Too Excited? Please!

Too excited. Serious?

**Initiating Sarcasm**

Since we have all decided LeBron can do no good (never mind that "The Decision" resulted in a $2-3 million check being cut to the Boys & Girls Club), of course we are furious LeBron and D-Wade shared such a warm embrace.

We criticized his choice to take less money and play to win championships with Heat. Apparently, we want our superstars to play for money and nothing else.

We didn't like the way Bosh, Wade and James "conspired" to get together, because it is bad to want to work with colleagues who are excellent at what they do. Not to mention we know players and GMs have NEVER conspired to get players on their team. Never.

**Terminating Sarcasm**

I understand haters are going to hate, but hating on a guy being excited?

Sure the hug seemed a bit over the top, but it's not like the three guys celebrated with a stage and smoke and whatnot. You only do that after signing a big free agent class.

Maybe you think the hug was too much.

Maybe you think they ought to act like they've been there before.

Maybe you think they should wait until they've actually won a title.

Then again, they aren't you, and you aren't them.

You aren't the one who received death threats and all sorts of other forms of backlash after leaving your home region (Akron is NOT the same city as Cleveland).

You aren't the one who has been irrationally hated for nearly a year.

You aren't the one who maybe wondered if you made the right choice in going to Miami.

You aren't the one who was told this experiment would be a failure all season long.

You aren't the who played in the series and finally beat a team you hadn't previously beaten in a playoff series.

You're asking LeBron to be you, or maybe you aren't, because...

Maybe you're the guy who excessively celebrates when beating a friend a PS3.

Maybe you're the guy who obsesses about sports to the point that when your team loses, you're noticeably in a bad mood.

Maybe you're the guy who gets worked up when you can't watch "the game."

Either way, I'm not telling you NOT to do these things, so you shouldn't be telling LeBron James and Dwayne Wade how to celebrate after beating a nemesis. After all, you didn't beat your nemesis.

Thoughts on the 2009 NBA Finals

Congratulations to the Lakers and their fans on L.A.'s 2009 NBA Championship! It was quite an impressive accomplishment. During these Finals, however, an even greater feat of endurance occurred: actually watching the NBA Finals.

Despite a couple of close finishes, the 2009 NBA Finals left a lot to be desired, and it started with Game 1.

Lakers dominated that game from beginning to end, winning 100-75 and possibly saying good-bye to the casual fan. At that point, the Finals storylines went from "Kobe vs. Superman" to "Does Kobe need another ring to solidify his legacy?" and "Phil Jackson to pass up Red Auerbach."

After the thrashing the Lakers gave to the Magic in Game 1, the NBA Finals focused around when, instead of "if," the Lakers were going to win the championship. It became a foregone conclusion the Lakers would win, so the series became a great deal less interesting.

Another component to the lack of interest were the huge breaks in between the games. It is a momentum killer. I've already mentioned how much I hated the 5-day layoff in between the last two rounds of the playoffs, but my fury was only compounded upon hearing about the 3-day break between Game 1 & 2 and 4 & 5.

I understand the league wants to get games on certain days of week when they will more likely produce ratings and this isn't the first year they've done it, but it just makes me lose interest in the games. It seems like that idea would work better with more interesting matchups. But if your team isn't involved in the Finals, do you really have any reason to watch when it looks like it's over after Game 1?

The NBA Finals used to be "appointment TV." Each year the Finals would be full of stars: Michael/Scottie vs. Magic/Worthy, Drexler, Barkley, Payton/Kemp, and Stockton/Malone. This year's Finals lacked real star power.

Don't get me wrong, the Finals had a star in Kobe Bryant, averaging over 32 points and 7 assists per game. Stars rise to the occasion on the biggest stage. Not necessarily winning, but at least playing like an all star.

After the Magic knocked off the Cavs, thanks in part to a big series from Dwight Howard, I think a lot of people - and count me among them - thought Magic-Lakers was going to be a very interesting series.

