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.

Trey Thompson!

The best 2 guard in the NBA saved the Golden State Warriors' season tonight. After stinking up the joint in OKC twice to go down 3-1, the dubs season seemed doomed. We expected them to win game 5 at home, but sooner than later, they had to go back into OKC for this game 6. Nobody knew what to expect and the smart money was on the Thunder closing this one out and sending the dubs' 73 win season to an unceremonious and premature end. The concern for the dub-nation was not that they lost 2 road playoff games - that happens sometimes, but how they lost those. They were dominated and Thunder's length and athleticism seemed to bother and throttle the best team in the league. Draymond has been completely off the entire series and Curry has been mostly off. Draymond had a tough job going against players 3 to 6 inches taller who are also more athletic than him. He usually has some kind of an edge on one of these aspects against his opponents, but not in this one. Curry is usually impervious to any kind of defense and it's even hard to say what can ever slow that dude down. But he is definitely slowed down this series by the combination of Westbrook and their lanky, athletic defenders on switches. Given all this, they barely won game 5 even at home and it was not clear if they can get that one win they need on the road and force a game 7 at home.

But one man will not have any of these doubts and theories and decided to go down firing on all cylinders. It was the younger and understated splash brother. Klay Thompson single handedly kept the dubs in the game all night. The dubs problems from the previous games seemed to be all there in the first half and well into the fourth quarter - turnovers, thunder's offensive rebounding, sub-par shooting by Curry, strong outing by Durant and Russ, etc. etc. etc. Klay himself started with some rough shooting, but quickly turned it around. He then went on many runs of his own and looked every bit like the MVP when Curry is on one of his crazy rolls. Klay has been fighting and showing up every game this series and almost single-handedly brought them back in game 4 but the hole was too deep to dig out of. Today, the Warriors didn't let the Thunder run away. Thunder always led by 5 to 13 points and it seemed like the dubs can't close in and take the lead. Klay kept shooting and shooting for a playoff record 11 threes. Some of them where from Curry range and most of them were contested and almost all of them featured his ridiculously quick release. I was amazed more by his courage than his accuracy. He took some shots with this record-breaking season hanging in a balance and with the entire world watching. He just rose up and kept making treys.

Klay's shot from way out there at the top with less than 5 mins to go with the dubs trailing 96-89 and the other 3 from the wing to un-tie the game and give the dubs the lead with 1:35 to go after a Iguodala steal  were both season-saving treys. KD and Russ are getting killed tonight for playing "hero ball" as they had a tough shooting night and OKC also collapsed at the end. This finish was part Thunder's ineptitude and part dubs' brilliance. But Klay kept the dubs in the game all night and Curry joined him at the end to kick off the splash show. The rest of the team D'ed up with key contributions as always from Andre Iguodala on both ends of the floor. The thing that makes Klay the best shooting guard in the league is his defense in addition to his marksmanship. The guy is relentless and is never tired. He chases the best wing player on the other team at one end and constantly moves without the ball on offense with no sign of ever tiring. Sure, the attention Curry attracts on offense helps him, but on nights like these, the reverse is true too. Klay is one of the best shooters in the history of the game, but just the second best shooter in his own team. So it's easy to overlook him. I am glad he is finally getting the props he deserves as many talking heads like Marc Stein and the Chuckster are starting to call him the best 2-way 2 guard in the league. James Harden can score at will, but he also gives up half of those at the other end with no effort. Klay is way more of a complete player at that shooting guard spot. Tonight, he got the dubs that coveted game 7 at home. Now they have to finish the job. It's not going to be easy as Durant and Westbrook fear no one and slow down for nobody. But I expect the dub nation to close it out at home.

Ex-Rockets coach Rudy Tomjanovich gave us this memorable quote during their second championship run - "Don't ever underestimate the heart of a champion!" Warriors seem to be adding to that legend. Game 6 was a question mark. Klay made it an exclamation point with a signature, breakout playoff performance to the tune of 41 points. Game 7 can't be this hard for the Warriors if they keep their calm. Can't wait!

Drub Nation

The dubs were punched in the mouth today. This has never happened to the Steve Kerr era Warriors in the playoffs and in this magical season, not even in the regular season. The closest game that comes to mind is the 32 point drubbing they suffered at Portland right after the all-star game. Of course this game today carried way more gravitas than that mid-season contest. Not only was this a playoff loss, it was game 3 of the Western conference finals with the Warriors having split the previous 2 home games. Dubs need a road split to restore home court and they got the exact opposite tonight. They weathered the storm in the early first quarter and handled the energy boost OKC enjoyed being in front of their crowd, which is typical for home teams in such situations. They played decent defense, though the Thunder kept making shots and on offense, they had their opportunities and converted a good portion of them. They admirably tied the game at 40-40 in the second quarter and the game looked set for a fantastic finish, even a victory for the defending champs.

