thats a career. If we all had a resume like that in our respective professions, we can all retire happy, fulfilled, probably rich, and more importantly with the ultimate currency - respect! Tim Duncan is in fact so universally respected and exalted, fans outside San Antonio never really connected with him the way they connect and derive joy by loving or hating their other superstars. Folks just looked up to him like he was some kind of a basketball unicorn that can't be hated and consequently, can't be loved either. His fundamentally sound big man's game wasn't as sexy to watch compared to the athletic wings. But he was a truly dominant big man at both ends of the floor. He played power forward in a center's body and soul. He played offense like a power forward and defense like a center and was great at both.

As we stand here in the modern NBA, Timmy might be the last great low-post scorer. There are your occasional low-post artists in Zach Randolph, Al Jefferson, and LaMarcus Aldridge still at work, but the "big fundamental" was the last dominant big man around whom a team's offense was built. Trends tend to be cyclical and may be low-post scoring will be back in fashion again someday. But until then, Duncan's videos is all we got, especially if we insist on watching low-post moves in HD. He was kind of a bridge between the old-school NBA and the the guard centric, 3-point loving, motion oriented new world. As he was aging, the NBA was also changing and coach Pop deftly transformed even the Spurs offense to leverage the younger scoring talents in Parker and Ginobli. This was one of Pop's biggest achievement and a huge reason for his sustained success. Speaking of Pop, aside from his on-field heroics, Timmy's biggest strength was his coachability, class, and unassuming demeanor. I can't think of a superstar in any sport with less of a visible ego, fanfare, and attitude. Supposedly, Pop was ruthless with him too and he let him be. Unthinkable in the NBA with any other star, let alone a MVP caliber superstar.

The only time Timmy said anything even remotely interesting or controversial was just before the 2014 finals rematch against the LeBrons when he actually said that the Spurs will get it done this time. That kind of bravado was uncharacteristic of Timmy and he did go out and back it up in the finals by beating that Heat team. It just showed how hurt he and the Spurs were with the 2013 finals loss. They were the better team and they blew it. So they had to come back with everything they got and put the Heat away. Ironically, that is the most memorable Timmy moment I could remember. For a star of his magnitude, he did not have too many memorable moments or even games that are etched in our memory and NBA's history. Of course as a Suns fan, I have to pretend that he didn't hit that 3 in OT in the 2008 playoffs that I remember like it happened yesterday. But even thats neither here nor there since it was only an early round playoff game. He sure was a big thorn in the Suns' side in all those memorable western conference playoff series between the 2 teams but never had a lot of signature moments. I love his nickname the "big fundamental", but even that is not quite as catchy as the "black mamba" or "the king." Thats Timmy in a nutshell. He came, he conquered with no drama, and now he is gone. We will miss him as he walks away the same year as Kobe putting an end to an important NBA era in our lives. 

In other news, the Durant tremor is still being felt. He was introduced last week and it's still the big news being discussed and analyzed across the league. Some folks are actually not as sympathetic as me towards OKC. They think OKC stole the team from Seattle and hence have nothing to complain with this loss of Durant. In any case, it's time to move on for the Thunder and it's going to be interesting to see what they do with Westbrook now. They sure can't afford to lose him as well without getting anything in return. He either assures them he will stay or he will be traded. Good story for the NBA fans either way. In MLB, the all-star break is here. I am not a big fan of the home run derby but it was fascinating to watch Giancarlo Cruz Michael Stanton tonight. That guy won the derby with ease and it's just amazing to watch him hit. He makes it look so easy and effortless. It didn't even look like he was breaking a sweat while crushing the ball 480 yards. John Carlos is the man!

Awesome Foursome.

Kevin Durant made his decision today. It was not what we were expecting and he pretty much shocked the NBA world. I sure was surprised that he picked the Warriors over the Thunder. We have a new super-team now, this one in the Bay Area and the region is going understandably nuts. They are already in serious love with the Warriors the last 2 years and this might push them over the edge. Never before in free agency has one of the best players in the league joined the best team in the league that won 73 games. It's incredible! The Warriors lost the finals to the Cavs, but many people including yours truly and definitely all the dubs fans strongly believe the dubs are still the best team in the league. Only a series of strange events conspired to derail them earlier this month in the finals. Now they have added Durant to that championship core. As much as we focus on free agency, the reality is, most top talent stay put. Rarely does a Durant move around even in this day and age. Even with it's rich history of multiple teams and championships, the Bay Area is currently ranking Durant as the top free agent pickup ever beating Barry Bonds and Deion Sanders for that honor. Most of it's stars much like anywhere else were home grown draftees - Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, Buster Posey, Madison Bumgarner, Mark McGwire, Rick Barry, Stephen Curry etc.

NBA free agency is fun, especially when a big name like Durant is in the market. You could legitimately make an argument that more people follow the NBA off-season than the regular season, which tends to be real long and dreary at times. It was not boring in the Bay Area last year with the 24-0 start and the 73 win pursuit and hopefully, it won't be next year either given we will all be following this super-team. But in your average NBA market, the regular season can be a drag. Playoffs are fun, but more so if your team makes it. If not, it is neither here nor there until the conference finals. But the off-season is a time of hope and change for all teams. Every team is trying and pretending to improve and the faithful is all in. As a Suns fan, I am excited for the combination of Jared Dudley, a 18 year-old Croatian, and a 19 year-old dude who fouled out of 15 of his 34 games in college. Thats hope for god's sake and thats the power of the draft and free agency. NBA entertains us with both. NFL draft is huge, but their free agency is so-so at best. MLB has a strong hot-stove but their draft is not relevant in the short-term.

