Tim Ajmani
The Corsair
Before the 2011 NBA season began, all of the talk and focus was on the offseason events surrounding the Miami Heat’s coup of snaring three free agent all-stars. The trio of Dwayne Wade, Lebron James, and Chris Bosh was being hailed as the next superpower of the NBA. People were proclaiming that they would break the Chicago Bulls’ record-setting 72 win season back in the 1990’s. That they would just breeze through the competition, an unstoppable force just smashing everything in their path. Fast forward ten months, and many things proclaimed about the Heat were true. But what has transpired so far in the NBA playoffs is nothing short of extraordinary.
The Lakers, Spurs, and Celtics – all gone, all forced out before reaching the conference finals. For the first time in years, the Western Conference Finals matchup will not feature a combination of Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan, or both players with their teams. The Celtics, the NBA finals runner-up from last season, were bounced shortly after the Lakers, looking very old and disfigured against the young and talented trio of superstars down in South Beach. The Spurs, perhaps most surprisingly after their record season, were smashed in the 1st round by a 8-seeded Memphis Grizzlies team. Perhaps this is the year that we see a “changing of the guard”. The old powerhouses are gone, and in their place are young and talented teams ready to take up the position of NBA champion.
If someone at the beginning of the season would’ve told me that the Miami Heat, Chicago Bulls, Oklahoma City Thunder, and Dallas Mavericks would be the last four teams standing in the playoffs at this point, I would’ve said they were crazy. Miami and Dallas, two finals teams from a couple years ago, were no surprises, despite their recent playoff struggles. However, the Bulls and Thunder seemed to have arrived competing for the title earlier than expected. The Thunder, after last season’s competitive six game series with the Lakers, were said to still be too young and a year away from competing for the Western Conference title. The Chicago Bulls, who lost out on the Summer Lebron James sweepstakes, were said to potentially make the playoffs and be bounced out of the first round.
Instead, Derrick Rose, Russell Westbrook, and Kevin Durant, all in their early 20’s and in the 3rd or 4th seasons in the league, defied all the odds and have ended up with a chance to advance to the NBA finals. Rose became the youngest NBA MVP in league history, and helped lead the Bulls to 62 wins in the regular season, most since the Jordan era. Durant and Westbrook became All-NBA 1st and 2nd team, respectively, leading the Thunder to their first ever Western Conference Finals appearance since the team relocated from Seattle to Oklahoma City. These young stars were supposed to struggle, rather than succeed this early in their careers.
Many NBA analysts have said that the NBA needs its perennial powers, like the Lakers and Celtics, to be in the finals to help their ratings and publicity. I wonder if they have noticed that the Eastern Conference Finals Game 1 between the Heat and Bulls, drew the highest ratings for an NBA playoff game in history. Even more surprising, the Bulls, despite being the overall one seed in the entire playoffs and underdog, blew the Heat out by twenty one points. Parity is at its all time high in the NBA, and it’s a good thing for the league to have new faces and new stars to compete for the NBA championships.
Most of the time, we can predict what will happen in the NBA playoffs with relative accuracy. However, this year the playoffs have been as unpredictable as it gets. Before the playoffs began, I had the Heat vs the Lakers in the finals. But now, half of my prediction is gone. And it’s very likely that my other half will be gone in the next week or so.