And then the bottom underneath the Warriors caved in and the game got out of control in a hurry. Ron Burgundy's "that escalated quickly" is the best line to describe what happened. Thunder ambushed the dubs and the champs looked rattled and helpless for the first time all season. Thunder defended better, ran faster, shot better, dunked more ferociously, and you could see their confidence was growing with every possession. All you need to know is, Dion Waiters was unstoppable and he was probably the 5th best Thunder on the floor. To be fair to Dion, he has had a great playoff run and the Thunder seem to go as he and the other role players go. There is no stopping Durant and Westbrook most of the time and the Thunder are unstoppable if some combination of Waiters, Roberson, Ibaka, and Foye are hitting 3s. On the other side, Kerr said Draymond is the heart and soul of the Warriors sometime last season and is still very true. They do not do well when he has a bad game and when they don't play good defense. Those two things are usually related since he is also one of their best defenders. Tonight, Draymond had a horrible game and their defense was impotent to say the least. This combination resulted in a serious drubbing.

But Draymond stole the headline for one big, wrong reason. He was fouled on a drive to the hoop by Steven Adams and he ended up kicking Adams in the groin as he was flailing and throwing his leg around. The score was 48-40 when that happened and seemed to ignite the 32-7 run to end the half and basically the game. More importantly, the key question now is, is Green going to be suspended? That leg kicking is a common move by guys to attract the attention of the referee to call a foul. But in this case, I did feel like his leg went a little higher and looked slightly unnatural. But I have to agree with Draymond in that it looked to me like he didn't even knew what went down and seemed to just walk away without even looking at Adams. So I am not sure how intentional it was. But the impact was a painful blow to Adams' privates and a similar incident caused Cleveland's Dahntay Jones' suspension. A Green suspension will definitely put the Warriors behind the eight ball in a series where all of a sudden, they look like the inferior team even with him. It's amazing how quickly perception changes and a poll on ESPN tonight places the dubs in the third place to win the championship after the Cavs and the Thunder.

As a long-suffering Suns fan who lost a real shot at championship in 2007 when Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw got suspended when they left the bench, I would hate a playoff series to be decided by suspensions. Also, this is not a cut-and-dry situation that David Stern wanted the "leaving the bench" scenario to be. There is some wiggle room here for the league to not suspend Green for this. But they are in a tough spot too because they just suspended Dahntay Jones and this is the second time in 3 games Green has connected with Adams' privates. It's going to be very interesting and Green's suspension is the last thing the dubs need. They are already looking very vulnerable with the drubbing they received today which was very reminiscent of how they usually beat other teams. Steven Adams has been a key in this series for the Thunder, actually throughout these entire playoffs, and he changes a lot of the Warrior shots and passes in the interior. But they also outplayed the Warriors in small ball during that avalanche of a run in the second quarter. Experts are now saying the Thunder basically looked like the better team with their athleticism and speed even against the so-called death lineup.

When you see something you have not seen all season, you wonder if this is something different, special, and more indicative of a larger trend or problem. Game 1 was about the dubs having a sub-par fourth quarter and missing 9 out of 10 threes. They still were just down by 3 in the final minutes and you figured if they shoot better and fix a few things, they will be fine. Thats exactly what happened in game 2. But this loss was different from that game 1. The dubs were down by 41 at one point and looked completely outclassed at both ends of the floor. This game can only boost OKC's confidence ad drive them to greater heights even if the champs are strong enough to not let this plant doubts in them. They have been down 2-1 in the past, but it looks different this time because this Thunder team is better than any other team the dubs have played over the 2 playoff runs. Last year's Grizzlies and Cavs team lost the next 3 games to lose the series after owning the aforementioned 2-1 lead. It's highly unlikely this Thunder team is headed in that direction. Warriors need Green in game 4 to have a shot. If not, they may be playing to avoid a 3 game losing streak themselves soon. At the end of the day, it is just one blowout and the series is just 2-1, but it does feel more dire now. Can't wait for game 4 so we learn more about these two teams.

Up north, the Raptors will show us tomorrow if they are for real or if they are just setting us up for one of those typical 5-game sweeps with a token home win that we see all the time in the NBA playoffs.

Unanimous!

Stephen Curry has impeccable timing and a flair for the dramatic. He had one week for the ages. He came back from his injury on Monday and after looking rusty through the game, just took over and dominated the overtime to the tune of 17 points in 5 minutes. That flurry clinched game 4 for the Warriors and hence the series. They sure could not have won that game without Curry. Van Gundy was wondering during the previous game if Curry and Dame were just about the same and I guess he got his answer. Seventeen points in 5 mins became the biggest news in sports right in time for his MVP coronation the next day. The voting ends with the regular season - it's the regular season MVP after all, and nothing would have changed, but we might have heard some murmurs about Curry's MVP'ness if he was still injured and the dubs were doing well without him when the announcement came out. How valuable can he be for the league if his own team barely misses him? It's not a fair question because this is one of the deepest and versatile teams in the league and it's a credit to that team that they can manage without him. But some talking heads are stupid enough to misconstrue this playoff run as proof that Curry is not all that he is made out to be. Curry put an end to all that talk even before it started by showing up, setting a historic OT record, and totally showing the world what he can do even when rusty.