So the Durant free agency was the top sports news this weekend. The pursuit is always fun and Boston's Danny Ainge took the cake by bringing in Tom Brady for the pitch. The dubs showed up with their big 3 and Iggy alongside the management. And then a Jerry West call probably swayed him as well as West supposedly told him his scoring will be a lot easier with the dubs and he can also showcase other aspects of his game. I didn't know Durant led the Thunder in rebounds per game until West told me that, through the media reports of course :-) Durant finally whittled his suitors down to Thunder and the Warriors and then came the announcement this morning setting the sports world on fire. It's not often such top talent switch teams in their prime. The LeBron's "decision" was big and he made it bigger by stretching it out and doing the stupid TV show. Durant kept this short, but when he did announce he is joining the Warriors, the reaction was understandably enormous. Dubs fans and players were elated and of course quite a few critics came out of the woodworks as well. Durant's own tweets and critical comments from the time of LeBron's "decision" didn't help matters for him.

Some people like P.J. Carlesimo say it is none of our business and Durant is free to do whatever he wants. Two things that appear to be contradictory can both be true sometimes. Of course Durant is a free agent and as the name suggests, he is free to do whatever he wants. But it is also our business to deal with it. If we didn't care, he won't be signing a 54 million dollar contract. It truly is none of my business when my teller quits Bank of America and joins Wells Fargo. I don't really care and consequently, the tellers make 35 grand a year at the high end. Athletes are in a public profession and are almost civic entities. Thats why they are celebrities and make millions, but our love, hate, criticism, and judgement is the price they pay for it. People like PJ need to understand it's not Joe Lacob paying Durant, but it's the average fan. Are you telling me an OKC fan shouldn't be upset or disappointed or critical of Durant today? The same guy who paid 300 dollars for a nosebleed seat for game 6 of the Western Conference finals to cheer for Durant? It's absolutely his business to pass judgement on this, though Durant is of course free to pursue liberty and happiness and whatever else he wants. Both are simultaneously true and please don't tell the paying fans what to do or not to do as long as it doesn't cross the legal or personal line.

It's going to be interesting to see where the reactions settle for Durant when it's all said and done. Is he going to be more hated or less hated than LeBron was after his "decision"? Thats the obvious comparison. I vote for less and there are key differences between the two. Obviously, first and foremost, LeBron's mishandling of the "decision" is the biggest differentiator, though it was effectively the same decision that Durant made today. Unlike LeBron, Durant's apparoach deserves no backlash. LeBron was also a local kid which made the blow harder for Cleveland to absorb. On the flip side, Cleveland at least had 3 major professional teams and the Cavs were pretty much an afterthought before LeBron showed up. Durant on the other hand was the "founding father" of the Thunder, to quote their GM Sam Presti, the only professional sports team in OKC. Also, Cavs had trouble surrounding LeBron with top talent and he left to chase rings. Durant is arguably leaving the second best team in the league to join the best team, a team that just beat him in the Western Conference Finals. So he sure looks a lot more like a band-wagoner who believes in the adage "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em." LeBron went and helped form a super team in Miami. Durant is joining a championship caliber team to upgrade it to a super team. Those are the differences and you are free to care or just say "same difference" to those.

LeBron's "decision" was bad in many ways, but one of the major problems was, it pioneered the idea of forming super-teams to win a championship. LeBron's move was the MJ of super-team formations. There are great athletes today who all grew up worshipping Jordan and mimicking him. Some of them are even better athletes than MJ, but he was the first and the inspirational force behind the modern day NBA athlete. Hence he is the most impressive and thats what makes him MJ! He created a trend that eventually gave us the Stromile Swift-Darius Miles era of amazing athleticism and unwatchable basketball where guys never learned to dribble, pass, and shoot, but could jump out of the gym with ease. Not to digress too much, but I might add that it took the league almost a decade to fix and cleanup that trend with some deft rule changes.

Coming back to the here and now, LeBron's "decision" is an original much like MJ and teams and stars are trying to replicate that approach. Thats why I don't think the backlash now will be anywhere near what LeBron endured in 2010. NBA tried to tighten the rules even more after the "decision" to help small market teams retain their own stars, but the sudden salary cap spike this summer did the Thunder in. To be fair to LeBron and Durant, they are not the first ones to leave their small towns at their athletic peak. Shaq left Orlando for LA right after a couple of deep playoff runs, but back then, he went for the bright lights and lifestyle. Not that it was a better reason for the league or for Orlando, but it was different. Kobe was barely a rookie who had not taken a single shot in the NBA yet when Shaq went. Shaq didn't go to form a super-team to chase a ring and thats a new trend, especially in free agency these days.

My first reaction to Durant's signing was a little bit of sadness on multiple fronts. It is great for the Warriors and even Durant, but I am always rooting for the underdogs. I also like the narrative of building through the draft and playing the entire career with the same team. So I was disappointed for both sides. It is of course a crushing blow for OKC. But even for the Warriors, one of the cool things about the current team was, it was basically home-grown via the draft and they won a championship building from scratch.  In fact, if Festus Ezeli had developed as planned and if Durant was not coming, they would have kept Ezeli and Barnes and become a home-grown starting 5 contending for a championship. Only Bogut and Iggy are outsiders among their key contributors. Championships thrill the fans in any shape or form with or without home grown talent. But I have to say, LeBron's ring in Cleveland is of course a lot sweeter than LeBron's ring in Miami. Some dubs fans would have loved for the team to stay as is and go back to the finals and defeat the same Cleveland team to avenge that shocking finals debacle. But they have now gotten a lot better by adding Durant in free agency. Dubs fans will be fine with that, especially if and when they win a ring. Nationally though, they have gone from a lovable team of young upstarts to the most hated super-team in a matter of 2 years.

