The NBA Here and Now: A Season for the Ages in 2010-2011
For two full seasons and one surreal offseason, the NBA found itself as a league constantly looking forward but never focusing on the present tense. Questions about the draft, free agency, economics, as well as the inevitable lockout looming in 2011, have threatened to overshadow some undeniably high-class basketball. Heck, in his first event with the Heat, LeBron James was already talking about winning seven titles. For everyone’s sake, let’s not think about 2017 and take a step back.
The quality of the league, while still diluted due to over-expansion, has been growing at a tremendous rate thanks to an influx of young talent living up to expectations better than the generation that immediately preceded them. While the vast majority of NBA fans are stuck focusing on, among other things, their disappointment that LeBron and others didn’t come to their respective teams, what LeBron’s ‘Decision’ will do for his image and legacy, and how ruffled Kobe Bryant’s feathers must be due to the aforementioned ‘Decision’ and its media coverage, I’m here to say that it’s time to sit back, relax and enjoy the real show. Why? Because we are in store for the greatest NBA season since the height of the Jordan dynasty.
The NBA from June 2010 through June 2011 has been and will continue to be much like attending a double feature to appease your girlfriend who’s mad at you for doing something stupid. A reasonable scenario to consider, no? The first movie you’re forced to watch is a summer romantic comedy money-making machine; you may laugh once or twice, enjoy the eye candy on the screen, try to support the terrible writing like an enthusiastic little league parent telling kids it’s okay to strike out, but you’ll feel squeamish the whole time you’re watching it and need a shower once it’s over to cleanse yourself from the horrible experience.
The second movie is an independent film with a great cast and director but little buzz due to the constant advertisement of the rom-com. You tenuously walk in, still recovering from the big-budget disaster. Yet from its first moment the movie sucks you in, you realize as it’s happening that you are witnessing something special, something you really weren’t prepared for, and once it’s over you can’t stop thinking or talking about it. Your friends assume you’re hyping it up to levels it can never really live up to, but you can’t help yourself because you want others to be able to experience the feeling of greatness too. When they do experience it for themselves, they thank you for convincing them to be a part of the moment. You get together afterwards and compare it to other films, debate many of its intricacies, and when the dust settles everyone collectively decides it stands up to some of its greatest predecessors. Also, you realize you can’t remember a single pertinent detail from the first movie you watched.
I will always be appreciative of the Free Agency Class of 2010 for keeping the dead period of the sports calendar at arm’s length until well into July. But it’s time to stop focusing on legacies and things we cannot appreciate until years down the line and realize the incredible season we have here and now. When LeBron James is averaging a triple-double through 41 games, will anyone outside of Cleveland care that he’s doing it with Miami, or that it’s ‘Wade’s team’? No. True sports fans appreciate greatness over anything else, and watching LeBron act like the evolutionary Magic will be, for real fans, like watching a family member with such great potential finally find a situation he feels comfortable with, one everyone always thought he was best suited for anyway. We will all wish it hadn’t been such a bumpy road to get there, but we’ll be happy he’s arrived at the place he really wanted.
Speaking of Miami, every game they play, and specifically every one of their losses, will be a national news event that hogs headlines for days. It will be fascinating to watch them grow as a team, trying to throw together a bunch of all-stars and mold them into a winner in year one. Anything less will be an utter failure, and the world will again have to deal with an entire summer hearing about how LeBron is not fit to be a champion. The target on their back alone makes them the villain of the 2010-2011 NBA season, a role neither LeBron, Wade, nor Bosh has ever held before. It will be interesting to see how they respond and if they can handle the pressure.
But what will make this season the best in over a decade is the other teams ready to challenge for the Title. In both conferences, franchises have been building to this year, except no one has noticed due to all of the other stories leading the news. Thankfully, we’re coming to the end of the sickening first leg of the double feature, so let’s run through the contenders.
West
Los Angeles Lakers: The Favorite
If Miami is this year’s villain, the Lakers are this year’s antihero. The two-time defending champs find themselves somehow with something to prove, and with this being Phil Jackson’s last year, and with Kobe Bryant being fresher than he’s been in two years, no one should be surprised if the Lakers come storming out of the gate, immediately igniting debate as to which team truly is the best (Think Boston and Detroit in 2008). But it’s still the Lakers, so no one really wants them to win, right? Right?
