duncan228
06-03-2009, 02:20 PM
If fans can't riff on Kobe-LeBron, they'll rip on refs (http://www.cbssports.com/columns/story/11816777)
By Ray Ratto
CBSSports.com Columnist
The problem with the NBA Finals starting so long after the conference finals have ended is that we all have too much time to chew over the same few topics. Kobe's legacy, Jackson vs. Van Gundy, Howard's coming-out party, Lamar Odom's pre-diabetic comas, ABC's pending ratings agony and, for those who like variety, LeBron's nonexistent apology, now made all the more tardy by surgery on his mouth.
The only thing left to be messed with, really, is how horrible the officiating is going to be, and that doesn't really happen until the league issues the names of the three gents who draw Game 1 on Thursday night. That happens at 9 a.m. on game day, but we'd be surprised if it wasn't Joey Crawford, Steve Javie and a third guy you wouldn't normally think of. Joe DeRosa, maybe. Or Bill Spooner.
At that point, the debating circle will be complete. The nation didn't get the series it wanted, so it will fall back upon the alternate theme it likes the best, and that more often than not these days happens to be the officials, and the conventional stance is, "What hyenas these men be."
Of all these topics, the officiating is the only one upon which everyone will agree, which is remarkable considering the stunning lack of data with which they all enter the argument. Less is actually known about this part of the game than any other, because most people take solace in the following notions:
"I know a foul when I see one."
"The NBA wants so-and-so to win."
And the deal-breaker, "Tim Donaghy."
The entire process will be helped along by Phil Jackson, who will wait until the first Lakers loss to start complaining in that ethereal way of his about how his team was screwed. He will be fined tip money that will be paid by Jerry Buss, and everyone will have a good laugh.
Stan Van Gundy, on the other hand, will complain about the officials and not be taken seriously because his credentials as a coach have been so publicly undermined by so many people who take their basketball knowledge hints from Shaquille O'Neal, and because he sounds like an auctioneer who really could use a vacation. He'll be fined too, but people will say he shouldn't be fined but fired.
This will lead to a round of half-informed discussions about why the NBA doesn't do more about its officiating problems. The problem actually is that it has done too much for too long and done it poorly, but people have their positions and they're not shifting them no matter what.
The only way the officials will be saved is if the games are lopsided, which could certainly happen if the tournament reverts to its form of the first two rounds. Lopsided games mean games in which the officials can't screw your favorite guy, although you'll probably revert to Topic No. 2 in that case and tie the officials into it.
And if you have a lopsided series, you'll also have one last round of "It should have been Lakers-Cavs," as though somehow the NBA should have ignored the Donaghy lessons and fixed the conference finals better.
Now that is the conversational topic the league ought to be concerned with -- the blithely offered notion from so many people who should know better that their games either are fixed or should be. It is the NBA's steroid story, because just as baseball catches the inordinate amount of grief about performance-enhancing drugs, the NBA catches most of the grief about preordained results.
You get this with a league built on stars -- the fans want the stars to face each other, think they get hosed every time they don't get what they want, and don't like changing their minds on who is a star if the results aren't to their liking. Tim Duncan should be a star, but the nation has decided not to like the Spurs or to be captivated by Duncan's face-plate. Dwight Howard will face the same issue because no matter what he does in this series, he will not be LeBron James, and LeBron James is the one everyone said they wanted on this stage. And that's just how it is.
In fact, if Howard leads the Magic to victory, the story will shift away from how surprisingly delightful Orlando was to "Kobe can't win the big one without Shaq, Phil will never beat Red Auerbach, Pau Gasol is still too soft, and Lamar Odom is a candy-bar whore." That's part of the same syndrome -- basketball fans (those who don't spend seven hours chewing on each game) are more stingy with granting star status to new faces and less comfortable with spending energy on them than any other sport. This was supposed to be Kobe vs. LeBron, period, and Dwight Howard went and ruined everything the same way Duncan and the Spurs ruined everything a few years ago.
Take Celtics-Lakers from last year. It is still considered a memorable series because it had the two teams everyone said they wanted when, in fact, it really wasn't close to wonderful at all, and if there were any other teams involved, it would have been savaged as one of the worst series ever on the basis of Game 6 alone.
