Wed, April 8th, 2020

The 2020 NBA “title” — Ray Allen’s shot — Great NBA writing

Wednesday, April 8th, 2020

  The Opening Tip

  • If the NBA does crown a champion for 2020, how will it hold up historically?

  • The butterfly effect of Ray Allen’s 2013 NBA Finals shot

  • Some links to great NBA writing 

  • Remembering Moses Malone

1. The Lead: How much weight will this potential title hold?

The NBA has far too much at financial stake not to do everything in its power to salvage some sort of postseason.As such, it would appear the most likely scenario would involve a set up in a cavernous Las Vegas location, where playoff teams would gather over a certain amount of time to conduct a tournament to crown a champion.So, if, say, the Lakers win an abbreviated, five-game “NBA Finals” against the Bucks in an atmosphere-devoid, makeshift arena, will the LeBron lovers be unleashed upon us with four-rings-is-close-enough-to-six-rings takes?Marc Stein explored this idea in his latest newsletter: 

“You have to wonder, though: How would we really look at Giannis and the Bucks, in our rings-are-everything sports culture, if they emerged victorious from a regular season and postseason that fell short of the N.B.A.’s 82-game and 16-playoff-win norms?How much credit would LeBron get for leading the Lakers to such a crown?What sort of minimum playoff structure would it take, for Kawhi and the Clippers (or anyone else), to satisfy the masses that this was a representative season?Perhaps the basketball public, grateful just to have the game back in any form, would be unusually forgiving.But don’t count on it.”

Have you seen the daily war that wages on NBA Twitter? We absolutely should not count on it! The ‘99 Spurs, who beat the Knicks in the Finals of a 50-game, lockout-ruined season, have long lived with the sag of a kind-of-title. That season started on Christmas, had no All-Star Game, and featured weird scheduling quirks like back-to-back-to-back three-day stretches.Still, that year at least included a full four-round playoff in stadiums across the country filled with enthusiastic fans.This year, though … think about it: Would there even be a celebration for the team that wins whatever tournament the NBA comes up with? Would there be a trophy presentation?A forced, abridged, anticlimactic playoffs would be good for the NBA financially, of course. But would it help its image?

The NBA has far too much at financial stake not to do everything in its power to salvage some sort of a postseason.As such, it would appear the most likely scenario would involve a set up in a cavernous Las Vegas location, where playoff teams would gather over a certain amount of time to conduct a tournament to crown a champion.So, if, say, the Lakers win an abbreviated, five-game “NBA Finals” against the Bucks in an atmosphere-devoid, makeshift arena, will the LeBron lovers be unleashed upon us with four-rings-is-close-enough-to-six-rings takes?Marc Stein explored this idea in his latest newsletter: 

“You have to wonder, though: How would we really look at Giannis and the Bucks, in our rings-are-everything sports culture, if they emerged victorious from a regular season and postseason that fell short of the N.B.A.’s 82-game and 16-playoff-win norms?How much credit would LeBron get for leading the Lakers to such a crown?What sort of minimum playoff structure would it take, for Kawhi and the Clippers (or anyone else), to satisfy the masses that this was a representative season?Perhaps the basketball public, grateful just to have the game back in any form, would be unusually forgiving.But don’t count on it.”

Have you seen the daily war that wages on NBA Twitter? We absolutely should not count on it! The ‘99 Spurs, who beat the Knicks in the Finals of a 50-game, lockout-ruined season, have long lived with the sag of a kind-of-title. That season started on Christmas, had no All-Star Game, and featured weird scheduling quirks like back-to-back-to-back three-day stretches.Still, that year at least included a full four-round playoff in stadiums across the country filled with enthusiastic fans.This year, though … think about it: Would there even be a celebration for the team that wins whatever tournament the NBA comes up with? Would there be a trophy presentation?A forced, abridged, anticlimactic playoffs would be good for the NBA financially, of course. But would it help its image?

2. The Grip asks: Is this the most important shot in NBA history?

If Ray Allen didn’t hit this shot, which tied Game 6 of the 2013 NBA Finals and led to the Heat eventually beating the Spurs in seven games, a few things would have happened: 

  • Miami would have fallen to 1-2 in the NBA Finals in the Heatles era. 

  • Ray Allen’s legacy would be significantly more vanilla than it is right now. 

  • LeBron’s final moments of the series would have included a missed 3 and a turnover in the final minute. 

  • All of the Heat … fans? … who left the game early would have been vindicated. (Instead, they left and were denied reentrance for overtime.) 

  • An unknowable series of other events might have happened: Would Chris Bosh (who, we remind you, scored zero points in Game 7) be traded? Would Pat Riley step in and coach? Would LeBron be 2-for-9 in the Finals?

To be fair: The fact that the Spurs stormed back in 2014 to beat Miami in five games quelled the momentousness of this series. Perhaps, if San Antonio had finished the deal in 2013, the Heat would have come back and won their second ring in 2014, instead.Other candidates for most important shot in NBA history:

Also: It remains astounding how high Norris Cole jumped when Ray Allen made his 3-pointer. Look for him on the Heat’s bench. 

3. Five pieces of great NBA writing from the archive   

  1. Pistol Pete’s last shot [The Stacks]

  2. How Adrian Wojnarowski, basketball's biggest reporter, gets his scoops [The New Republic]

  3. Bob Knight makes peace with Indiana [Sports Illustrated]

  4. Michael Jordan has not left the building [ESPN]

  5. No one -- no one ever -- wrote an NBA gamer like Bob Ryan [Grantland]

 4. 4/8/1987: Moses Malone gets 50  

On this day 33 years ago, Moses Malone had his last 50-point game of his career against the Nets while playing for the Washington Bullets.Malone is perhaps the least-remembered all-time great, so here’s a quick catch up.He:

  • Was famous for skipping college and heading right to the ABA’s Utah Stars, which angered a great many folk in the NCAA. 

  • Made 13 All-Star teams.

  • Won three NBA MVPs, one of eight players to win three-plus. 

  • Won the 1983 NBA title as the 76ers’ best player, famously predicting the team’s playoff run would go “fo, fo, fo.” (Translation: Four-game sweep, four-game sweep, four-game sweep.) The 76ers ended up going 12-1 in the postseason. 

  • Scored 29,580 career points (27,409 in the NBA). 

Malone isn’t so well-known in 2020 for a few reasons:

  • He is often confused for/overshadowed by the other more modern NBA great, Karl Malone. 

  • He was a relentless rebounder and paint scorer, but not very flashy. 

  • He bounced around pro basketball rather than belonging to one team; he played for Utah (ABA), St. Louis (ABA), Buffalo (NBA), Houston, Philadelphia, Washington, Atlanta, Milwaukee, Philadelphia (again), and, finally, San Antonio, as a washed-up 39-year old. 

Malone died in 2015, which prompted

from Chuck Klosterman.

5.  Off the press

  • READ: Watching ESPN during the coronavirus shutdown [The New Yorker]

  • WATCH: How George Gervin made the finger roll famous [The Ringer]