It turned out the NBA Finals actually did need LeBron, because Superman did not show up against L.A. (15 ppg, 15 rpg, 3 orpg, 4 bpg, 48.8 FG%, 60.3 FT% 4 topg) the way he did with Cleveland (25 ppg, 13rpg, 4 orpg, 1.2 bpg, 65 FG%, 70.1 FT%, 2.5 topg).

Sure, he might have been better defensively in the Finals, blocking more shots and grabbing more rebounds. But solid defense doesn't do it for the general basketball fan, maybe an Orlando Magic fan, but not the every-day fan.

Solid defense never drew viewers for series with the Detroit Pistons. It never drew viewers for the San Antonio Spurs. And it most certainly didn't draw viewers when the Pistons played the Spurs in the 2005 finals.

Still, the TV ratings from the 2009 Finals are comparable to last year's matchup, which included a team from a bigger market and with a richer team history: the Boston Celtics. One might conclude that my theory goes out the window, since fans were still tuning in the same as they did for last year's championship, a very good NBA Finals.

Maybe.

Or maybe since the TV ratings for NBA Playoffs this year had been a 20% improvement over last year's, the 2009 Finals should have reaped the benefits of that success. Was it the 5-day break from the Conference Finals to the NBA Finals? Was it the 3-day breaks in between Games 1 & 2 and 4 & 5, when there was no traveling involved for teams? Was it the lack of star power?

The TV ratings for the NBA finals took a nosedive in 1999 after the lockout, and it really has never recovered. And in the 1990s, the ratings were only high when Michael Jordan was playing. This year the NBA really needed LeBron vs. Kobe. The two best, most exciting, most fun-to-watch players going against each other. A matchup of the two players most compared to Michael Jordan would have drawn a big audience.

Here's hoping future NBA Finals produce more intriguing matchups - and soon.

LeBron's Postgame Behavior

I don't blame LeBron James for not shaking hands with any Magic player after losing the Eastern Conference Finals last Saturday.

I don't blame LeBron James for not making himself available to the media.

I don't blame LeBron James for not wanting to talk to anyone after playing his heart out and still losing.

He is still only 24 years old, and he showed it. Plus, throughout his entire career, I don't believe he has ever lost a series he was expected to win. It was a first and it stung. I can't blame him for that.

I can't blame him, but I do have some problems with his post-series behavior.

First, let's say Kobe Bryant had done the same thing. Any Kobe-hater would have been rounding up all of the friends, pitchforks, and torches he or she could find, and they would not rest until the mob was satisfied. There is no denying an act like that would have caused irreparable harm to Kobe.

Second, since he was a junior in high school, LeBron has had to deal with the media. His poise and composure while interacting with the media has drawn all sorts of praise. How do you all of a sudden not realize how your actions will look? How not shaking any of your opponents' hands will look? How not talking to the media that built you up will look? It just doesn't make sense. He should and does know better.

Third, it makes him look like a sore loser.

He recently said, "It's hard for me to congratulate somebody after you just lose to them. I'm a winner. It's not being a poor sport or anything like that. If somebody beats you up, you're not going to congratulate them. That doesn't make sense to me. I'm a competitor. That's what I do. It doesn't make sense for me to go over and shake somebody's hand."

Just because he says "it's not being a poor sport," it doesn't mean it's true. As it turns out, this isn't the first group of handshakes he has managed to dodge. Last year, he skipped out on the Celts, and the year before that, he left the court after a quick hug/butt-slap from the Spurs' Bruce Bowen.

It actually looks like it is "being a poor sport." I'm surprised he didn't take the ball with him.

Finally, he can't choose when and when not to be the NBA's "Golden Boy." He can't choose when and when not to be the face of the Cavaliers. He has to take the good with the bad. An NBA career is not going to be all Nike and Powerade commercials. It's not going to be all ESPYs and MVPs. It's not even going to be all puppets in your likeness.

You have to be able to answer questions after losing, as well as you do when you sweep the first two opponents. Nobody really cares all that much about what Mo Williams thinks of the loss. They (not just the media, but all of the fans, too) want to hear the MVP's thoughts.

You can't be the man, without being a man.

LeBron's Playoffs to be Overshadowed by Conspiracy Theorists

Everybody loves a conspiracy theory.