But the real disappointment is in OKC. It should indeed be a dark day for NBA fans in Oklahoma. They have never had NBA without Durant. He came there with the team. They love their college football there, but Durant was the face of professional sports. Even from Durant's perspective, he walks away from a great civic relationship which could have been more special than Dan Marino in Miami or Tim Duncan in San Antonio or Tom Brady in Boston to name a few if he won a championship. Of course that was a big "if" and I have a feeling he probably didn't get an assurance from Westbrook that he would stay next year. It would have been a scary proposition for Durant if he was left alone holding the bag in OKC without Westbrook. That is not a recipe for a championship. But if he did win a championship there, it would have been special given he is the father and face of pro sports in that state. Imagine him retiring after 15 or 16 years at OKC with a ring or 2. Even without the ring, we are talking a statue in front of the arena, a street named after him, the most popular athlete ever ranking in the state, and probably offers to become the Lieutenant Governor. Thats legacy with a capital L and would have rivaled LeBron's in Cleveland. But instead, he took the easy way out and is chasing multiple rings with a super team. At the end of the day, we care only about winning and rings and the more he wins, the more we will forget the cute OKC narrative. Well, except for the OKC fans who will never forget.

OKC was really unlucky here more than anything. Teams like the Warriors and Spurs have no business being in contention here with that much cap room. The only reason that happened was the steep hike in this year's salary cap, just in time for Durant's free agency. OKC could have at least gotten some talent in return via a trade if Durant wanted to leave under the old cap regime and picked teams with no cap room. But the cap increase meant abut 21 teams could add a max salary and Durant was interested in 6 of them. The Warriors got in there despite their existing salaries and stole him with a sizable offer. Bad timing for OKC indeed. This is exactly why the league wanted a gradual increase in the cap, but the players union didn't agree and rightfully so as the league was getting a lot of money and the players wanted their fair share sooner than later. Thunder became the biggest collateral damage of the new cap regime. Hindsight is 20-20, but one has to wonder what would have happened if their ownership was willing to pay the luxury tax and keep James Harden on board. They had to pick Ibaka over Harden with that team, but if they had figured out a way to keep both, may be they retain Durant today. May be they are the best team in the league. May be they already have a championship and Durant doesn't have to leave. So many hypotheticals there. OKC sure wishes the cap had gone up when Harden was a free agent instead of now when Durant is. But this is how the cookie crumbles sometimes.

Now onto the basketball side of things. I think these dubs will be an awesome team with amazing results. Durant's game and attitude fits this roster well and the unselfishness will rub off on him enabling them to put on a show on the court. I can't wait for November. It will also be interesting to see how the scoring between Curry and Durant shakes out. Supposedly, Curry told Durant he couldn't care less about stats, awards, face of the franchise etc. The dubs are still Curry's team, at least in the Bay, where he is beloved. He will start this season as the face of the Warriors and then the performance will decide things. But his image has taken a hit nationally with the finals loss and mediocre performances after 2+ years of total, global love. Now he is seen as bringing in bigger help to guide him to the next ring. Of course none of that matters if he wins a ring or 3. Look at Dwayne Wade. He won a ring on his own and won 2 more with LeBron's help. LeBron's rings were totally his as Wade had embraced a decreasingly lesser role over LeBron's 4 years in Miami. Still those rings only add to Wade's reputation and hall-of-fame legacy. It doesn't diminish or hurt him in any way. He married Gabrielle Union in 2014 for god's sake! Wade's life is good.

LeBron went into Miami as an inferior scorer and people were wondering if Wade would be the lead dog with LeBron helping him out with everything. Those Scottie Pippen chants in year one were fun! But LeBron stepped up right from the first year and took over that team completely by year 3. Wade was also getting a little older and increasingly bothered by injuries. The dubs situation is a bit different as Durant and Curry are exactly the same age. Both can score at will and have no offensive deficiencies. Curry and gang are unselfish, but who gets more shots and who gets the last shot are still two interesting questions. Curry will be fine either way when he gets more rings, but it will still not be the same as winning those rings as the unquestioned alpha dog. He was part of an awesome big 3, but was clearly the leader. Now he has a big 4 in their absolute prime, but Durant might supplant him as the leader. We shall see if that happens and if that bothers Curry or anybody else for that matter. Curry and Durant should both get paid the new mega max deal next year and they have a 3 year window to win big. In 3 years, Klay will be a free agent again and I am not sure how they pay him too. None of us really understand the NBA cap rules and we will cross that bridge when we come to it. Plus, this ownership is rich, winning, making a lot of money, and willing to spend. So who knows what happens in 2019 with Klay's bird rights, luxury tax, etc. Until then, this will be a fun show.

The guy who do need to be careful right now is Steve Kerr. Super teams either win a championship or get the coach fired.  Kerr already has a ring and that should protect him through season one and two. But if he doesn't win one championship in the next 2 years, he will be fired. Coach up Mr. Kerr.

Anything but free

There is nothing free for the teams or for that matter the fans with the free agency period kicking off as we speak in the NBA. This is a much anticipated anticipated off-season due to a variety of reasons. NBA fans have been waiting for this summer since the new TV deal was announced almost 2 years ago. It will finally kick in now and push the salary cap past 94 million from the current 70 million. Thats a good 35% jump and it's expected to jump even more next year. So it's going to be a wild ride and it's literally going to rain millions on these ballers. The other reason this is big is because of Kevin Durant. He is a free agent and is talking to teams. Enough said! Last but not the least, the NBA is coming off an awesome playoffs where the individual games may not have been interesting, but the larger story-lines were gripping to say the least. This was followed by a fascinating draft with some intrigue and trades. So the interest in the association is currently high and the NBA fans are jonesing for any and all NBA news at this point.

