Hat-tip to the Cavs, who avoided laying another colossal dud on their home fans by blowing every point of a lopsided lead of 22 only to clear everybody out of the way and deploy the "we are all going to stand here like we have no clue what to do and let LeBron James literally hold the ball for 20 seconds before jacking up a 21-foot jump shot, which will go in because he's The Chosen One" offense. While this is a well-known staple of the Mike Brey offense at Notre Dame (minus the whole going in part), there's something about the last five minutes of a critical elimination game being willingly turned into a 1-on-5 game of H-O-R-S-E that doesn't have me firing up Kanye West. It just leaves me scratching my head.
They say that all sports evolve as we move up the ranks of age and status. Youth hoops lay a foundation, high school and AAU ball is where a basic separation of talents occurs; college is where the select few get to shine, and the truly elite make it to the pros. But it seems like the basketball has reached the truly archaic post-modern phase of its development: the game is done evolving (and really, how do you top the Magic/Larry/MJ years?) and the only thing that changes is our interpretation of it. There were about 5 straight possessions when the Cavalier's offensive plan, and I'm positive this was by design, was four the other four members of the team to get as far away from James as they possibly could. Either LeBron pulls up for a jumper or drives the lane, where a no-doubt foul call was waiting by whistle-happy officiating crews. (Side note: Bill Simmons has an intriguing exegesis on the state of play in the professional ranks; check it out here)
Still, it's not like LeBron didn't drop in a couple of clutch jumpers and single-handedly pull out an elimination game for his team. I just fail to see anything awe-inspiring about it. Of course the NBA can't rig it to make Cleveland systematically squander a comfortable for the third time in as many games, leaving the door wide open for Bron-Bron to heroically ride in for the save. Nobody's that clairvoyant. But performances like James, as good as they may be, are a side product of the culture the NBA has embraced: 11 guys out there playing one-on-one...fourteen if you include the refs, who seem hell-bent on figuring out a way to influence the game rather than regulate it.
As funny as they may be, the current cycle of Kobe-LeBron puppet commercials speaks a cold-hard-fact commentary on the state of the NBA: it's simply too concerned with its own interest to actually embrace the game as it was meant to be played. We can't look at the league and picture a brilliant battle between Los Angeles and Cleveland for the championship - we have to couch it in terms of "KOBE!" vs. "LEBRON!", which isn't all that difficult when we've got both players and an army of promotional yes-men reminding us how 'awesome' they are.
Yeah, I get it. I'm just not particularly inspired by it.
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