Oklahoma City Thunder: The Protégé
You cannot possibly make me believe that the Thunder are somehow a sleeper team. They did too much last year to have any chance at staying unnoticed this season, and Kevin Durant is already the trendy pick to win MVP. This team is rising rapidly, and has a good chance of becoming a perennial favorite in the Western Conference due to their incredible mix of maturing talent, chemistry, coaching, and front office brilliance. If Phil Jackson has trouble sleeping in his final season, it will be due to nightmares about Russell Westbrook averaging 30 and 10 on Derek Fisher and Steve Blake, and Durant shooting better than the 35% from the field and 28% from three he did in the 2010 Playoffs. I can guarantee that will not happen again.
Portland Trailblazers: The Sleeper
The team that was supposed to do what the Thunder did – push the Lakers and become the young face of the NBA – has not reached their potential yet. Two first round exits the past two seasons due to injury as well as front office upheaval have made them an afterthought in the West, but that status won’t last for long. The true sleeper team in 2010-2011, Portland has the returning talent to compete with anyone, and if their luck with injuries changes – certainly a big if – they could challenge for the top spot in the West.
Dallas Mavericks, Denver Nuggets, Utah Jazz, San Antonio Spurs, Phoenix Suns: The Fringe Contenders
These teams are clearly a step (or more) below the others listed here, but recent history for each suggests that it would be a mistake to ignore them completely.
East
Miami Heat: The Favorite
This team has been talked about ad nauseam since July 8th, but it is impossible to deny their potential if the Heat can figure out how to make their exceptionally talented puzzle pieces fit together.
Boston Celtics: The Last Stand
It really is hard for me to expect a geriatric Boston team to win the Eastern Conference again this season, but they proved me wrong enough times this past year that I need to stop questioning them until the team is broken up. If we know anything about this particular Celtics group, it is that they are arrogant, smart, tested fighters who scratch and claw for each and every inch they feel they deserve. That means they will take Miami to six games at least if they meet in the playoffs, and it will be a fascinating brawl of a series. I’m already giddy to watch it, and I’m not sure if Miami is tough enough to hang with a healthy Boston. We shall see.
Orlando Magic: Redemption Song
As hard as it is for me to admit I was wrong about them last year – I told anyone who would listen that they were going to win the title (oops) – I think the Boston series in 2010 showed more than anything that, like Cleveland in 2009, the Magic became soft after feasting on Charlotte and Atlanta in the first two rounds. Perhaps they underestimated the Celtics and assumed that their 8-0 record in the playoffs would guarantee them at least another four victories. Or, perhaps the key difference between the 2009 Magic and the 2010 Magic will again show its ugly face when it matters most. The dichotomy between Vince Carter’s weakness – as well as his inability to be the best player on a championship team – and the toughness I believe Dwight Howard and Jameer Nelson possess will define how far the Magic can advance. Last year, Vince destroyed any chance that team had. This year? Well, Vince hasn’t shown us anything to the contrary so far, so why would he change now?
Chicago Bulls: The Wild Card
A team I’m really excited to watch. Happy as I am as a New Yorker that Carlos Boozer did not wind up on the Knicks, he has gone from one perfect situation in Utah to another with the Bulls. Derrick Rose will fully throw his hat into the discussion of best point guard in the league this year, and the additions of Boozer, Kyle Korver, and Tom Thibadeau will provide both the offensive and defensive additions necessary for Chicago to compete in the East.
Atlanta Hawks, Charlotte Bobcats, Milwaukee Bucks: Fringe Contenders (At Best)
All of these teams are missing something and simply don’t have the firepower to compete with the top four teams in the East. Maybe next year. But probably not.
So boys and girls, with all of this in mind, let’s do this together. Stop worrying about the salary cap, the next crop of great college players, next year’s free agents, and the lockout, and get ready to enjoy what will be a fascinating season due to an exceptional amount of potentially terrific teams. From beginning to end, it will be something special, a campaign that will make you forget the details of the horrible rom-com that was the summer of 2010. Except, I suppose, for those in Cleveland.
