Bill Simmons has the definitive piece on the 2009 NBA champs, and the team's enigmatic superstar, Kobe Bryant. Simmons is the most entertaining and insightful NBA analyst around, but lately his stuff has been unconvincing or contradictory. Still, this latest opus is a masterful summation of the Lakers' season. Simmons both acknowledges the team's good fortune (a number of competing teams faced serious injury problems) and gives credit where credit is due.
This, however, did not make much sense:
Kobe played so much better in the 2009 Finals than the 2008 Finals.
Everyone kept saying it so it must be true! Actually, not really.
2008 Kobe (six games): 25.7 pts, 4.7 rebs, 5.0 ast, 3.8 TO, 21.8 FGA, 8.2 FTA, 40.5 FG%, 80 FT%, 32 3FG%, 42.8 MPG.
2009 Kobe: (five games): 32.4 pts, 5.6 reb, 7.4 ast, 3.2 TO, 27.0 FGA, 8.8 FTA, 43.0 FG%, 84 FT%, 36 3FG%, 43.8 MPG.
Hmm, those numbers look a lot better to me, even with the increased shot attempts. Anyway, he is generally fair to Bryant: Simmons now ranks the star guard as an all-time Top Ten great. (I made a cursory list and came up with ten better players, but not eleven. In other words, Kobe is right there).
The best part of Simmons' column is its attack on the media's slavish reluctance to say anything critical about the league's biggest name, who is by all honest accounts a difficult, unlikable teammate. The press' unwillingness to depart from the script--a script partially set by Spike Lee's unwatchable, propagandistic, pro-Kobe ESPN documentary--prevented any serious analysis of one of the most fascinating figures in sports. (It is too bad David Halberstam is not around to write a biography. However, Kobe's personality might call for the Robert Caro touch).
And what about these Lakers? They never really got going until the third game of the conference finals against Denver, but from that point forward they played as well as their personnel would suggest. Historically, however, it is hard to rate them highly, both because they did not look much better than a far-from-great Denver team and a fatally injured Rockets squad. This was one of those years in which key stars (Kevin Garnett, Jameer Nelson, Tracy McGrady, Yao Ming) were injured on three of the six best teams. The playoffs had some great moments, to be sure, but this is not a league full of great, or even really, really good basketball teams.
Overall, the playoffs alternately confirmed and refuted the two biggest criticisms of the NBA. The first criticism is that the refereeing is terrible, and the league needs to institute major changes. The proof of this unfortunate state of affairs was manifestly obvious night after night, and ranked as one of the two biggest problems (along with dreadful coaching) of an otherwise exciting two months. That's right--two months! People love to complain about how long the playoffs last, but this criticism has never made any sense to me. For over sixty days, we get terrific basketball almost every night. Sure, the first two (four day) weekends of the NCAA tournament are great, but those account for eight days of the year. What is wrong with more high-stakes basketball? It's true that the league should shorten the regular season by ten games, but this has nothing to do with the playoffs.
One final note: the outstanding television ratings are a good sign for the league, but maybe bad news for those of us in favor of reform. What is the NBA's motive to seek improvement if viewers are sticking around?
--Isaac Chotiner
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COMMENTS (5)
And of course, there's a very important third criticism that needs to be voiced, which is the NBA's conspirational allowance of the Bilderberg Group to send electrodes through the rim, so when Cindarella teams like the Nuggets or the Magic shoot free thows on nights those few points would make for game-changing numbers, the ball simply pings off of the medal and away from the net. This is a very important issue that needs to be addressed.
And of course, there's a very important third criticism that needs to be voiced, which is the NBA's conspirational allowance of the Bilderberg Group to send electrodes through the rim, so when Cindarella teams like the Nuggets or the Magic shoot free thows on nights those few points would make for game-changing numbers, the ball simply pings off of the medal and away from the net. This is a very important issue that needs to be addressed.
Dylan,
Sure it's easy enough to lampoon the arguments I make about the role Bilderberg Inc. plays in the global economy. But you seem to have decided this can be done with nary a single substantive rebuttal of the argument itself.