In all, this has a chance to be a very dissatisfying series despite the devotion with which we have hit the talking points. Thank God, then, that we'll always have the officials. They remain the gift that keeps on giving.
By Ray Ratto
CBSSports.com Columnist
The problem with the NBA Finals starting so long after the conference finals have ended is that we all have too much time to chew over the same few topics. Kobe's legacy, Jackson vs. Van Gundy, Howard's coming-out party, Lamar Odom's pre-diabetic comas, ABC's pending ratings agony and, for those who like variety, LeBron's nonexistent apology, now made all the more tardy by surgery on his mouth.
The only thing left to be messed with, really, is how horrible the officiating is going to be, and that doesn't really happen until the league issues the names of the three gents who draw Game 1 on Thursday night. That happens at 9 a.m. on game day, but we'd be surprised if it wasn't Joey Crawford, Steve Javie and a third guy you wouldn't normally think of. Joe DeRosa, maybe. Or Bill Spooner.
At that point, the debating circle will be complete. The nation didn't get the series it wanted, so it will fall back upon the alternate theme it likes the best, and that more often than not these days happens to be the officials, and the conventional stance is, "What hyenas these men be."
Of all these topics, the officiating is the only one upon which everyone will agree, which is remarkable considering the stunning lack of data with which they all enter the argument. Less is actually known about this part of the game than any other, because most people take solace in the following notions:
"I know a foul when I see one."
"The NBA wants so-and-so to win."
And the deal-breaker, "Tim Donaghy."
The entire process will be helped along by Phil Jackson, who will wait until the first Lakers loss to start complaining in that ethereal way of his about how his team was screwed. He will be fined tip money that will be paid by Jerry Buss, and everyone will have a good laugh.
Stan Van Gundy, on the other hand, will complain about the officials and not be taken seriously because his credentials as a coach have been so publicly undermined by so many people who take their basketball knowledge hints from Shaquille O'Neal, and because he sounds like an auctioneer who really could use a vacation. He'll be fined too, but people will say he shouldn't be fined but fired.
This will lead to a round of half-informed discussions about why the NBA doesn't do more about its officiating problems. The problem actually is that it has done too much for too long and done it poorly, but people have their positions and they're not shifting them no matter what.
The only way the officials will be saved is if the games are lopsided, which could certainly happen if the tournament reverts to its form of the first two rounds. Lopsided games mean games in which the officials can't screw your favorite guy, although you'll probably revert to Topic No. 2 in that case and tie the officials into it.
And if you have a lopsided series, you'll also have one last round of "It should have been Lakers-Cavs," as though somehow the NBA should have ignored the Donaghy lessons and fixed the conference finals better.
Now that is the conversational topic the league ought to be concerned with -- the blithely offered notion from so many people who should know better that their games either are fixed or should be. It is the NBA's steroid story, because just as baseball catches the inordinate amount of grief about performance-enhancing drugs, the NBA catches most of the grief about preordained results.
You get this with a league built on stars -- the fans want the stars to face each other, think they get hosed every time they don't get what they want, and don't like changing their minds on who is a star if the results aren't to their liking. Tim Duncan should be a star, but the nation has decided not to like the Spurs or to be captivated by Duncan's face-plate. Dwight Howard will face the same issue because no matter what he does in this series, he will not be LeBron James, and LeBron James is the one everyone said they wanted on this stage. And that's just how it is.
In fact, if Howard leads the Magic to victory, the story will shift away from how surprisingly delightful Orlando was to "Kobe can't win the big one without Shaq, Phil will never beat Red Auerbach, Pau Gasol is still too soft, and Lamar Odom is a candy-bar whore." That's part of the same syndrome -- basketball fans (those who don't spend seven hours chewing on each game) are more stingy with granting star status to new faces and less comfortable with spending energy on them than any other sport. This was supposed to be Kobe vs. LeBron, period, and Dwight Howard went and ruined everything the same way Duncan and the Spurs ruined everything a few years ago.
Take Celtics-Lakers from last year. It is still considered a memorable series because it had the two teams everyone said they wanted when, in fact, it really wasn't close to wonderful at all, and if there were any other teams involved, it would have been savaged as one of the worst series ever on the basis of Game 6 alone.
In all, this has a chance to be a very dissatisfying series despite the devotion with which we have hit the talking points. Thank God, then, that we'll always have the officials. They remain the gift that keeps on giving.