Even Charles Barkley on TNT was left speechless. He bumped this Curry performance over LeBron's 29 out of the last 30 points against the Pistons in the 2007 playoffs. I saw both live on TV and I have to say, despite me being a bigger fan of Curry than LeBron at this point and any possible recency bias, I have to give a slight edge to the 22-year old LeBron's performance in 2007. May be I am spoiled by the 15 to 20 point scoring binges Curry and even Klay routinely go on with this dubs team. Regardless of how we rank these, we are lucky to be watching these exemplary performances. I do have to say it's easier to enjoy this type of greatness when we support the team and the player or at least are neutral and have no dog in the fight. I can't even imagine how the Portland fans felt when Curry went that crazy! I guess owner Paul Allen's expression said it all. Blazers did fight all the way to the bitter end as it took another awesome dagger 3 by Curry at the end to wrap up game 5 at home. He did it on the night he was presented with the MVP in front of the home fans. It was an unanimous MVP award and deservingly so.

There were a few murmurs about the unanimity of his selection. Tracy McGrady somehow took that as a sign that the league's talent is watered down. League's talent level fluctuates. Of course when Michael Jordan was playing, the peak was at it's highest and then when he retired, the peak dropped. But then again the depth of top talent might be a different story to analyze.  I don't know if I have all this calibrated except to say MJ was the best ever, and neither has Tracy McGrady. There is a little bit of a dip in the talent right now as LeBron, Wade, and Carmelo are beginning to slow down and Kobe and Tim Duncan are completely done. The younger ones like Dame Lillard, Wiggins, KAT, and Anthony Davis are barely developing. There is still ample talent in it's prime and Durant and Westbrook come to mind along with LeBron. But Curry is the best of the best right now and there can be no argument against his unanimous selection. It's not his problem that some nut-job reporter or 2 in the past years screwed up unanimous selections of Shaq and others. All we can say now is, Curry's unanimous selection is well deserved. He led the league in scoring, which is the primary MVP stat, and also steals per game. The team won a record-setting 73 games.

Playing for the best team - check. Best player in the best team - check. Best player in the league right now - check. Most exciting player in the league - check. A ridiculous, record-setting 405 3-pointers in a season - check. Thats an unanimous MVP to me. Not sure what more TMac wants. LeBron then came out and said a few things about the differences between the best player in the league and the MVP of the team, etc. I was a little confused and I am not even sure if he was dissing Curry, but these things are always going to be misconstrued and it is being interpreted as anti-Curry, at least in the Bay. There seems to be some resentment of Curry's accolades among players and ex-players and it's hard to understand. MVP votes are cast by the writers. They are a key stake-holder and so are the players, coaches, and fans. Each group has their own perspective and we have to respect them all. But I do think the player's perspective is too skewed in favor of athleticism, one-on-one skills, and individual scoring ability. Curry is not the raw athlete that these players are used to looking up to. The players are good in judging things like the dunk contests and I am happy they are not voting for the MVP. No wonder they voted for James Harden - a player who doesn't even try to play defense, over Curry in their poll last year. The coaches' and even the writers' perspective works better for awards like the MVP and the writers unanimously picked the right one this time.

All this doubting and chatter make it doubly important for the dubs to win it all this year to legitimize Curry's awards as well as the 73-win record. That chapter continues next week with a fascinating series against the Thunder.

Dame Dolla on Fire

Stephen Curry was not available for the Warriors this weekend for game 3 in Portland. But there was somebody who looked awfully similar to him on the court who was scoring at will. Unfortunately for the dubs, it was the Blazer's Damian Lillard. I am a big Dame Dolla fan. The kid from Oakland who wears 0 for the O always plays well against his home town team. He is not the shooter that Curry is - nobody is, but when his three is falling like it was in game 3, he is not that different. He has the handles, quickness, and even plays a more traditional point than Curry. And he showed us in this game that he can also take and make long-range, off-the-dribble threes like the MVP. Even Jeff Van Gundy on ESPN was very impressed by his off-the-dribble shooting and was loudly wondering if Lillard and Curry could be traded for each other without either team missing a beat. Thats high praise for Dame. Klay is a good defender and he tried his best to contain Dame, but he had no shot on this day. This is how folks must have felt defending Curry all season. 

Aside from the Oakland angle, Damian also has the "all-star snub" chip on his shoulder, especially against Curry and Klay who were both western all-stars ahead of him.  That explains the Blazers faithful yelling "over-rated" at Klay during the game. Dame and CJ are also in the running for the best back-court in the league crown that firmly belongs to Curry and Klay today. Mix in the narrative of Klay being a 2-way star and shutting Dame down in game 2, you had a potent cocktail that probably drove Dame sky high in game 3. He showed up, stepped up, and locked up a win. Now the Curry injury saga is back again on the front-burner. It's amazing how good the Warriors are that they can stage manage their best player's return even in the second round of the western conference playoffs. With each win, people assume Curry will be rested one more game and with each loss, people wonder if Curry will be inserted into the next game. Lets see if we finally see the MP3 in game 4. 

