LAL-DEN Game 6

LAL-DEN (DEN, 113-96)

Look. Let's just say that I'm incredibly disappointed with how this series has turned out. I predicted that the lakers would win 4-2, and many of my friends thought that they'd finish with a sweep. But, like the lakers always tend to do, they just let Denver hang around and now they find themselves in a Game 7 situation which anyone could take.

Having watched only glimpses of this game, I probably can't tell you anything about how the game plan played out, etc. But, I did see this - Nuggets started the game 11-0, and when I was watching the 3Q, there was absolutely no hustle at all in the lakers. All the 50% balls were going the nuggets way - you ask me how the lakers would even attempt to put together a championship run if they got stomped so badly; the general lack of effort was disheartening to watch. In fact, even though I've been a laker fan my whole life, I am not sorry to say that today, I really felt like the lakers didn't deserve to be in the playoffs. The cocky mannerisms that Bynum has displayed all season, as well as his ill-timed, and poorly chosen words to provide motivation for the nuggets displayed how little he has progressed throughout this season. And plus, do I have to say anything at all when your top player has gastro and you have to try to ride him to win the game?!

But - I'll admit now that I've been a laker fan for life, and so I still hope that they use their one last shot to see if they can propel themselves into the second round; but if they show this complete lackadasical effort in the second round, they can except just to get swept by OKC.

Last season -->The NBA lockout? Where's basketball at right now?

So you guys may or may not be aware of it, but last year's NBA season was by far one of the best seasons of basketball that I've watched in a really long time. Like, a really long time. It started as a season in which my favourite team, the Lakers, jumped out to a 8-0 start, and I thought that they would run away with the season. The Miami Heat (my most hated team) did shockingly well for their first season together, even though I thought that they would be exposed against teams with a small, nifty point guard or a dominant center. But it wasn't the case, they managed to find ways to win with a single true superstar, a Judas, and a dinosaur. Plus a really average bench. In fact, I'm still shocked at how miami made it so far with such an average bench.. I watched as the lakers were swept by the Mavs in the second round, something which I had never even considered possible before. My prediction of "Lakers 4-2" went horrible wrong, instead switching up to "Mavs 4-0 sweep", and all my dreams of the three-peat were over. I insisted that IF it came to the point where it was Mavs-Heat, I would stop watching NBA for the next year.

Lucky for me, at that point I managed to wake up to how incredible Dirk is as a player, and how the rest of the playoffs this season stemmed into something truly beautiful. Two of the youngest teams in the NBA, the thunder and grizzles, emerged as some wonderful teams to watch. The grizzles showed gritty determination and a dogged effort (ZEEE-BOOOOO). Let's be honest, didn't you write them off after Rudy Gay got injured? I didn't even think they'd squeeze into the last spot of the west, yet they ended up taking the thunder to seven games, amongst which was the 3OT MARATHON. I remember thinking that I would miss the end of the game due to my lecture, yet when I finished I was still watching the game for at least another 40 minutes! But eventually, the thunder would prevail, the Mavs would move on, and finally the Mavs would face the Heat in the finals.

What a finals! Really! To be honest, one of the greatest reasons why I didn't want the Mavs to reach the finals was more for the fact that I didn't think they were able to win against the heat; they didn't (and still don't) seem particularly athletic, I didn't think they played particularly good defence, and they abused the pick-and-roll offence, making them predictable on offence. And the fact that they seemed to live or die by the 3-point line... But then I saw a few things I liked in them - Deshawn Stevenson, who has been trash talking LeBron since his days in cleveland, when he called him "overrated"; Jason Terry (who admittedly I didn't like earlier because I knew he could score); The absolutely stupid ability for the bench to score points; and dirk. There's not much more that needs to be said about Dirk, because he literally did everything, and you can search him up anywhere, but he is incredible. (I refuse to use re-dirk-culous!). 

So having said all of this, how is it that we've entered a period of uncertainty and instability, in which the players and associations can't seem to get the figures right? Putting it in perspective, the worst-paid players in the NBA still have a salary that approaches seven digits. Easily. The superstars are payed ludicrous figures; we saw something along the lines that Kobe received 25.4 mil this season, whilst the entire Denver payroll post-'Melo had figures along the lines of 28 mil. For the entire roster. So how can players be complaining that they aren't receiving enough? As for the owners losing money, I'm sure that they're not really losing that much money which is jeopardizing their day-to-day lives.. So how can we move from the greatest basketball season to a waiting game in which we're not even sure there will be a next season, until next year? 

All I know is that when Basketball New Year rolls around on the 26th October this year, there probably won't be basketball. And that's really weird. You can't change the date of the new year. So why change this one? Stupid association owners... *mutters*....

A belated congrats to the Mavs, 2010 champions!