It’s the old vs. new, and everything else. The Spurs-Thunder Conference Finals is going to be great theater.

stevenlebron:

The Old Gods and the New

You’l have to excuse me for borrowing an episode title from “Game Of Thrones” to write about the matchup between San Antonio and Oklahoma City.

The first two rounds have brought a greater appreciation for the Spurs — not just what they’ve managed to do in a shorten season that was suppose to bring their model consistency to a halt — but give us a grander narrative in appreciating Duncan and Popovich, and how admist all the chaos and continue change in this league, they’ve firmly entrenched themselves as contenders, even favorites for the title all these years later.

For the Thunder, they are the new — the incumbent in waiting, the torch bearer for the future, the appropriate alternative to the Heat, just about every prerequisite for being the next it team have been met, provided we separate all that’s happened in Oklahoma City from what came before in Seattle.

And we do because this team provides the possibility of change in the hierarchy at the top — and they’ve done so without the gathering of superstars by choice, but through a construction via drafting and shrewd accumulation of talent.

It’s the old Gods and the new, and the intersection of their respective blueprints, which reflect each others in so many ways.

The architect of the Thunder, general manager Sam Presti, grew up in the Spurs’ organization, and took what he learned from the best and applied it to his current team.

The point guards on these teams have been two of the most overly criticized players in the game. It wasn’t long ago that Tony Parker could do no right in the eyes of Gregg Popovich — now, he is probably the most stablizing force on a team that’s full of them.

The same can be said for Westbrook, who’s made the narrative of whether he can co-exist with Durant or if he shoots too much entirely post-ironic everytime it is mentioned.

Where Manu Ginobili was once the best player off the bench in the league, that title has now been passed onto James Harden — both players similar in their efficiency yet individual in their own unique abilities to create on the court.

All this without mentioning the two stoic centerpieces — Duncan and Durant.

In the grander scheme of things — the Spurs could bookend their five championships with two lockout-season titles. While the Thunder need a Finals appearance if only to continue that progressive storyline towards a championship. Two straight seasons of coming up short in the Conference Finals and there will be more questions than answers, and the team becomes a step closer to being more collective failure rather than champion in waiting in the cruel world of heightened expectations and demand for immediate success.

All of this — gathered into a single series. We’ve finally arrived at the point in the playoffs where the stakes are championship worthy and the changing of the guard is not just a notion, but a reality that may steer the league in a brand new direction.

As always: can’t wait.

Kobe on flopping:

“There’s a difference [between taking a charge and flopping]. We all know what flopping is when we see it. The stuff that you see is where guys aren’t really getting hit at all and are just flailing around like a fish out of water. That’s kind of like, where are your balls at?”

Sally Jessy Westbrook in the building. via @ArashMarkazi

Classic Pau/Bynum struggle faces after 119-90 loss to OKC. via @jose3030

nbaoffseason:

Look at these Lakers fans

Will the Heat just cakewalk all the way to the Finals?

Let us know what you think on Twitter - find us @thetickr

stevenlebron:

Deserve

Onto the second round we go in the Eastern Conference. Will things get better? With Miami, Philadelphia, Boston and Indiana left, this looks like a warm up lap for the Heat before they step into the glaring spotlight of the Finals once more.

The first round has been disappointing and felt even bleak at times — which might make sense given we started off the whole thing by losing the reigning MVP in the first game of the first weekend.

The volume and pace at which games were being played in the regular season may have hidden this very fact: that there is a clear separation between the top and bottom teir of teams in these playoffs. In other words: business as usual for the NBA, more top heavy than insert your favorite porn star.

The way the second round is set up in the East doesn’t promise much better, which made me consider an alternate view.

Imagine a world where Lebron, Wade and Bosh were still running their own team, and leading them respectively into the second round in a wide open East against the aging core in Boston. Does that not seem so much more interesting than what we have presently?

All the talk about inequality and the elimination of fair competition brought on by The Decision is completely reflected in the second round, as if whatever reasons we have for despising this group are totally warranted.

I think I’ve personally moved past the stage of despising LeBron at this point, more I’ve recalibrated those negative feelings into better context. It was never a personal matter, but more about how he collapsed a perfectly structured narrative with the Cavs: hometown hero rescues a franchise and city from years of failure.