Curry-Klay versus Dame-CJ is going to be a fascinating rivalry for years to come. But then again, such projections about future greatness are always a hit or miss. Reminds me of a game in 2003 between the dubs and Suns featuring a young Gilbert Arenas, Jason Richardon, and Antawn Jamison on one-side and a young Amare Stoudemire,  Stephon Marbury, and Shawn Marion on the other. Everybody was talking about how this might be the two young, fast, fun teams of the future. The dubs couldn't retain Arenas and that was the end of that short-lived era. The Suns let go for Marbury too, but they did improve with Nash. But a rivalry, it was not.  I was salivating about a LeBron-Wade rivalry before LeBron killed it and became Wade's Scottie Pippen for 4 prime years. Ironically, they might renew their rivalry in the senior citizen mode in the next round if Miami wins against Toronto - a big IF. The Cavs have looked really impressive after 2 straight sweeps. Their 3-point shooting has become more of a news in the playoffs than even the Warriors, who are without Curry's threes so far. 

It's going to be an interesting matchup if the Cavs and dubs meet in the finals again. The Cavs are a very different team from last year and both teams are going to be shooting threes all night. You would think nobody can beat the dubs in that game, though the Cavs are becoming a trendy pick for the championship. They have definitely looked good and the big-3 are finally playing with some confidence and chemistry. Ironically, LeBron is shooting bricks, but the rest of the team is shooting lights out. Plus LeBron does so many other things, he still is the king. The Spurs-Thunder series seems headed to 7 games with the Thunder winning tonight behind Durant's 41. I still don't trust the Thunder to win the series, but they have enough talent to stretch the Spurs. It pains me to say I don't trust Westbrook. How can an incredible athlete who plays that hard inspire so little confidence? Two words - decision making. Westbrook is hard-headed and a bad decision maker. Him and Durant have not really learned to play together after all these years, not to mention all the other talent on the roster. It's a weird style the Thunder play built around those 2 super-stars and I don't see it surviving past his round.

Body Blows in the NBA

One of my buddies calls basketball a deceptively dangerous sport that's more brutal on our bodies than most other sports. He is somebody who played both tackle football and basketball and I have to respect his opinion. The last couple of days in the NBA playoffs are indeed proving him right. Freak injuries to various parts of the body have taken out 3 out of the top 10 talents in the league. First, Curry slipped on a sweat spot on the floor and twisted and banged his right knee on the floor. This was in game 4 when he had just came back from an ankle issue after a 2 game break. He is now out for at least 2 weeks with a grade 1 MCL sprain. For a 12 hour period on Monday after this news came out, the Clippers suddenly looked like a legitimate contender and the biggest beneficiary of the dubs' misfortune. Warrior fans spent all day debating if the dubs can beat the Clips without Curry. The Warriors probably can't handle the Spurs or the Cavs without Curry, but they definitely had a shot against the Clippers especially with home court. Part of me was excited to see them duke it out with the Clips without Curry. Clippers can win it, but I think these dubs would drag them to 7 games. The  fans wanted the Clippers-Blazers series to go 7 games because that would give Curry more time to recover. He is probably looking at a return for game 4 or 5 in the next round if the recovery goes per plan.

But late Monday night, the Clippers' world turned upside down. They lost their leader Chris Paul to a freak injury and a broken hand when it got stuck in the opponent's jersey. Blake Griffin then followed him out with a quad injury. Bye bye season for the Clippers. Now the Dubs fans are rooting for a Clippers to win another game so the Blazers get extended to 7. It's probably going to be Warriors-Blazers in the next round. That won't be easy, but it's not the same as facing a fully-loaded Clippers team. So it looks like even when they lose Curry for a couple of weeks, the Warriors get a lucky break in the form of a suddenly depleted Clippers team. Their path to San Antonio looks much better now especially given the way they dispatched the Rockets tonight by 33 points to take that series in 5. The Blazers back-court will be a load to handle, but the dubs have to be favored in that series even without Curry. In fact, it probably gives the Warriors more time to rest Curry. Vegas agrees as the Warriors dropped behind the Spurs as a favorite right after Curry's injury. But they were bumped ahead of the Spurs again when CP3 and Blake got hurt. The expectation is, Curry will be back for the Spurs series anyways and the upcoming round got a lot easier for the dubs with the unfortunate Clipper injuries.

If you include Avery Bradley, round 1 of these playoffs has taken down 4 key players in brutal and weird injuries. This round is beginning to wind down in a hurry though. The elite teams are already resting as we speak. Cavs and Spurs swept their way out of round 1 and the dubs and Thunder wrapped it up in 5 games. With today's surprising road win for Charlotte and the sadly predictable road win for Portland, those 2 series should be wrapped up in 6 as well. That leaves the Celtics-Hawks and Pacers-Raptors series as the possible 7-game thrillers. The East has 4 playoff teams with an identical 48-34 record and not surprisingly, the Eastern match-ups have been more competitive in round 1. The Hawks and Celtics continue their series tomorrow in Boston. The Celts should win this one to force game 7, but we all know the real winner tomorrow will be the NFL. The draft is here and let's get ready to welcome the next set of millionaire celebrities into our televisions. It's going to be interesting with all the late movement at the top of the draft. We will have 2 QBs go back-to-back at the top like Winston and Mariota last year. These 2 kids will join a few infamous QB pairs like Bledsoe-Mirer, Manning-Leaf, Couch-McNabb, and Luck-RG-III. Of course the jury is still out on Winston-Mariota and hope they and the kids coming in tomorrow don't stick to this one good, one bust trend with these pairs.

