You know some people are actually upset about the Warriors and Cavs being in the NBA Finals again?
It’s true. Some people out there on the Internet are complaining how “sick” they are seeing Lebron and Steph duking it out for the pro basketball championship. Needless to say, these people are some downright stupid mofos, and they probably deserve a hearty whack upside the head with a metal spoon a couple of times until they start thinkin’ right again.
Point blank, Golden State vs. Cleveland III is everything you could want out of sports and then some. There is no denying we are getting the two best teams in the NBA competing for the championship. In fact, the two teams have a combined 31-1 record in this year’s postseason, with Lebron momentarily forgetting how basketball works in the fourth quarter of a game against the Celtics being the only thing preventing this year’s championship clash from being a contest between two totally unbeaten playoff teams.
This is like two NFL teams blanking their postseason opponents 54-0 in back to back games meeting each other in the Super Bowl. There is no denying we’re getting the best possible matchup to determine the NBA’s best team, and honestly, I hope it stays that way for another four, five or six years.
You don’t really have any other comparable rivalries in U.S. sports. I suppose some regional feuds might have more history or hate, but none of those have the league championship on the line each and every year.
In the NFL, it’s the Patriots versus everybody else, with only Eli Manning’s country ass, for some inexplicable reason, capable of defeating him when all the marbles are on the line. The NHL might have a rising dynasty in the Pittsburgh Penguins, but they don’t have a heavyweight counterpart in the Western Conference. And at this point, you can pretty much determine the two teams in the World Series by pulling random names out of a hat.
As much as we say we want parity in pro sports, the fact of the matter is we secretly yearn for duelling dynasties to run roughshod over everybody. The last time MLB was actually fun to watch was in the early 2000s, when the Yankees and Red Sox just beat the holy hell out each other in the ALCS every October. Meanwhile, the overall NHL product has been on a decline ever since the heated Red Wings/Avalanche rivalry went to the wayside, and with no Tom Brady vs. Whichever Team Peyton Manning is Playing on These Days rivalry, the 2016 NFL season certainly felt flatter than it has in more than a decade.
But such is not the case in the NBA. Indeed, the Golden State/Cleveland championship rivalry is quite possibly the best the sports world has seen since the Lakers/Celtics feud of the 1980s. Yeah, it was fun watching Jordan thump the Suns and the Supersonics in the 1990s, but without a real rival to test his mettle against, you naturally walked away from those NBA title series underwhelmed.
NOBODY is walking away underwhelmed by the Cavs/Warriors series. It’s not just that it’s one huge star (Steph Curry) taking on another huge star (Lebron James, who is undoubtedly the face of the League, to boot.) It’s that you have an entire cast of generation-defining players going toe-to-toe.
Kevin Durant. Klay Thompson. Draymond Green. Andre Iguodala. That’s practically an all-star team.
Kyrie Irving. Kyle Korver. Kevin Love (for some reason, people frown upon my proposal to call them the the “KKK line,” though.) JR Smith. That too is practically an all-star team.
And they’re heading straight into each other for the NBA Championship.
Folks, this is as good as sports in this day and age gets, and if you’re missing it, you might as well get a sex change operation and glue down the buttons on your remote control for QVC.
People who complain about the Warriors and Cavs going at it are the kind of people who would complain about getting a full tank of gas with a brand new car. We ought to be eternally grateful that we’re getting to see undeniably the two best teams in basketball – interestingly enough, representing two of the biggest turd piles masquerading as cities in America – going at it one more time.
It’s not everyday you’re guaranteed the best in the world. And here we are, getting precisely that in seven game form. Be thankful, folks – especially when the alternative is trying to stay awake while the Spurs play NyQuil-Ball against the Raptors or Wizards for another half decade.