Durant is the catch this year, though LeBron is also a free agent. I guess the King's camp has not planted any stories or sent feelers to any team. So it's assumed he stays in Cleveland and all eyes are on Durant instead. Warriors are among 6 teams including the Thunder that are legitimately chasing him. The Bay Area is still recovering from the finals. Fans can't wait for the start of the next season because they are so confident they are the best team and they will win it all again and avenge this season's defeat. I am not sure about all that, but I do agree with them in that they were at least the better team against the Cavs and lost mostly because the MVP didn't show up for the last 3 games and Klay didn't either in game 7. Now the Bay is buzzing with Durant talk. But the latest reports suggest that he might stay back in OKC. That warms my small-market liking, underdog supporting, home-grown talent craving cockles.

It's indeed a tantalizing prospect for all parties involved (except OKC of course) to imagine Durant with the Splash brothers, Iggy, and Draymond. The Warrior fans might want this not so much for what Durant can do for them, but more so for depleting the Thunder who finished the season looking every bit as good as the dubs, if not better. OKC has since traded Ibaka for Oladipo - a trade most people score for the Thunder, though I am still skeptical. Now there are rumors of them chasing Al Horford. Add another year of maturity to Steven Adams and another year under Billy Donovan, the Thunder may very well enter next season as the sexy pick more so than the Warriors. Of course it all starts with Durant and he should sign with them soon unless one of these other teams totally wows him during his meetings in Hampton. It should be an interesting weekend in the NBA.

While Durant is the headline, the real shocker is going to be the money that will be thrown across the league with every team having cap room to go with a desire to improve. DeMar DeRozan and Bradley Beal are both already signed with max contracts pushing 130 mill over 5 years! Kent Bazemore is supposedly worth 18 million a year and thats all you need to know to feel the craziness of this off season. Just to give you a perspective on the sky rocketing salaries, the aforementioned numbers dwarf the league MVP Curry's contract. Granted, Curry is in a unique, team friendly contract situation due to his injuries at the time of his signing and even Klay and Draymond are making upwards of 50% more money than Curry per year. But now we are going to see glorified role players like Bazemore make 65% more per year than Curry. And mediocre all-stars like DeRozan and Beal are going to make 130% more than Curry! The MVP can't wait for next year when he will be a free agent.

Speaking of Bazemore, supposedly Suns are interested in him as well. Suns are coming off a good draft where they drafted Dragan Bender at 4 and traded up to get Marquese Chriss at 8. Both are big guys with a lot of promise, though their games and bodies are very different. I was tempted by Kris Dunn at 4 since that guy is an awesome 2-way guard, but the Suns decided to draft for position rather than get another PG. I don't have major issues with it, but I do have to say that Dunn will probably be better than Bledsoe and Knight longer term. Now the Suns are trying to trade and sign some talent in free agency. It's a competitive market and I don't expect them to sign big names, but hope they get some good players and more importantly, don't overpay for bad players. Gone are the days when mediocre teams can sign stars if they had the money. Now, you have to either build your own stars via draft (think Warriors today or the TWolves tomorrow) or have enough money to lure 2 or 3 stars to join you to form a super team. Stars want a readymade situation that will put them in contention right away. Of course, you need some talent in-house to even lure those multiple stars to join and it's easier said than done to have all of this align perfectly.

Suns are clearly not there as far as a free agent destination this year and they are in the build through draft mode. Of course with Devin Booker, Bender, and to a lesser extent Alex Len and Chriss, they have a decent starting point. It would be nice to dump a couple of salaries at redundant positions like Brandon Knight and Tyson Chandler. But honestly, by this time next year, those large salaries will look like a steal in the new cap regime. It may not be a bad idea for the Suns to just keep them. Either way, lets enjoy the league-wide craziness this July. NBA off-seasons lately have been more interesting and intriguing that the regular season. But this year, NBA has delivered on all fronts throughout the year and lets' hope the momentum carries in to the summer and the next season. And lets hope we don't have an ugly drama like the DeAndre Jordan nightmare that Mark Cuban is still living through from last year's free agency. Keep it clean ballers!

King James shocks the world.

Game 7s of the NBA finals or the World Series are indeed special. We don't get many of those and it's the closest thing to a Super Bowl in those leagues. The stakes are of course sky-high and it's for all the marbles. The entire season, which is ridiculously long, is going to be decided by one game with no tomorrow. The game 7 yesterday decided the champion of a NBA season that featured more than 1300 total games, not to mention 2 long months of playoff basketball. The winner is the champion and the loser goes home with all kinds of regrets. While all of that is true for any game 7, yesterday's version involved even more story-lines and higher stakes. There were 4 reasons for that aside from the championship that was on the line.

These finals and game 7 pitted the top 2 talents in the league, LeBron and Curry, against each other. This regular season seemed to have displaced LeBron from the top and established Curry at the very apex of the league. It was widely accepted that Curry was a more potent NBA weapon than LeBron at this point. Of course, LeBron probably hated it and silently wanted his throne back. The 2 superstars had to duke it out in a game 7 to win it all and re-frame the NBA pecking order. LeBron won this round hands-down with a series of jaw dropping performances and grabbed the top spot from Curry, who was off most of the series. It's not that often the top 2 talents meet in the finals. Christmas night match-ups are cute and all, but Kobe and LeBron never met in the finals. LeBron and Durant have met just once so far despite their powerful teams. LeBron did meet Duncan thrice, but LeBron was too young the first time and Duncan was too old the last 2. So this LeBron-Curry matchup with both of them in their prime and facing off in a game 7 was indeed unique.

Also, this was not just 2 teams and cities competing for a championship, it was Cleveland. This city is supposed to be cursed and has been starving for a championship for 52 long years. LeBron bravely and may be even stupidly signed up to carry the weight of the city and that entire region on his shoulders when he came back last year. This also made this game 7 special, at least for Cleveland. Plus, the Warriors' record breaking season was hanging in a balance. Not everyday do we get a 73-win team fighting for it's legacy in a winner take all game. Last but not the least, the Warriors were ahead 3-1 in this series and no team has ever won a NBA finals after being down 1-3. Cleveland was going for a record-setting upset and the dubs were trying to avoid a historic choke job.