There are a couple of interesting reads in the NBA that I would like to recommend. If you have some time to kill, I strongly recommend Sam Hinkie's leaked 13-page resignation letter to the Philadelphia 76'ers (http://espn.go.com/pdf/2016/0406/nba_hinkie_redact.pdf). The other article of interest is about the evolving role of point guards in the NBA (http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/sports/wp/2016/04/15/its-a-point-guards-game/). This article is especially sweet for us Suns fans as Jerry Colangelo was instrumental in some of those successful rule changes when he was the Suns owner. And coincidentally, Steve Nash and the Suns were also the first team to show the world how to play a fun, winning brand of basketball by exploiting those rules and start a trend that has changed the game forever and for the better.

Talent gap in the first round.

NBA playoffs are always fun. While a couple of 1-8 or 2-7 match-ups every year ends up being predictable, individual games typically tend to be close even in those series. Not so much this year. Through 24 games over a week of these playoffs, there have been only 7 games been decided by less than 10 points and only 4 games by 5 points or less. Ironically, both the first seeds have been involved in 1-point games, but these playoffs have been one big blowout-fest otherwise. This is pretty unusual and it seems to be because of the larger divide between the good teams and the lower seeds. The top 4 seeds in the West is way better than the lower seeds. The East is better than it has been in the past top to bottom, but even there, the top seeds seem to be much more improved than the lower seeds. The popular playoff cliche is, a playoff series has not really begun until the road team wins. Cleveland and San Antonio won game 3 on the road on Friday and are all set for the sweep. Outside of that, only the Raptors-Pacers and Mavericks-Thunder series have seen road wins so far. Even reigning champs Warriors are still looking for a road win.

Speaking of the Warriors, the biggest news in the sports world the last week has been Stephen Curry's bum ankle. He now says he is playing in game 4 on Sunday. There was added concern when he left game 1 because of his history with ankle issues. It's hard to say whether he was really unable to play or if they were being extra cautious with him and coincidentally, may be also deservedly extra disrespectful of the Rockets who didn't look good at all in the 2 games in Oakland. Athletes always say "I could have played if it were a playoff game" and here is a situation where it looks like the Warriors are resting Curry even through round 1 of the playoffs. Nobody seems to be concerned for the Warriors in this series even with the Rockets winning a close one in game 3. Some folks are still saying Curry should be rested in game 4. A resting Curry in the playoffs is a fascinating concept, but a hurting Curry is not. It did look like he tried to play game 2 and couldn't. So may be he is really hurt bad. We don't know yet, but game 4 should tell us a lot. The dubs played a mistake-prone and sub-par game Thursday and lost the game, but since they still almost won anyways, the Warriors are still heavily favored, with or without Curry in this series. But its in their best interest to wrap this series up soon. It's not smart for the dubs to give the Rockets any life, hope, or energy. Rockets' bench didn't even celebrate Harden's game winner in game 3 and the dubs probably don't want to make them feel any tighter or better.

In other news, the NFL draft is almost here. NFL will again dominate the proverbial sports pages next week. Both Rams and the Eagles traded their way up to the first and second spot with an intent to draft a QB. Curious decision by 2 teams in a year with decent, but no slam-dunk QBs at the top.  I can't think of 2 teams trading their way to the top of the draft in the recent past. Looks like QBs will indeed go 1 and 2 and that could be a big problem for the San Francisco 49'ers who might also have some interest in a QB at 7. There are rumors that the Kaepernick trade with Denver is all but done pending the Niners scoring a good QB in the draft. Let's see if thats the deal or Kap's salary negotiation with the Broncos is still the hangup. I like Jared Goff, but not too convinced about the other QBs in this draft. Good for them all anyways to be this sought after. In a shocker of a NFL move, the Carolina Panthers let go off their top corner, Josh Norman. He was franchise tagged and for some reason, they untagged him and cut him loose. We are now deep into free agency and it's not like they needed the money to pay a bunch of top notch free agents still around. They actually have cap room and they can always cut him loose next year even if they can't agree on a new contract. Strange decision indeed and will hurt the Panthers' already questionable shot at another Super Bowl run. Washington has jumped in and signed Norman for a tonne of money. Again, Niners lost out on him. Thats becoming a theme these days.

Big night in the NBA

The last night of the NBA regular season is usually a drag for most fans. There may be a 8th seed or 2 at stake that a couple of mediocre teams would be fighting for. There could be some jostling for seedings up and down the playoff standings. For the most part, the playoff teams that have nothing to play for are waiting for the playoffs to get here and are happily resting their stars. And then there are the lottery teams and their fans who are typically checked out already and are looking forward to the NFL draft! But the 2015-16 NBA season finale today was unique and special. It was a truly historic night with two landmark events happening in Oakland and LA. The Warriors were going for 73 wins to break an amazing and improbable  record for the all-time regular season wins in Oakland while Kobe Bryant was playing his last game in LA to wrap up a legendary 20-year career.