He took his career in a direction that wasn’t befitting of what his talent was suppose to conquer. To get back the respect and adulation he once garnered, he needs to find that storyline in Miami somehow.

And that’s what makes this current set-up frustrating — there doesn’t seem like a particular team in the Conference that can make the Heat earn their stripes and prove their worth.

It’s not enough to make the Finals again for the Heat, it has to happen a particular way. It’s not about getting there, but getting there the right way.

Most of the time, deserve’s got nothing to do with it.

But in the case of Lebron: that’s the only thing that matters to us.

I wrote a piece today on the joys of scouring thrift stores to find that one (or many) special jersey.

Thought it’d be fun to do a follow-up post with everyone’s most prized jersey - so please send us photos either by hitting us up on Twitter @thetickr, on Facebook or email me.

#crowdsourceattempt

stevenlebron:

Vintage

One of my favorite hobbies — something that I like to do once every month or so — is visiting the thrift stores in my area, spend an hour or two going through each of their second-hand clothing collection to look for sports jerseys that no longer have value to people, sometimes with reason.

You never know what you’re going to find.

Well, after awhile, you kind of do.

There’s always that Allen Iverson jersey, that’s either three sizes too big, or four sizes too small. And just when I find it in size 44, it’s not the color I’m looking for. Find the right player, and it’s the one with the wide replica sleeves. Find the right size, and you look at the lettering in the back and realize it’s not the real thing.

I just flip through the racks without much expectation of finding anything — and that one out of six times you find a David Robinson or Grant Hill with just the right fit, it’s the greatest surprise in the world.

A part of spending all this time searching for who knows what has nothing to do with consumerism at all. I mean my favorite moments are when I see a jersey like Jason Kapono Charlotte Bobcats and just smile — wishing I could trace the jersey back to its owner and understand how they came to own it in the first place.

Lately, the demand for these vintage jerseys have become a sort of fashion statement. There’s actually some meaning to finding Mark Price in the old Cleveland Cavalier design, or Chris Webber in the Golden State Warrior blue. 

It always used to feel like I was exploiting a market inefficiency — these were clothing items that meant nothing to most people. Now, I have to pay a premium if I want to wear a Shareef Abdur Rahim Vancouver Grizzlies with faded lettering.

The market is catching up, but this too shall pass — there will come a day when they won’t care about Glenn Robinson or Larry Johnson anymore, and I’ll find my Robert Horry jersey without overpaying for it.

Maybe it’s a good thing I come home empty handed more often than not — it just makes me want to come back for more. Every trip is a new opportunity to find that next surprise.

And in between — I’ll just several hours a night debating whether it’s worth it to pay thirty bucks shipping online just so I can hang a Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf jersey in my closet.

photo via F as In Frank Vintage

Brian Scalabrine to the rescue. via @jose3030

Just in time for tonight’s games, a recap of the best and worst of the first weekend in the NBA playoffs.

stevenlebron:

Best and worst of first weekend

ESPN has a 5-on-5 segment in which they pose five basketball questions to five experts for their responses. Throughout the playoffs, I’m going to take their questions and give my own answers.

Today, it’s the “best and worst of first weekend”.

1. OK, you’re down 24 in the fourth quarter. Now what?

You mean as a fan? I left the game in the background on mute and stopped watching in the fourth quarter. Until I looked up, and suddenly Nick Young was on his way to a +28 for the game, hitting three in a row from downtown.

It was just downright disturbing to see how stunned the crowd was even as the Grizzlies were going for the winning basket on the final possession. Last time I remember a home crowd so catatonic in sports was Albert Pujols homering off Brad Lidge in the 2005 NLCS.

In a weekend that started with the Rose injury, it was a nice close to have something so randomly exhilarating happen if only to show us that the element of improbability indeed exists in the post-season, even if only in isolated moments.

2. Which win and which loss were most telling?

The Lakers win was the most telling because it showed the potential that this team has if Bynum transforms into a dominant player in the post-season. Harmony and consistency is very fleeting with this team, so still hard to expect them to put it together for 15 more wins. But the victory provides a measuring stick of what could’ve been going forward should things start to unravel.

As for the most telling loss, I’m going with the Mavericks. This is not the first time this year they’ve fallen victim to Kevin Durant at or near the buzzer, and I can’t help but think that Dallas might’ve let their chance at winning this series slip away by not holding on.