All of this culminated in a great game 7. It was nip and tuck all the way and the game was tied in the last 2 minutes. LeBron controlled the game on both ends of the floor and would not let the game get away from the Cavs. The splash brothers were off and couldn't pull away all night though Draymond gave all he had and willed the dubs into a first half lead. LeBron didn't shoot well, but he is a complete player who can do much more than just score. The most amazing stat of these finals might be that he was the first guy ever to lead both teams in a finals in points, rebounds, assists, blocks, and steals. Thats just ridiculous! At the end of the night, there were 4 key plays in the last few minutes that stood out for me that decided the game. Curry's behind the back pass and turnover, Festus Ezeli fouling LeBron on a 3-pointer, LeBron's incredible block on Iguodala, and of course Kyrie's clutch, go-ahead 3. As impressive as Kyrie's shot was, that LeBron block will be in the NBA highlight reel for decades to come.

LeBron promised a championship for Cleveland and delivered it in style after being down 1-3 in this series. He is now 3-4 in finals all-time and thats way better than 2-5, though losing this finals would not have dented his reputation that much given how great he was individually in games 5 through 7. Last year, he was impressive, but was not efficient since he had to shoot a lot. He had Kyrie by his side this year and finished the Warriors off. Not only did LeBron outplay Curry, Kyrie did too. Kyrie was unbelievable in that game 5 along with LeBron and he looked more like Curry with his outside shot than Curry ever did in this series. He averaged an impressive 27 points this series, not to mention the game winner in game 7.  If not for LeBron's brilliance, Kyrie would have been a legitimate finals MVP candidate. LeBron won his 3rd Finals MVP and this ring cements his legacy and puts him in a very special place. He won it for Cleveland and is his 3rd ring spread across 2 cities with completely different supporting casts. To me, this puts him above Kobe though Kobe has 5 rings. LeBron is a better player on the court than Kobe, and is now catching up to him on rings.

I wanted the Warriors to win this series just to legitimize their impressive 73 win season. It's no joke to win 73 games in a a season and they made it a fun season to follow. They were truly must-see TV ever since they started the season 24-0. I also like the personalities with the Warriors like coach Kerr, Curry, and Klay. They all seem genuinely humble and nice unlike LeBron's fake humility and contrived respect for his teammates. With all that said, I don't mind the championship for Cleveland at all. I was upset when LeBron left town and happy the day he returned. Granted, his megalomaniac acts since his return like the firing of the coach, playing GM, Tristan Thompson contract etc. pissed me off a little bit, but I still wanted him to win one for the land. Too bad, he is going to have even more control now that he is a champion and the unanimous finals MVP. But kudos to him for promising a championship to a down-trodden franchise and actually delivering it in 2 years.

What does all this mean for the historic Warriors? They are now in the conversation with the 2001 Seattle Mariners and the 2007 New England Patriots - teams that set the record for the best regular season in their respective sports, but failed to win the championship. Therein lies the problem. We remember those teams for all the wrong reasons and we will never forget these Warriors either. The lack of a championship diminishes the regular season record for sure. In some people's eyes, it might also put an asterisk on their championship last year since LeBron has now beaten them with his supporting cast that was injured last year during the finals. I am not into asterisks and frankly, we could slap a few on the Cavs win this year too. Draymond's suspension in game 5 was a huge momentum shifter. Then Bogut got hurt and Iguodala had a bad back that troubled him in game 6 and I don't think he was back to normal in game 7 either.

So the dubs seemed to have choked away a 3-1 lead by losing 3 straight games including 2 at their famed home. At least the thunder lost 2 out of the last 3 on the road when they lost to the dubs after being up 3-1. With that said, if you dig a little deeper, I think we can all agree that the circumstances conspired against the dubs. Thats not even taking any suspected Curry injury into account. They were still in it till the last minute of game 7 and I am not sure how much of a failure that is. Being a young team, they can win a ring again and it will be interesting to see how we look at this season if they win next year for instance like the Spurs who came back and won in 2014. Also, I am curious to see what the narrative will be in a couple of months with respect to Draymond's suspension and how that affected this series. There will be no sympathies for the Warriors of course, especially after the Joe Lacob article earlier this season where he claimed the Warriors were light years ahead of the rest of league (bad karma??). They sure can't shake away this unexpected, shocking, and monumental collapse. The first 3-game losing streak under coach Kerr came at the worst possible time. This will stick with the franchise forever.

But the Warriors still have a lot to look forward to and Vegas has already installed them as the favorite for next year. Curry hopefully improves his ball handling this off-season and cuts down on his crazy turnovers which could be a big blessing in disguise. Dub-nation is understandably disappointed, but this was a magical season and their team was in it till the last minute of the last possible day of the NBA playoffs. The players will have a challenging summer and have to come back poised and stronger. The reality is, though they were the reigning champs, they are not very experienced. They jumped literally overnight from being the 6th seed in 2014 to winning the ring in 2015. During the previous round, there was talk about how Durant and Westbrook had so many more playoff rounds under their belt than these Warriors. The Splash brothers are still young and were over-confident and confused at some points in these finals. They can grow from this and come back stronger. I know it's hard to keep going back to the finals, especially in the wild West, but I want a round 3 next year between these 2 heavyweights. The Cavs were hurt last year and the Dubs dealt with suspension and injuries this year. Lets get a totally healthy, suspension-free rubber match next year.

Did the "evil" NBA mess this up?