The Bulls record of 72-10 stood for 20 year, but I really thought it was one of those rare records that will stand forever. After all, it was a Michael Jordan record and probably one of his most impressive at that. It's hard to surpass MJ in anything and for the Warriors to do it this year after a championship season is an amazing story. Their coach Steve Kerr is one lucky dude. He won 72 games with the Bulls as a player and is now a 73-game winner as a coach. The Warriors put the Memphis Grizzlies away in style to end the season 73-9. They played 82 games and did not even lose double digit number of games. First team ever to not lose double digit games through an entire NBA season. I am not a big Warriors fan, but even I can list all their losses off the top of my head - @Milwaukee, @Dallas, @Denver, @Detroit, @Portland, @LA Lakers, @San Antonio, Boston, and Minnesota. Thats because they have lost so few games.

These Warriors are a very likable bunch playing a fun style of ball. Curry is the biggest star in the sport today and is must-see TV. They have had a rock-star like following all season long and when you score a 73-9 season, there are many secondary records and numbers that are equally impressive. They never lost back-to-back games all season long. They never lost to the same team twice. They went 34-7 on the road, which is not too shabby and they started the season 24-0. The only thing more impressive was the other landmark that was reached tonight. Curry ended the season with 400+ made threes. Thats almost 5 made threes a game! That almost sounds normal for Curry, but it's hard to do. Curry had nearly as many threes this season as entire teams like the Milwaukee Bucks! A historic night indeed for the dubs. Now they have to seal the deal in the playoffs to truly enter the "best team ever" discussion. One interesting conversation going around the airwaves this week is, who wins the series if the 72-win Bulls team hook up with the 73-win Warriors? Bulls will probably win since they will matchup real well with this dubs team and are superior defensively.

While the Warriors were beating world records in Oakland, Kobe was wrapping up his career in LA with a vintage Kobe performance! He dropped 60 points on 50 shots with a really dominant 4th quarter. Lakers have been dreadful this year and Kobe has not been much better. But with the whole word watching, Kobe elevated his game to the legendary level one last time. He walks away with a 60-point game. Only Kobe can do that and the oldest ever to score 60. I am not too fond of Kobe and the Phoenix Suns have had many interesting contests against him not to mention some daggers he stuck in us back in the day. But I do feel a special connection to his career because NBA is my favorite league and he was part of my sports experience for 20 long years!  It is indeed an end of an era and when Tim Duncan retires, this era is officially dead and it will be another stark reminder that I am getting old. Love him or hate him, Kobe's talent was undeniable and is a true basketball legend. His final game garnered a lot of attention, especially in LA. Nosebleeds were selling for $700, even more than the $350 in Oakland tonight. Court-side seats at staples were going for 25K. As Kobe got close to 50 points, that game started pulling even more eye balls away from the dubs record-setting game, which was a blowout by then. Folks at Staples center thoroughly enjoyed his 60 point performance and went home poor, but happy.

All in all, two great stories in the NBA tonight. The only nit I would like to pick is, Kobe and LA stole some of the spotlight from the record-setting night in Oakland and vice-versa. It was hard to keep up with both games at times. But it was truly a magical night in the NBA.

Season of Records and Streaks!

It's just Thursday and it's been a tremendous sports week already. Monday featured a buzzer-beating victory by Villanova in the NCAA championship game against the storied North Carolina Tar Heels. It was a high level game with a perfect ending, at least for Villanova. No cigar for Roy Williams this year.  Jay Wright finally wins one as a head coach after 15 solid years at Villanova. Nothing succeeds like success and when you win the championship at the highest level, you are looked and treated completely different. Wright probably got himself another 15 years of job security with that win. This week also saw the Major League Baseball kick off their season. Being an even year, all eyes are on the SF Giants and they are looking good at 3-1. Both my teams, the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Oakland Athletics, are not distinguishing themselves in any meaningful way yet. But this is a marathon and not a sprint. Hope they string some victories together soon.

Amidst all of this, the NBA regular season is winding down in style as there are quite a few streaks, records, and associated stories in play. The Warriors went from comfortably heading towards 74 or even 75 wins to now making the pursuit of the Bulls 72-game win record a nail-biting affair. They have to win out their last 3 games to get the record and this is only because they lost to the lowly Minnesota Timberwolves after leading by 15. It's one thing to lose to a well-coached, playoff-bound Boston Celtics team, but quite another to lose to the TWolves at home. That gave the dubs 2 losses out of 3 home games after starting the season 36-0 at home. Never has a late season loss with no playoff consequence made so much news, but when you are chasing one of the most difficult records in all of sports, such a loss rightfully becomes the main topic in the sports world. Talking heads blamed the Warriors' problems on tired legs and wondered if the pressure of this pursuit is taking a toll on their season.

