2015 NBA Finals: Guide for beginners

Ah, narratives. What We Talk About When We Talk About Sports and all that fun stuff. Look, it’s perfectly understandable if you want to just tune in for some high-quality, fast-paced basketball and have no interest in knowing about what a bunch of bloggers and media people believe the series “means” on, like, a literary/historical level or whatever. But those meta conversations will be swirling around you, so perhaps you should familiarize yourself with at least two of the bigger ones.

1) The Triumph of the Three
For the stat-minded basketball fans, those who believes that plenty of basketball’s “conventional wisdom” is out-of-date and downright anti-science, both Golden State and Cleveland advancing to the NBA Finals validates everything the analytics community has been howling about for years. While old fools like Phil Jackson still cling to the idea that pounding the ball inside is the best way to score, it’s become irrefutable that the wide-open, fast-paced, three-point-launching style of play adopted by the likes of Golden State and Cleveland has changed the NBA. (If you want to learn more about this stylistic transition, just Google “NBA analytics movement” and have fun going down the rabbit hole!)

2) LeBron’s Legacy
LeBron’s first trip to an NBA Finals, back with the Cavaliers in 2007, ended in a blowout at the hands of the San Antonio Spurs. His second trip, when he was on the Miami Heat, ended with the Dallas Mavericks on the podium and the sports world wondering (stupidly, I might add) if he, LeBron, had the mettle and gumption to be a champion. After those inauspicious first two appearances, LeBron (with the Heat) won back-to-back titles in 2012 and 2013 — although he certainly had some help with the latter of those two championship wins — before falling to the Spurs (again) in 2014.

I’ve said elsewhere that a lot of the Let’s Analyze LeBron’s Legacy talk is pointless and tiresome, conducted more out of an urge to “embrace debate” than a desire to actually foster a deeper understanding of him as a player, but it’s undeniable that he, now with five-straight Finals appearances, is in rarefied air, and his overall game is almost impossible to discuss without bring up comparisons to the the likes of Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, and Larry Bird. If LeBron throttles the Warriors and walks away with another NBA Finals MVP, expect the talking heads on ESPN to gush over him from the second the confetti starts falling to the second the 2015-16 season begins. On the other hand, if LeBron struggles and doesn’t lead the Cavaliers to their first title in franchise history, expect the talking heads on ESPN to excoriate him for lacking the heart of a champion. Such is life when you’re the King.

But both those narratives are a bit on a serious side, and sports should be all about fun, especially when you’re a casual viewer with no vested interest in the outcome. Which is why the last (and certainly not least) thing you should be aware of before the NBA Finals begin is…*drumroll, please*

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