The Los Angeles Lakers won the 2002 NBA championship. But they were not the best team that year. That was the Sacramento Kings. The Western conference finals that season was between the Lakers and the Kings and that was the de-facto finals. A statement that seem to ring true for the Western conference finals about 9 out of 10 seasons. The East was represented by Jason Kidd's NJ Nets who were eventually swept by the Lakers in the finals and would probably have been swept by the Kings too if they had made it. The Kings had home court against the Lakers and they actually lost game 1. It was one of the rare occasions where a team, the Kings, seemed to be headed towards a so-called gentleman's sweep in 5 games despite losing game 1 at home. They won game 2 at home and game 3 at Staples. They were really the better team in game 4 and it took a couple of offensive rebounds and a buzzer-beating 3 by Robert Horry in Lakers' final possession for them to win and tie the series at 2. Kings were still fine since they had 2 of the 3 remaining games at home and were really playing well. They won game 5 easily at home and then there was the fateful game 6 at Staples.

That game 6 in the 2002 WCF was one of the worst officiated game in the history of the league - a league that is constantly under scrutiny for bad officiating. It was so bad that former presidential candidate and consumer advocate Ralph Nader called for a formal investigation. This game later came to be known as one of the Tim Donaghy games as the disgraced and corrupt referee made some accusations about how the league wanted to give that game to the Lakers and extend the series. That news came out years later. But even as I was watching the game live, I could tell something was really messed up. Back in the day, the Lakers-Kings was THE rivalry. It had Shaq, Kobe, and Phil Jackson on one side and Chris Webber, Mike Bibby, and beautiful basketball on the other. That Kings team was almost as much fun as the 7-seconds or less Suns teams and the current Warriors squad. Everybody knew the TV ratings for the finals against the Nets would come nowhere near the ratings for this series. And a game 7 would be just what the doctor ordered for the NBA and the TV networks. 

So it was petty obvious to me watching that game 6 that the NBA was engineering a game 7 by favoring the Lakers and punishing the Kings. Kings fans would tell you that the NBA also wanted the bigger market Lakers in the finals and I don't blame them. I tend to give the benefit of the doubt to people and I always assumed the NBA just wanted a game 7. They didn't care who won game 7, though they obviously didn't mind the Lakers winning. I thought the league's evil thinking was that the Kings deserved to win, and since they have a game 7 at home, let's give game 6 to the Lakers and call a fair game 7, which the Kings should win anyways. They did call a fair game 7, but the Kings just could not handle the pressure of a game 7 and lost in OT. They couldn't hit free throws and barely shot 50% from the charity stripe and were much worse than even Shaq, a notorious free throw shooter. It was a shame as the NBA got it's game 7, but the Kings were innocent bystanders who paid dearly. That Kings team never sniffed the championship thanks to that game 6. 

Fast forward to this year's finals and you can see where I am going with this story. The NBA reviewed the LeBron-Draymond incident from game 4 and assessed a flagrant 1 to Draymond knowing fully well that Draymond will be suspended for game 5 because of that. While Draymond does seem to unfailingly connect with opponents genitals with his flailing arms and legs, his reaction when LeBron stepped over him was not that egregious. The NBA could have easily let it slide. I do understand that Draymond's history does matter, but thats the only thing that seemed to have mattered in this case as what he did was  definitely not a flagrant foul if viewed in a vacuum. This is what happened in my opinion. NBA basically looked at the 3-1 series score and decided to look principled and strict. They figured Warriors should win this series anyways and didn't mind if the series got extended a bit. So they decided to punish Draymond and teach him not to flail all the time and make sure he kept his hands and legs tight. This is all good theoretically, but just as in 2002, man proposes and God disposes. You can't play God and neither can the NBA. 

NBA's actions resulted in the dubs losing game 5 at home. Now the dubs still have 2 more shots, but only one of it is at home. Also, Bogut got hurt in game 5 and is now out for the series. So the NBA basically made this series a lot harder for the dubs. Cavs have a good shot at winning game 6 tomorrow at home and then we are down to a 1 game series where anything can happen. What if Kyrie or LeBron goes crazy like they did in game 5? What if the Warriors are hit with more injuries? Even if the NBA thinks they are not be altering the course of the series or history with such actions, they could be doing exactly that. They can't assume anything. They have to work with a clear conscience and act pure. Sneaking in an extra game here or there for TV money and hoping the series plays out the same way is too dangerous and 2002 showed us that. If the dubs lose this series, the NBA also loses a good story around this 73 win dubs season as their season will be unfulfilled. But I guess it all pales in front of the almighty dollars. I am not saying Draymond is an angel and his repeated genital connections must be ignored, but NBA could have assessed him a technical instead and taken him closer to a suspension given the circumstances. Instead, the league suspended him, scored some extra games, and now runs the risk of messing with history. 

I do hope for the sake of the 73-win dubs team and their fans that 2002 doesn't repeat itself. The dubs better wrap it up tomorrow on the road much like they did last year. They can and I sure hope they do to avoid what could become a major self-inflicted controversy for the NBA. The dubs are the better team, but the team that plays better wins the game. Those are 2 slightly different things though the better team has the higher probability of playing better every game. But better teams can play bad and inferior teams can play great. Thats exactly what that happened on both sides in game 5. Kyrie played way above his norm and even LeBron, who is great almost always, shot way better from range than he has done all year long. Dubs on the other hand had a sub-par outing, especially Stephen Curry. Sometimes experts and players just say "shots didn't go in" or "shots went in." It sounds too simplistic and even cynical, but thats just another way of saying you are playing better than your norm or worse. When you play better, that means you are making shots, grabbing rebounds etc. When you are playing worse than your talent and skill level, shots you usually make aren't going in. Thats the situation Curry is in right now. In a seven game series, the better team typically wins because the better team is more likely to have more better games than the inferior team. If you believe in regression towards the mean, dubs should win this series because they are the better team. But Curry has to hit his mean streak soon for that to happen.