Whatever the reason is, head scratching turnovers are this Warrior teams' Achilles' heel. They are in the midst of a real bad turnover stretch the last few weeks and their execution is not what it was when they were blowing everybody out by 30. Their offensive efficiency and 3-pointing shooting may still be good, but if they turn the ball over 12 extra times and give up 15 points off of those, you are looking at a 25+ point swing if you factor in all the shots the dubs missed taking because of them turnovers. Thats how they end up in a tight ball game in the 4th quarter these days. May be they are physically tired and mentally exhausted, but they need to stop this live-ball donation program if they want to win the championship. They won a big one today against a near full-strength Spurs team. There were a few ugly turnovers again, but they overcame those and dominated the Spurs. They have 2 more against the Grizzles, but the road game against the Spurs on Sunday is going to be the main event. Spurs themselves have a shot at a 41-0 home record, which is pretty sweet, and it's hard to predict what Pop will do with that game. If he doesn't rest his stars, Dubs will be in a fist-fight and may have to settle for a loss and a 72-win season.

Winning 72 NBA games in a season is a massive achievement, but after all this, it will feel like a failure for this Warriors team. They are so close and we will know in just 3 games if they wrap it up.

Then there were 16

The first weekend of March madness was fun as always. Between the first round and the second round and the unexpected high of an upset to the disastrous low of a season-ending loss, the tournament can be a dangerous roller coaster ride for some of these cinderellas. Northern Iowa rode this roller coaster hard and learned the harsh lessons of March the hard way. They probably hit the best buzzer-beater of the NCAA tournament so far to win their first round contest against 6th seed Texas. Not a huge upset seedings wise, but definitely an upset and the relative size of the schools and the programs made it a more impressive as well. Northern Iowa was suddenly a fan favorite and then they took on the 3rd seed Texas A&M on Sunday. They were leading by 12 points with 44 seconds to go and probably their traveling assistant was looking for hotels to stay next weekend for the sweet 16 games. Then a series of unfortunate incidents made sure the UNI kids blew this lead away inexplicably. They did weird things like trying to throw the ball off of a defender right underneath the basket as they were falling out of bounds and twice, gave the ball and a layup to a Texas A&M player on a platter.  It was indeed sad to see the small town kids blow a 12 point lead in regulation and then lose in double OT, but thats how the cookie crumbles in March sometimes.

The other cinderella that had the opportunity to make a big noise was 14th seed Stephen F Austin. They had 6th seed Notre Dame on the ropes in round 2, but lost on a tip-in at the end. While the UNI guys were blowing their lead away, Wisconsin hit a buzzer beating 3 to punch their ticket to the sweet 16. That was a fun 7 over 2 game. Gonzaga, a 11,  is the lowest seed left in the tournament and are looking good. They get to play Syracuse, who eliminated Middle Tennessee State, another cinderella that shocked the world by upsetting Tom Izzo's highly favored Michigan State. The sweet 16 field is set and for all the attention and excitement that the upsets and cinderellas generate, the higher seeds always seem to bubble up to the top. The only question then becomes things like which 5th seed goes deep versus which one goes home. In some ways, March madness is the most unpredictably predictable event. It was a fun weekend with a lot of close games, buzzer beater, upsets, and one ridiculous comeback. Now the games are fewer and the stakes are higher. Lets hope the level of drama stays the same.

In the pros, the Warriors are 63-7 and the chase for 72 is getting very interesting. They lost to the Spurs and the way they lost was more of a news than the loss itself because the Spurs needed this game way more than the dubs. The Spurs forced Curry into a horrible shooting night and the Warriors scored a mere 79 points. Coach Pop and the Spurs definitely know what they are doing on the defensive end, The Warriors, to their credit, stayed close and almost stole the game despite the horrible offensive performance. I don't know if we learned a whole lot from this game except that if these 2 hookup in the playoffs, the series is going to be legen ...wait for it.... dary as Barney Stinson would say. Both teams showed they can play defense. Both teams showed they are true contenders. Curry showed he can have bad games too. He had another mediocre game yesterday to wrap up the road trip and there is a lot of talk about tired legs right now. The record is indeed putting undue pressure on the team. 72-10 is too cool to ignore and at the same time, these guys can sure use some break before the playoffs. Lets see how Steve Kerr plays this. The Warrior season continues with another great Western Conference matchup against the Clippers tomorrow.

March Madness

March madness is a lot of fun. One of the things in my bucket list is to take both Thursday and Friday off during the first week of the tournament and park my rear-end in a Vegas sports book all weekend. Just the ability to wake up and start watching basketball games at 9 AM is priceless. And then the games come at you one after the other. You get a mix of everything. Low scoring basketball followed by high scoring ball. NBA bound stars in one game. No name shorties in another. Upsets followed by blowouts, not necessarily in the games you expect them in or in the ways your bracket want them. It goes on and on and ends past 10 PM Pacific time. What can be better than this? I usually don't have any dog in this fight and ASU rarely gets into this fight anyways. But the fun part is, you can root for a different dog every 2 hours. The highlight of today was a couple of 12 seed over 5 as always. Both Yale and Arkansas-Little Rock won thrilling games and two 11 seeds won as well with Wichita State getting extra credits for beating up UofA. A little disappointing for me as a Pac-12 honk, but I just can't bring myself to cry over the Wildcats losing.