Now, you may well be the one who blew up building 7 at the WTC; the one who funded Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas; the one who allowed NASA to film the "moon landing" in his back yard; the one who thought up Skull and Bones, Free Masons and the New World Order; the one who fed Dan Brown all the juicy details about Jesus shacking up with Mary; the one who kept the alien hidden in his home at Roswell; the one who covered up the Philadelphia Experiment...
All this ... view full comment
Dylan,
Sure it's easy enough to lampoon the arguments I make about the role Bilderberg Inc. plays in the global economy. But you seem to have decided this can be done with nary a single substantive rebuttal of the argument itself.
Now, you may well be the one who blew up building 7 at the WTC; the one who funded Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas; the one who allowed NASA to film the "moon landing" in his back yard; the one who thought up Skull and Bones, Free Masons and the New World Order; the one who fed Dan Brown all the juicy details about Jesus shacking up with Mary; the one who kept the alien hidden in his home at Roswell; the one who covered up the Philadelphia Experiment...
All this may well be true. I can understand you not wanting to be linked to yet another "conspiracy". But the facts speak for themselves. You are the one who gets the Bilderbergers their coffee and donuts. You shine their shoes and give them massages. You clip their nails and walk their dogs.
Be a man and admit it.
george:
PS: By the way, the only reason the Lakers won is because the Bilderbergers fixed the game. Remember the character Bruce Willis played in Pulp Fiction? Yep, the Bilderbergers.
Same with Kobe in that hotel room. The Bilderbergers set the whole thing up.
Lampooning arguments you make? Don't you trust your conspiracies about global lizardalienpeople enough to not assume that when I invoke them, I do so not to 'lampoon' you, but because I'm completely serious in my belief of the same conspiracies? You've lost your edge, George. You used to rail against the religionists; now the Bilderberg group has become your new bogeymen. What's the deal? Have you lost your--*gulp*--faith?
Lampooning arguments you make? Don't you trust your conspiracies about global lizardalienpeople enough to not assume that when I invoke them, I do so not to 'lampoon' you, but because I'm completely serious in my belief of the same conspiracies? You've lost your edge, George. You used to rail against the religionists; now the Bilderberg group has become your new bogeymen. What's the deal? Have you lost your--*gulp*--faith?
That Simmons article is all over the place, but he's right to compare Bryant to Bonds. Both have always struck me the same way: extremely talented, maybe even great, but with a palpable contempt for everyone and everything around them that saps my ability to enjoy watching them.
That Simmons article is all over the place, but he's right to compare Bryant to Bonds. Both have always struck me the same way: extremely talented, maybe even great, but with a palpable contempt for everyone and everything around them that saps my ability to enjoy watching them.
dylan: I do so not to 'lampoon' you, but because I'm completely serious in my belief of the same conspiracies? You've lost your edge, George
george:
Does the expression "tongue in cheek" ring a bell? How about "irony"?
As for the religious service conducted by the bilderberg group, it is grounded, ironically enough, in the politics of convenience. Or what some would call an Orwellian or Machiavellian agenda.
The ecclesiastical religious fanatics are dangerous, sure. But the danger is invariably local...or embedded in a clash between spiritual dogmas.
The bilderbergs, on the other hand, are global. They own and operate the global economy. Their ideas have access to armies, ta ... view full comment
dylan: I do so not to 'lampoon' you, but because I'm completely serious in my belief of the same conspiracies? You've lost your edge, George
george:
Does the expression "tongue in cheek" ring a bell? How about "irony"?
As for the religious service conducted by the bilderberg group, it is grounded, ironically enough, in the politics of convenience. Or what some would call an Orwellian or Machiavellian agenda.
The ecclesiastical religious fanatics are dangerous, sure. But the danger is invariably local...or embedded in a clash between spiritual dogmas.
The bilderbergs, on the other hand, are global. They own and operate the global economy. Their ideas have access to armies, tanks, bombs and [for some] nuclear stockpiles. Few religionists are able to make this existential leap.
Though in Iran, of course, they have.
george