One more to go!

There will probably be just one more game this NBA season. Of course, Warrior fans are not complaining. They finally get an opportunity to win and celebrate at home. Despite the innumerable number of teams and championships in the Bay Area, the last team to clinch a championship at home was the A's in 1974. The A's did win one World Series against the SF Giants in 1989 who are also from the area, but the clinching game was technically on the road at the Stick in San Francisco. Super Bowls are always at neutral venues though the Niners won one in 1985 at Stanford Stadium, which is just a short drive from the Stick. Aside from those, the Giants and the Warriors have never clinched at home. The dubs should get it done Monday night, with or without Draymond, to wrap up this record-breaking season. It has been a magical season for the dubs fans and when a record-breaking season like this rolls around, the entire NBA fan base has something to follow and cheer for or against every day. It's been a fun season that way and we will all miss it starting Tuesday.

The Cavs are not really in the same league as the Warriors. Game 3 was an aberration as this Warriors team does have a tendency to not show up sometimes. And of course they lost by 30 as the Cavs came with a do or die mentality. The dubs looked more like themselves in game 4 at both ends of the floor and the result was predictably a win. Every time they lose, coach Kerr always blames it on the lack of ball movement and all the dubs players regurgitate the same theory in front of the media. Some talking heads have made fun of that theory by pointing out that a whole number of the dubs' successful possessions and game winners involve Curry dribbling and shooting - Curry's own version of hero ball.  But then a stretch like the 4th quarter in game 4 shows you how much the dubs move the ball and how fluid the offense is in contrast to the "stand around and watch Kyrie and LeBron  dribble" offense that the Cavs ran. The same was true with the Thunder in game 6 and 7 as their superstars resorted to hero ball when push came to shove.

Sure, Curry and even Klay have a green light to dribble and shoot anytime, but they do also generate a lot of those shots via ball and people movement. Kerr also makes this point that all that activity puts the team in the right rhythm even if it ends with Curry jacking up a 30-footer. Some people seem to miss that point. The dubs offense is more that just Curry dribbling and shooting and it's most evident when the bench is playing and scoring with relative ease. Kerr and staff deserve a lot of credit for implementing a system that showcases the splash brothers, but also works well for the others. Speaking of the Splash brothers, they actually were pretty mediocre in the finals until game 4 and the dubs still won the two home games thanks to their bench. They finally showed up in game 4. Curry seemed to me like he was still only at 85 to 90 % of his usual dominant self, but that was good enough to drop 38 points on the Cavs and impress. The game was close, but the dubs took control like they usually do in the second half and strangled the Cavs offense into submission. At least it was not a blowout like the previous 3 games in the series.

Blowouts have been one of the recurring themes of these playoffs since there have been too many of them. Teams routinely win by 30 at home and lose the next game on the road by 30 for a 60 point swing in 3 days! The only thing funnier than that is how the entire national media and so-called experts have been swinging back and forth wildly in their assessment of the series and teams with each of these games. Even the Warriors were looked at as being slightly suspect after game 3 despite them having proved them all wrong by coming back from 1-3 deficit against the Thunder. That series, which captured our collective imagination, was full of drama and twists and turns, but was also devoid of close games. There have been 10 games decided by 30 or more this playoffs equaling the total number from the last 3 seasons combined. My theory is, these blowouts are partly random happenstance and partly because of how today's game is played. Offenses are pretty explosive these days and powered by solid 3-point shooting. So if they get on a roll at home and the visiting team falls asleep for a bit, the game gets out of hand quick. A 15 point lead today is probably nothing more than a 7 point lead back in the 90's.

Speaking of the 90's, I was watching the 30-for-30 feature on Reggie Miller's heroics against the Knicks and I couldn't help but notice that almost every single game was decided by 2 or 3 points and every game seemed to be decided in the last minute. This years' playoffs show us that the game has indeed changed since then.

RIP, the GOAT

Muhammad Ali's death yesterday shook the sports world. He is widely considered the Greatest of All Time (GOAT) and his impact goes way beyond the boxing ring. He had a very interesting and impactful life and is highly respected in the black community. Men of a certain age of all races revere him, but black men who had the opportunity to grow up in that era especially appreciate a lot of his activist struggles and what it meant to their lives as well as the society at large. When Sports Illustrated ranked the best athletes of the 20th century, Ali was 3rd behind MJ and Babe Ruth. It's amazing MJ was higher than even Ali, but you can't go wrong with anybody in that top 3. I am usually not the one who wishes I had lived in certain eras to have experienced certain things. I have seen MJ play, but I am perfectly happy learning about Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson, or Wilt Chamberlain from books or movies or journalists who have seen them play. But I do wish I lived through the Mohammad Ali era for all the political and social impact he created, though I don't even watch boxing. As a sports fan, I feel like I would have followed him closely and learned a lot about myself as well as the social construct and cultural context of that time. Ali's refusal to be drafted for the Vietnam war resulted in him losing the right to box in any state for over three years. Jeremy Schaap made an interesting point on ESPN. Losing 3 years of your prime in your mid 20s is a really high cost to pay and while that makes Ali's stand a very principled and courageous one, he deserves even more credit in reality because he didn't know the punishment going in and it could have been much worse than those 3 years. Ali was a unique athletic and social phenomenon and he will be sorely missed. RIP!

