Day 296

Fresh Start_296: The KD impact
Stepping away from the NBA as a whole for a day, and coming back to put a microscope back on the 2017 NBA Finals, I can truly appreciate this series for what it is. For the past week—week and a half, I’ve been waiting for the Laker-Celtic 30 for 30 to see how I feel about “Super Teams.” Red Auerbach and Jerry Buss mapped out their teams to try and defeat one another. The Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers through the 1960’s, 1970’s, and 1980’s wanted nothing more than to defeat the other for the NBA title. This run from the Lakers and Celtics was the original Warriors-Cavilers matchup in the 80’s.

The Lakers and Celtics matched up against each other three times in four years. From the 1960’s to the end of the 1980’s the Celtics and Lakers combined for 20 total champions {14 for Boston; 6 for Los Angeles}. The Lakers and Celtics combined to matched up 9 times in that 27-year period {1960-1987}.

So, you may ask why the fans of the NBA are mad about seeing the Warriors and Cavs in the Finals for 3 straight years. It basically already happened in the league at one point, and the NBA was arguably at the height of the sport.

Seeing Lebron James match up against Steph Curry and Kevin Durant, as an NBA why wouldn’t you want to see that. Yes, teams like San Antonio, Boston, Toronto, Milwaukee who are good teams might not get the opportunity to play for an NBA Championship; the opposite side of the coin is the best players in the NBA playing against for each other. These Durant, Curry, Thompson, and Draymond Warriors against these Lebron, Kyrie, and Kevin Love Cavilers are the reincarnation of Magic’s Lakers and Bird’s Celtics.

I do agree that we as fans got gipped two games from this series with the Warriors winning in five games, but you cannot disrespect the history and impact of this series. Seeing Durant win his first Finals is awesome (yes, it is with the Warriors), the best team ever assembled wins the NBA title, and the best player in the world (Lebron) losses to that team. What more can you ask for?

The idea of “Super Teams” will get validated with Durant’s move to Golden State, and more and more All-Stars will start to teammate to try to dethrone this Warriors team. Like I said on my podcast “It’s good for the league, bad for the fans, and will even out sooner than later.”

It’s good for the league because the level of play on the floor will be better than ever before with the more “Super Teams” in the league. Seeing a possible “Banana Boat” team, or a Carmelo Anthony in Cleveland, or a Paul George to Boston or Cleveland, would be such a good match up to watch against the Warriors. With more “Super Teams” being assembled, it will get tougher and tougher for the Warriors to win year after year.

However, this will be bad for the fans of the NBA overall. Fans of teams like Brooklyn, Phoenix, Sacramento, and Orlando will consistently be sitting out the playoffs, just waiting for the NBA Lottery. These teams will also have to build “Super Teams” through the draft. Fans of teams like Detroit, Houston, Milwaukee, and Toronto will have continue to fall to other “Super Teams” if they don’t create ones of their own.

This will all even out for the league because every team in the NBA will try to create their own version of the 2017 Golden State Warriors, so eventually the talent level will even out so the Warriors won’t be as good as they were. The combination being the fact that age catches up with everyone, and again the talent in the league will continue to rise so the Warriors will have a tougher road to climb.

As an NBA fan, I am excited to see this again next year, with all the storylines that entered this year, plus the new ones that will be conjured up throughout the NBA draft and the lucidity that is the free agency period coming July 1st.

Overall this NBA Finals did give validation to something that a majority of NBA fans hate, but it was historic. Throughout this NBA Finals, I got excited for another year of this, seeing what will happen with better parody in the league. Overall, we did get gipped two games, but it was fun and exciting. I excited to see what is next for the NBA, and I am excited to see what is next for the Warriors and the Cavs. Can we just run this back?
Sources:(espn.com, basketballreference.com, theringer.com, nba.com)

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