I was impressed watching Brandon Ingram of Duke as I have an added vested interest in following the top NCAA talent this year. With the Phoenix Suns firmly headed to NBA lotteryville, I am motivated to keep an eye on the top college talent coming out. Suns' record is on track for the 3rd pick and it's very crucial they pick up a stud to pair up with Alex Len and Devin Booker who are both giving us Suns fans a lot of hope lately. Of course the ping pong balls will decide that in a couple of months more than anything else. For now, let's hope for more fun on day 2 of the tournament and into the weekend. The weekend also features Golden State Warriors at the San Antonio spurs. If ever there was a time to bust out the overplayed cliche "irresistible force versus an immovable object," this would be it. The dubs and the Spurs are 61-6 and 58-10 as of today and are 32-0 and 34-0 at home respectively. Will the home team Spurs win this game and if they do, how easily do they win? Can't wait to find out amidst all the basketball binge watching on tap this weekend.

Sheriff of Omaha

The Sheriff is done. Peyton Manning has made it official. He has retired as expected after a brilliant career. His best move today might have been ending the retirement presser with "Omaha." He made that word synonymous with quarterbacking with his crazy audibles and that Nebraska town should thank him for the strange connection he created. They should nominate him as a honorary sheriff if not their mayor for one day. I will miss him. We will all miss him. He was one of the most prolific passers in the history of the game and kept us company on Sundays for 18 years! Between him and Kobe retiring next month, it truly is an end of an era for us sports fans. These 2 guys have been entertaining us for almost 2 decades and they were a huge part of my youth and life as a sports fan. Kobe was more a thorn on my side and I was never a fan, but I always liked Peyton. I loved his play as well as his Colts teams. In his games against the Pats and Brady, I was almost alway rooting for Peyton. Speaking of the Manning-Brady rivalry, we should all be happy we were part of it. It was an historic rivalry between 2 true legends and we will be talking about it for decades. It's the NFL's version of Bird V Magic and we are going to miss it starting 2016.

As a pure QB, Peyton is definitely top 3 in the history of the game anyway you look at it.  I am a huge Dan Marino fan and I still think he is one of the best QBs ever. Marino owned every single passing record in the books for several years before the game changed. Brett Favre then erased Marino from the record books for half of those records and now, Peyton has surpassed both Marino and Favre to own almost all of the passing numbers that matter. Peyton is this generation's Marino with a couple of rings to boot. He was a passing savant much like Marino and it was pure joy to watch their mastery of the position. We can count the rings all we want, but football is a team sport and the best passer doesn't and cannot win the ultimate price every year. Make no mistake about it, Marino was the best passer and Peyton is his successor who may have taken the craft a step further. Marino never won the big one and Peyton's playoff record is also considered shaky. But Peyton does go out on top with a ring, his second, and with a resume that is rich and complete. Two championships are better than one, though this last year might have come with a huge cost for Peyton.

Peyton's play in 2015 finally slipped to the point where he was nothing more than a game manager. There was the HGH allegation from Al Jazeera and last but not the least, somehow his Super Bowl victory brought the "mooning of the personal trainer" incident at University of Tennessee back to the front pages. The fact that our media didn't care about it for 20 years and brought it back in time for his retirement as soon as he won the Super Bowl tells us all we need to know about our corrupt media.  What Peyton allegedly did was reprehensible and I wish he had paid for it 20 years back. I guess better late than never. In any case, his play on the field through those 20 years was mostly amazing. He was a true professional and a perfectionist and we can learn a lot about how we should run our careers by watching and reading about these high achievers. He is a football junkie and the game will definitely miss him. Hope we see him back as a QB coach or may be even a head coach down the road. Most legends can't coach, but I think Peyton can. But he will have a lot of money making opportunities in his retirement and let's see what route he picks. We don't know any of these guys personally and we sure can't tell if he was a good or a bad guy, but he was a truly great QB. I still rank him higher than Tom Brady. As a pure passer, it's either him or Dan Marino at number 1. Thanks for the football memories, Peyton!

Speaking of number ones, the Golden Sate Warriors laid an egg yesterday in LA against the Lakers, one of the worst teams in the league. But they did win at home today to score the all-time home winning streak record with 45 straight. Thats more games than an entire NBA season and it's one more mind-boggling record for these dubs. This was another one of those records held by MJ's Bulls. Losing road games unexpectedly to bad teams seems to be the Warrior's thing, though they are undefeated against the good teams. Curry is still putting up ridiculous numbers and despite the turnover problems of the last two games, they are in a good spot. They are still on track to break the Bulls' 72 win record. They are now 56-6 and amazingly, they are still only 3.5 games above the Spurs. Thats how good the Spurs have been, but nobody cares thanks to all the attention on the Warriors. The Spurs won't win 72 games, but they may win 68 to 70 games. That would be something if two teams win 70 games. We should all watch and enjoy this unique season.