The loss was telling for two reasons: a reminder that Dirk Nowitzki in close game situations is still one of the scariest things in basketball, and that the margin of error is very narrow when the Thunder are not shooting the ball well.

3. What will you remember most from this past weekend?

In order: the Rose injury, Chris Duhon, and Nick Young being a +28 in 24 minutes.

4. Who needs to step it up?

Anyone in the Eastern Conference. Someone, please. It can’t possibly be this easy for Miami, can it?

Specifically, the following players are now under evaluation under further notice: Carmelo Anthony, Carlos Boozer, Paul Pierce, Zach Randolph and Danny Granger.

5. Who was your MVP of the weekend?

Chris Webber’s genuine excitement and joy, Caron Butler’s ability to put on a suit with a broken hand, LeBron James, Josh Smith, @jose3030, Floyd Mayweather’s $1.8 million dollar bet on the Clippers +6, did I mention Nick Young was a +28, JaVale McGee’s premeditated attempt at dunking on Pau Gasol on his first ever playoff touch, Tony Parker and this New York Times profile of Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau if only because it revealed that Thibodeau dated two Debbies simultaneously in college, and called them D1 and D2.

Footnotes:

You can read all my 2012 NBA Playoff related posts by clicking here, and by following me on Twitter for in game musings and on Facebook for other great reads, videos and links throughout the post-season.

Where were you when #nickyoungplus28 happened?

stevenlebron:

Rose

Opening weekend of the playoffs is suppose to be about excitement, about the anticipation of matching our expectations of teams and players formed throughout the season against actual results, and for some of those players to surprise, most of the teams to disappoint, and allow conversations to break out into every direction imaginable.

While the first day did give us those prerequisites — Miami asserted themselves, the Knicks continue to have nothing figured out, Dallas possibly losing their chance at winning their series, Indiana not looking as playoff ready as I expected — it’s the season ending injury to Derrick Rose that hovers over all of that like a black cloud.

Can an injury end the championship hopes of a team? One of this magnitude, to this caliber of a player? A definite yes.

Will it change that player’s entire career going forward? A wait and see I suppose, but definitely a question worth asking for now.

It couldn’t have happened to a better player, someone who deserved to have his exit from these playoffs determined by his performance on the court, and not by an injury in the last minute of the first game where his team led by double digits.

This is the same player who actually lives the basketball never stops slogan, who never got over last year’s Conference Finals loss to the Heat, and went through an injury filled season to get to this point again, to face the challenge once more, with a supporting cast seemingly more equipped to wage battle with their rivals in Miami.

It’s a huge letdown for basketball fans who viewed the first two rounds of the Eastern Conference playoffs as the under card before the main event.

Over the past two seasons, Rose and his entire team became the antithesis of everything that the Miami Heat stood for.

It was talent versus teamwork. It was team constructed through an overnight accumulation of talent versus the blue collar, no nonsense mentality that we could all identify with; or simply chose to do so through a means of latching on to a belief that this is the proper way of going about winning.

All of that is perhaps magnified now, as we reconstruct our arguments for the Bulls’ chances at a championship.

But in one play, it would appear that all of that went out the window, at least for these playoffs.

We’ve seen several injuries this year that abruptly ended great stories. Jeremy Lin’s injury didn’t feel as devastating if only because the momentum of his rise was already on the downside, and he wasn’t in the grand scheme of things the most important player on the team. Ricky Rubio’s injury halted the Wolves’ chances at a playoff appearance, but because the team had a considerably lower ceiling, the disappointment was more associated with the lost enjoyment of watching his ascent happen at a faster pace than it is when he’s not on the court.

In Rose’s case, it’s a bit darker and carries with it considerably greater amount of sadness, if only because he was the centerpiece to a contending team with aspirations of winning it all; and because players of his makeup deserve to construct their own endings on their own terms.

When you take that away seemingly at the very start of a journey he waited all year for to begin, it makes it that much more difficult to accept.

Footnotes:

You can read all my 2012 NBA Playoff related posts by clicking here, and by following me on Twitter for in game musings and on Facebook for other great reads, videos and links throughout the post-season.

New rule: whenever I see Adam Keefe on Tumblr, I am going to reblog it.

(Source: coryeaves)