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Hardwood Paroxysm Presents: The NBA Season’s Most Anticipated Games

By HP Basketball Network

May 2, 2014; Portland, OR, USA; Houston Rockets center Dwight Howard (12) reacts after Portland Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard (0) last second shot in the second half in game six of the first round of the 2014 NBA Playoffs at the Moda Center.Mandatory Credit: Jaime Valdez-USA TODAY Sports
May 2, 2014; Portland, OR, USA; Houston Rockets center Dwight Howard (12) reacts after Portland Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard (0) last second shot in the second half in game six of the first round of the 2014 NBA Playoffs at the Moda Center.Mandatory Credit: Jaime Valdez-USA TODAY Sports /
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October 19, 2014; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant (24) during a stoppage in play against the Utah Jazz during the first half at Staples Center. Mandatory Credit: Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports
October 19, 2014; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant (24) during a stoppage in play against the Utah Jazz during the first half at Staples Center. Mandatory Credit: Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports /

I’m looking forward to Lakers v. Sixers on Sunday, March 22 and Monday, March 30
By Miles Wray (@mileswray)

 Picture this. It will be the waning dregs of the regular season. One-third of the league will have clinched playoff spots, playing their games while basically twiddling thumbs and looking up and out toward the playoffs. One-third of the league will be manically grinding their way through every game, fighting one another for the privilege of a five-game first-round exit. And the last third of the league, that third to which the Lakers and Sixers are all but guaranteed to belong to, well, they will be doing the basketball equivalent of whatever is done at your school/office/workplace at 3 pm on Friday afternoon. Kind of just goofing off because the schedule requires you to stick around, even though there’s really no need for that.

Players who are, at this moment, unfamiliar even to dedicated D-League fans will be in the starting lineup of these games. Stu Lantz and Malik Rose, in their neighboring broadcast chairs, will fill their regional airwaves with yarns about obscure teammates from their own playing days, unsure of how else to discuss another evening of the blighted seasons that have played out before them. If Joel Embiid is healthy and playing, these games may even be redeemed, as far as aesthetic matters are concerned.

And, most importantly, matters of lottery draft order will be on the line. The victor of these two battles will also be unwittingly shooting themselves in the foot as far as victory in the greater war is concerned. There will be a bizarre network of opposite motivations grating against one another: the players and coaches, who undoubtedly would prefer to save themselves the embarrassment and win the game, are employed by front offices who are, shall we say, more concerned with the future.

Unlike so many other late-season games amongst the league’s bottom third, these contests will feature a man whose career is somewhere in the Top 10 (depending on how you rank this man, which has been the Internet’s favorite/least favorite hobby of late) of all the careers in basketball’s history. Kobe. Mamba.

Kobe has almost never been a part of games that will mean less. Kobe is also earning more than just about any other player in basketball history (and definitely more than any other player in 2014-15) to participate in these games. We know — oh boy do we know — about the competitive blaze that burns through every fiber in Kobe’s militaristically maintained body. He will not be happy to participate in these games. This not how his last trips to his old stomping grounds in Philadelphia were ever supposed to be.

It is entirely possible that these games will frustrate Kobe so much that, following the game in Philadelphia on March 30, he will take advantage of his already being on the East Coast and board the next flight to Italy, never to participate in public basketball life again.

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