A big difference I see in the NBA as compared to other major professional sporting leagues is the amount of talent. Many fewer athletes are recruited every year and as a direct consequence, only the best and brightest play in the Association (that's right, mLb, mLs, and nfL). As a simple but edifying example, the Jazz have 13 players on their roster compared to the 69 that suit up in the Green and Gold for the Green Bay Packers. In the MLB is a different story entirely. Although they do not possess 69 players on a roster, the talent distribution is so wretched and lopsided that it is reminiscent of the gilded age. When will the Kansas City Chiefs next win the World Series? When will the the Washington Nationals seriously challenge the current league elite? Although neither of these are impossibilities, they seem so far off in the future that they are quite literally decent-comedic-basketball-blog material.
Given that there are fewer talented members in the professional basketball community and that these beautiful sons soar (as opposed to gallop) on many different teams, the old adage that any team can beat any other on any night is true. Even the best teams of today own losses to the Washington's, the Chicago's, the Clipper's, and the Toronto's of the league. This is showcased magnificently by the dead-this-year Knicks and their slaying of the overrated Mavericks last night. Don't get me wrong; the Mavs are good. They are arguably the third best team in the West and a top-five team in the league. I agree with Hollinger's take that their 13 game winning streak was not all that it was cracked up to be and anyone can beat anyone in this chaotic quantum league.
What does that mean for champions? First, it means that no team now owns more than a 27% chance of taking home a ring after this season. Second, it means that this is no longer a game of absolutes or determinism, but rather a riding out of storms and streaks, a dice-throwing, winning-as-many-games-as-"should"-be-won, enterprise. It is all about consistency. Whichever teams that can play as close to their true mean of extreme talent will find themselves at the top of the playoff hill.
For the Jazz, Deron Williams needs to regain his touch. CJ Miles needs to learn to shoot. If these things can happen and Broozer can still grab 1,000,000 rebounds a game, they have a great chance to play close to how they should, and steal away a third seed from the day-trading, drunker sailor/sober congressman Mavericks.
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I think this is not entirely right. The reason I think this is one I tried to touch on, at least tangentially, in my last post. The NBA is not just the amalgamation of the players talents, but coach's game plans, front offices' shrewdness and strategies, commitment of fans, an increasing interest in statistics, and a whole lot of other imperceptible, but important things, like heart and luck and even nicknames. While the Association (nice) has what I take to be the best athletes ever assembled (which is why I enjoy it, it's such a beautiful mix of an almost ballet like gracefulness with full court presses and slam dunks, you can feel the godlike qualities that live in man, much more than in the Grecian Olympics; watching it is like watching a Morphy game or reading a Nabokov sentence, you know that this is a human trait at its finest)... anyway, while that's all true, the other elements aren't the best available. So that the coaching between the Wizards and the Lakers is a world apart, not even really the same genre of thing, while the athletes of both are quite amazing and strong. This is somewhat the basketball curse, while there is the sense that any team can loose to any other, and while this certainly happens over the course of the season, the best teams tend to win a lot more. Some combination of the Lakers, Cavs, Nuggets, and Magic will probably end up in the finals this season. This is a lot more predictable and less exciting than in football where the Saints winning it all surprised many. That doesn't make football a better game, but I would say it's a point in its favor and against basketball. A lot of this is probably the result of playoff series and the length of the NBA season. That's why March Madness is always a lot more exciting and unpredictable than the NBA. The players, however, are worse as are those in football, so overall I prefer the NBA. The season's length can't really be helped (and its no the never ending story that is the baseball season). But I would like to see the restoration of the 5 game first round, and the occasional triumph of someone other than Phil Jackson.
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