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.

King's League

LeBron James is good. I know I am not breaking any news with that. But what has always been interesting to me is, how well his career has stuck to the script and followed the plan when it comes to greatness. That's not easy considering how improbable the plan looked and how complicated the script read given the unprecedented hype and expectations he carried into the NBA. There has never been an athlete who has met such levels of hype. And that's despite the fact that no athlete has ever had to deal with as much hype as LeBron and they still always fall way short of expectation. You could make an argument that LeBron has even surpassed the ridiculous hype since being called "the chosen one" when he was just 17-years old. He made it harder on himself with the whole drama off the court around his free agency and made some enemies across the nation, but his game on the court never deviated from the golden script a whole lot. Most people's anger and hatred seemed to have dissipated with the championship last year as Americans love a winner more than anything.  There is still some lll-will around him for having "taken his talents to South Beach" - including your truly not totally pardoning him yet, but at this all-star break, LeBron's star is at the highest it has ever been.

LeBron's game has constantly and consistently improved over the years, though not at the pace some people expected at times. But some of that might be media and other's fault and not LeBron's. There were some legitimate concerns about his killer instincts and toughness that he finally answered during last year's playoffs. There were a couple of games against the Pacers and the Celtics where he dominated the game and just wouldn't let his team lose. The Heat were slowly and surely becoming his team throughout last season, but that playoff run put the finishing touches on the change of ownership from Wade to LeBron. It was not Wade's house anymore and he was merely renting a room from LeBron, a room that might have even been smaller than Bosh's sub-let. LeBron didn't look like he needed Wade a whole lot as he showed he could do everything Wade did including hitting clutch game winners, only better. The championship victory erased many concerns. The toughness gene might still be missing, but the perception has changed forever. Perception is often reality in life, especially when it comes to abstract intangibles in sports like "being clutch" or "having heart." With the MVP trophy and the ring last year, LeBron was the "king' for real finally.

This season, LeBron is taking the next step, the very existence of which was not a guarantee considering how great he was already. Where do you go from that impressive 2012? LeBron is going right to the GOAT discussion - Greatest Of All Time. He is bringing everything in his arsenal together and with the addition of more low-post polish and championship experience, he is putting up numbers that challenges all conventional wisdom around basketball efficiency. I don't know if 40's are the new 30's, but shooting 60% may become the new 50% as LeBron is making 60% look normal and simple. He is currently averaging above 56% shooting for the season, which is unheard of for a wing player. Even MJ has not shot that high for a season, though we are not sure if LeBron can hold on to that through the end of this season. But he just came off a ridiculous stretch where he averaged over 30 points and 60% shooting for 6 straight games.  Thats efficiency and domination at historic levels not even taking in to account all the other things he does on the court - namely the rebounds, assists, and the defense. This obviously has kicked off a "is LeBron is the greatest ever?" debate. And the question reached the GOAT himself.  Michael Jordan is celebrating his 50-Th birthday today to coincide with NBA's all-star game. So he has been on TV quite a bit and had to deal with a variant of this question.

While it's still not polite or smart to compare LeBron to Jordan himself, we are not too far away from that discussion. I don't think LeBron will be able to accumulate 6 championships like MJ, but if he gets to 3, we have to entertain the comparison because of every other number LeBron is going to put up. This guy is going to accumulate some numbers that will be hard to argue against. But the comparison between LeBron and Kobe was a topic Jordan had to weigh in on this week. He said it was a tough one, but he will go with 5 over 1, meaning Kobe's 5 rings makes him better than LeBron's one. I think thats people taking the easy way out though I do see the logic of using championships as a tie-breaker if the comparison is tight. We may do that for LeBron V Jordan 4 years from now. But that argument is a cop-out here with Kobe for a couple of reasons. LeBron to me is way better than Kobe and thats not to take anything away from Kobe, who is great in his own right and is probably a top-10 player in the history of the game. But Kobe has never even sniffed the levels of efficiency that LeBron is playing at right now. And, Kobe's 5 rings are way different from Jordan's 6 in that it includes Shaq's 3. So, LeBron in my mind is a ring away from putting Kobe firmly in his rear-view mirror and probably 2 rings away from challenging his airness himself for the best ever because he is going to have all the other numbers on his side. He is true basketball royalty and 2013 will be remembered as the year when he entered the GOAT discussion. That in and of itself is an impressive achievement and a good reason to watch the rest of this NBA season.