NBA has long had to quell ideas and rumors of the playoffs being fixed, and it became even more of a problem after the whole Tim Donaghy thing. People love to look at plays and results as something more than coincidence, as something "the league wanted to happen."

Does the league want certain teams or players to be playing on TV as much as possible? Of course. The NBA is a business, and it wants to see its most marketable players with as much face time as possible. However, Daniel Stern had more power over the result of a game in Celtic Pride than David Stern currently does.



What LeBron has done in these playoffs is nothing short of remarkable, and I don't think he's done. If his teammates break out of their shooting slumps, then the Cavs could quite possibly become the ninth team to come back from a 3-1 defecit.

The games have been too close to say the Magic have dominated and the series could very easily have been over by now. By that same token, with a couple of different plays, the Magic could very easily have been down 3-1 in the series.

But if the Cavs end up coming back and winning the series, this will all add more fuel to the fire of NBA Conspiracy Theorists. It can't just be that LeBron is the MVP and could will his team back from the brink of elimination. It has to be "what the league wanted."

If the NBA truly does "make things happen," it has done a horrible job at giving itself the best possible results:

The Cavs' first two rounds were done as quickly as possible this year. Wouldn't the league have an interest in prolonging those series? Wouldn't it be good for the league to make the games closer?

Game 7 of Atlanta-Miami would have been a perfect chance to give us LeBron vs. D-Wade. Wouldn't that have been a better matchup for the league than LeBron vs. Joe Johnson? (By the way, if you are an all-star and you're not known by your first name or a nickname, you need to talk to your agent ASAP.)

The San Antonio Spurs have almost no marketability (except for ABC being able to pimp "Desperate Housewives" with Eva Longoria in the crowd), yet they won over and over again. Why would the league - if it rigs the playoffs - allow the Spurs to win so many titles? In 2006, in suspending Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw, the NBA basically chose the boring Spurs to advance over the much more exciting and marketable Suns. What would the league have to gain from that? Lower ratings?

The 2005 Finals put the Spurs against the defense-driven Detroit Pistons. The result was a seven-game borefest. If the league controls the results, why would it do this?

The answer to all of my questions is there is no answer, because the league may have a rooting business interest, but it doesn't change the outcome, and it doesn't choose the matchups. If it does, then the league is comprised of the worst businessmen on the face of the earth.

It's a shame, because it is possible we will see some great things in the next week from LeBron and the Cavs, but some people might be too suspicious to appreciate it.

LeBron vs. Kobe: A Little Premature?

I was flipping through the channels the other day when I came across this documentary on ESPN: Nike Dream Season: 23 & 24 (LeBron James and Kobe Bryant).

Now I like a sports documentary probably a considerable amount more than the next guy (Sports movies, too - I'll even watch "Love & Basketball" when it periodically comes on cable). Especially when the documentary centers around athletes I know and have watched play. I probably wouldn't get as sucked into a Babe Didrikson documentary.

Anyway, as I was watching it, I couldn't help but hear the same question in my head over and over again: Isn't this a movie better suited to be aired during an NBA Finals in which LeBron and Kobe are both playing?

I know marketing is marketing, and if they both don't make it to the Finals, then this would have been the best time to air it. Still, at the time this aired, the consensus pick for the Finals was still Cavs-Lakers. So the ideal time to run this kind of program would have been during that matchup, not during the Conference Finals.

But I can't help but think that this, along with the Vitamin Water ads, is too much too soon. This will all look a bit silly if we get a Nuggets-Magic series. Carmelo Anthony was on the Olympic team. Dwight Howard, too. Where are the 'Melo-Superman documentaries? Where are the 'Melo-Superman ads?

I feel it would be better to wait until real life shows us LeBron vs. Kobe and then piggy-back onto it, instead of creating a rivalry out of two players with an age difference of seven years. I guess the Lebron James-Darko Milicic (the #2 pick in the 2003 draft; LeBron was #1) rivalry never had the requisite steam to stand the test of time.

-SG

P.S. - Yes, that is Justin Timberlake narrating the movie. Finally!