Warriors Blowing out the Cavs Is the Only Thing That Can Save Basketball
Last Night the Golden State Warriors blew the doors off the Cavs in a twenty two point blowout of the Cleveland Cavaliers and with any luck, and without any interference from the NBA Commissioner and the officials, games 2 through 4 will all go the same way. Now it might seem strange to root for a series to be non competitive but why shouldn’t this series be as predictable and disappointing as the season as a whole has been. I’ve been off the opinion for years that the NBA is as rigged as a state fair carnival game and just behind the WWE in terms of scripted Sport. Everything from the Draft to the way refs seem to arbitrarily switch the way the officiate games stinks to high heaven of the NBA doing what it has to make the most money.
The NBA’s favoritism for star power and tolerance for allowing their top tier talent to form ‘super teams’ to win titles in their words “for their legacy”. The Legacy talk is among the most ridiculous things the mainstream media tolerates guys like Durant saying. when Kevin Durant left OKC and his dignity to join an already championship team in Golden State he didn’t add anything to his legacy because they didn’t need him to win it. Durant certainly makes them better but they’ve already won the title so any title they win they might have been able to do without him. It devalues what winning a championship means when players shamelessly chase it in their prime especially when they were already on teams that contended for titles. Durants Legacy will be he needed to be on the best team to win a title and wasn’t confident enough in himself to do it with what he had.
Durant’s departure reduced the number of possible NBA finalists from four to two and if they blowout the Cavs like they are set to it will make the whole season feel pointless. As Sports fans we watch our teams and invest our time and money into them and sometimes delude ourselves into thinking just maybe they get lucky or hot or both and go on a cinderella run for a title. The Title isn’t the be all end all their is some fun in just investing but how can any fan of a team that doesn’t have LeBron or Curry and Durant even begin to care because for the last three years there have been no upsets or even competitive series except for the finals and occasionally conference finals. The regular season means nothing and at this point maybe the whole season is pointless.
The concentration of talent in the NBA is killing the product, small market teams get little to no coverage because what’s the point only two teams matter. If the Cavs get blown out hopefully people, and money, stop paying attention and the NBA finally realizes that ‘Super Teams’ are bad for the sport and they tighten their idiotic salary cap which can greater spread around the talent to more teams can be competitive and the NBA becomes more interesting as a result.
Written By Jason MacKinnon (@oohkillemjason)