The NBA season just got good. So was eight months too long to wait?
This was the year players and fans brawled in Detroit, the name "Lakers" tumbled off the league marquee, and domestic economic signals began to flash red. This year's squeaky-sneaker march from opening night to the Finals seemed to take longer than ever.
Despite the theatrics, pro basketball will head into its summer break on a high as the Detroit-San Antonio series comes down to tonight with just the 16th Game 7 in NBA Finals history. All this amid signs of a Lakers revival and word of an owners-players agreement to avoid a lockout.
When you think about it, the character of this season -- or almost any other NBA season the past 13 years -- has come to be personified by Robert Horry.
Big Shot Bob's performance in San Antonio's Game 5 victory Sunday made him the stuff of NBA legend -- living the life the rest of the league can only dream about.
Horry snoozes through the regular season, wakes up just in time for the playoffs and goes out and scores more points in the second half of a pivotal game in June than he did in any complete game from November to May.
Now otherwise reputable commentators are talking about Horry as a potential Hall of Fame candidate based on his clutch shooting in the playoffs with Houston, the Lakers and now vying for a sixth NBA championship ring with his third organization.
In no other major sport do we even have this conversation about a player who never was among the regular-season leaders in anything, no matter his playoff impact. When was the last time you heard somebody touting Craig Counsell for Cooperstown?
No disrespect to Horry, but if he makes the Hall of Fame, you'll know all you need to know about the NBA's regard for the fans who pay the price of a summer vacation to take a family out to one of the 1,230 regular-season games it puts on every year.
Don't blame the players. The regular season is just too long to take seriously, which is why Shaq-Kobe showdowns become such big deals. The 2004-05 season opened on Election Night. How long ago does that seem? When the Lakers tipped off against Denver on Nov. 2, John Kerry still had a chance to be President.
It's time to shorten the six-month regular season. Cut each team's schedule from 82 to about 60 games. Mix in some side competitions (how about an in-season Pacific Division mini-tournament to give the Clippers a chance of winning something?), make the All-Star game a U.S.-vs.-Internationals competition, put something at stake besides The Ring.
Then get to work on the two-month playoffs. Seed the whole bracket, ignoring conference identities. Chop the first round to best-of-3 games, trim the second and third to best-of-5, leave the NBA Finals at best-of-7. Everybody will make less money, but only in the short run.
One great game in San Antonio, with everything on the line, would leave us smiling for the 3 months before Phil Jackson straps on the sandals for training camp.
The questions to be answered this evening go beyond the matter of whether the Spurs or Pistons can lay claim to post-Lakers dominance.
There are the character issues surrounding both teams.
If Detroit wins, the Pistons go down as the gutsiest group of overachievers of their generation, on the verge of going 11-0 in playoff-series elimination games while winning back-to-back titles. The Spurs, for all they've achieved since Tim Duncan's arrival, will be tagged as chokers for squandering two chances to close out this series at home.
If San Antonio wins, the Spurs go down as serious dynasts, having three titles in seven years -- the same number as the Lakers. Meanwhile, the Pistons' "gutty" label starts to read like an insult, as if they're all heart and no talent.
After much discussion of the shortage of star power in these NBA Finals, intriguing individuals will be all over the floor tonight.
Duncan might emerge from the series wishing for the good old days, when he was thought to be a boring robot, instead of his new image as an all-too-human bricklayer from the free-throw line.
The stakes are similar for Manu Ginobili, who went from Next Big Thing after Game 1 to Goat after missing three shots and committing a critical turnover in Game 6.
Larry Brown may be coaching his last game with the Pistons period , depending on what happens with his health problems and his alleged front-office flirtation with Cleveland which, until recently, were both equally appealing. Brown deserves to go out a winner.
Rasheed Wallace may emerge from the series as an unlikely hero, first for sanding up and admitting his error in leaving Horry unguarded at the 3-point arc in the final seconds of overtime in Game 5 and then for bouncing back with a clutch performance in Game 6.
Last year's Finals MVP, Chauncey Billups, whom the Lakers remember well, has a chance to go down as one of the great clutch players in recent years after raising his game with the title in the balance for the second year in a row.
The only thing with Billups is you get a bonus. He also shows up for the first six months of the season.
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