On the court, the Warriors seem to be cruising to their second championship. Game 1 did not go well for the Cavs as Curry and Klay stunk up the joint, but the dubs still won the game convincingly behind Shaun Livingston and his bench brothers. The media at large is saying that dubs should win the series now and game 1 was probably the best opportunity for the Cavs to have stolen one on the road given the splash brothers were MIA. But I had the same opinion even before game 1. Warriors are a way better team than the Cavs and I thought if they came into game 1 lackadaisical, the Cavs can upset them. Now that game 1 is done, game 2 is probably the best shot for the Cavs to win a road game rest of the way. They will come in with a lot of energy anyways and it's possible the dubs get bored or careless for a stretch or two. It's inconceivable that I am even saying this about the NBA finals, but the dubs are that good and I can see them losing a game or two just because they don't show up with all seriousness and get distracted. There may be a few more "break the clip board" moments for coach Kerr, but they will figure it out and wrap this series up in 5 or 6. The Thunder series was the real test for the dubs and it should be smooth sailing rest of the way. The only intrigue might be the finals MVP award and the media is already beating up on Curry for not winning the finals MVP last year. This Curry hating is getting ridiculous and he might go chasing the MVP just because he could. Even in game 1, he forced a couple of bricks when LeBron was switched on him. You could tell that matchup meant something to him and his ego. Lets see if he goes full-on "hero ball" to win the MVP. The bottom-line is , the Cavs don't defend well and thats their problem in this series. They are good offensively, but anything Cavs can do on offense the dubs can do better. Except LeBron. He is the only thing in the Cavs that worry the dubs and he might have to go 2015 finals mode to salvage this series. He started game 1 on fire, but he has to try and stay on fire through the rest of this series, especially on the road. That may be the Cavs only hope.

Not 1, not 2, not 3 ….

If you can't win game 6 at home after leading by 13 at one point, how are you going to win game 7 on the road? So the Thunder were not going to win game 7 at roaracle, but they do deserve a lot of credit for showing up and making it another fantastic game! Granted, game 6 will be remembered as the game that legitimized the "Klay gonna Klay" phrase. We are used to "Steph gonna Steph," but Klay deserves his own catch phrase and glad the entire NBA world saw how good a player he is after that game 6 explosion. But still, the Thunder did collapse at their offensive end in that game against some stout D and game 7 at Oakland was not going to be easy, with or without Klay going Klay. According to Michael Wilbon, Spurs guard Tony Parker apparently believes the Warriors get an extra lift from the Oracle crowd, more than the home court edge teams enjoy at other loud home gyms across the league.

With all that said, we knew Durant and Westbrook would bring it to game 7 and so would the tough kiwi Adams, but the entire team brought it as well until the late third quarter. Westbrook's shooting was off as always, but he was also relentless as always. This was a team that legitimately looked better than the 73-win Warriors team for large stretches of the series and that continued through the first half of game 7. They deserve a lot of credit for that. Not to digress, but thats one of the reasons I think Durant stays in OKC. He has a good team in his hands. But the dubs have something the Thunder, and quite frankly ever other team in the history of the league, do not have. That is, they don't have the best and the second best shooter in the history of the league - not right now, not in this era, but in the history of the game. Klay and Curry won this series and Curry's performance in game 7 was spectacularly MVP-like. Thunder couldn't handle these guys and no shame in that - most teams have tried and failed all season long.

Now we have the finals we all wanted. It's funny that after all this drama and a gazillion regular season and bazillion playoff games, we get the finals we all predicted last fall! This is one of the reasons some fans think NBA is boring and predictable, an opinion I violently disagree with. But the 7-game series does mostly push through the better team and that's only fair after a 6-month long regular season. Sure, it does make it a little more predictable, but it's better and more interesting in the long run. We get the Cavs and the dubs in the finals again and this should be a dandy given that both teams are better now than last year. We have a healthy big-3 on the Cavs, but unfortunately for them, the dubs are improved too and let me kill all the suspense right now. The dubs will win this one in 5 or 6 games tops. They will have an easier time against the Cavs than they did against the Thunder. Cavs are a better shooting team than the Thunder, but they don't have the length and defensive chops to disrupt the dubs. 

I do want to give props to LeBron James though. He is going to his sixth straight finals with 2 different teams and thats just insane! When LeBron "took his talents to South Beach," they threw an welcome party where LeBron was talking about multiple championships. He said "not 1, not 2, not 3.." and just kept on going. It became a butt of many jokes as he lost his first finals with the Miami Heat. He doesn't have six or seven championships and is probably not getting one this year either, but making it to 6 straight finals is pretty darn impressive! Reminds me of the Bills going to 4 straight Super Bowls and losing all of them. It's hard to make it to 4 straight SBs and there is no loser gene in that. Same here with LeBron. It's a tribute to his greatness, that he has consistently taken his teams to the NBA finals, albeit in a slightly inferior LEastern conference.  We all know the LeBron story. He was enemy number 1 when he bolted Cleveland to Miami. He won a lot of respect back when he won the two championships in Miami, but he was still not well-liked. 

LeBron didn't do anything wrong when he chose where he wanted to play in a free market, but like I have said many time before, neither did the fans. They have every right to like him in Cleveland and hate him in Miami. Fans are the paying customer and they reserve the right to root for or hate any player, jersey, team, story, and narrative of their choice. LeBron messed with the fan's preferred narrative when he announced his "decision" to move to "South Beach," but he won a significant number of fans back including yours truly when he came back to Cleveland last year with a carefully orchestrated "I am coming home" letter. Now, he is ironically becoming almost a sympathetic figure as he is staring at a 5th finals loss against only 2 rings. Even some talking heads are openly rooting for him and of course his advancing age and Cleveland's checkered sporting history littered with many heart-breaks adds to that sympathy. But sympathy does not make a champion. LeBron has to bring the best version of his basketball self to this finals if he wants to close the deal. Whether he wins this time around or not, he deserves mad props for making it to his 6th straight finals. He is an unique player and lets enjoy his talents while we still have him in the league.