I was lucky enough to attend Game 5 of the Western Conference Finals last season. When I say lucky, I mean it in a very literal sense. I’m pretty low on the totem pole at work, so these tickets to a playoff game between the hometown Golden State Warriors and star-powered Oklahoma City Thunder had to be rejected by quite a few people before I was invited on the morning of the game. Of course, because I love the NBA, I’m in my mid-20’s with no real responsibilities, and—oh, I don’t know—it’s Game 5 of the Western Conference finals, I took the tickets.
I was lucky because I was able to see Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson in person, and to see Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook in their last attempt to make it back to the Finals. I was lucky because TNT was broadcasting the game, and I got to see Craig Sager do his thing for one of the last times. When Sager entered Oracle Arena that night to take a lap around the court and gather some intel before the game, the fans went nuts. People cheered “Sag-er! Sag-er!” and he kindly stopped beneath a crawling spotlight and graciously waved, flashing that wide Sager smile of his.
Sager passed away this week at the age of 65 after a long battle with cancer. The fact that he was even at the game, let alone working, was remarkable. He worked many games while fighting cancer. If you know or have known anyone dealing with that disease, you know how much it can eat away at a person, and just how amazing it is that Sager stayed strong. Sager loved his job, and people loved watching him do his job. He wasn’t a professional athlete, but his story is one of the most heroic sports stories we’ve ever seen.
Read More: Craig Sager is gone
Sager was one of the more inspiring figures of 2016, but his death is yet another reason why a lot of us hope to soon forget this year. Nonetheless, the lessons we learned from Sager and other events will and should not be forgotten. In this yea,r odds were beaten, curses were broken, things we never imagined in our wildest dreams or nightmares would happen did. From the Cubs winning the World Series to Sager pulling off those eccentric jackets until the very end, 2016 was a year when the improbable happened.
3-1
2016 also had Moments. I’ll never forget where I was when-type moments. When LeBron James made The Block, I was at a watch party in the Berkeley Hills, drinking lagers and eating chips. When it happened, some of us in the room knew immediately that it was incredible. It took us people screaming “THAT WAS INCREDIBLE” to get the others to pay attention to just how incredible it was. If you forgot, well:
That was A Moment. It was a play that will help define James’ career and helped the Cleveland Cavaliers come back from a 3-1 deficit to win the NBA Finals–something no team had ever done until that point. When the Golden State Warriors had its lead, most people wrote off the Cavaliers. The odds were impossibly stacked against them. But one win turned into another, and then into a Game 7.
The Block, which happened in Game 7, was in many ways like Ray Allen’s Shot in Game 6 of the 2013 Finals, in that it was a play so incandescent that it out-shines everything that happened after. At that moment, everyone knew somewhere deep down that the Cavaliers were about to win and bring Cleveland its first professional sports championship in more than 50 years. A Moment was made, a curse broken, the odds vanquished.
You know what they say about assumptions…
People sometimes take things for granted. It’s something we all try not to do, but it’s only natural. There are so many things to focus on nowadays that you don’t realize you’ve taken something for granted until it’s painfully obvious. Assumptions at first glance can look like facts.
The Miami Heat made this very-human mistake when it came to Dwyane Wade. Or, more specifically, Pat Riley made that mistake. Riley had been too busy trying to re-sign Hassan Whiteside and lure Kevin Durant that he took Wade for granted. He admitted after Wade left Miami to sign with the Chicago Bulls that he was SADDDDDDD!!!! It was too late, though.
Wade’s decision left the NBA in shock. No one thought Wade would finish his career anywhere but Miami. It still doesn’t quite feel real and Wade still looks strange in a Bulls jersey. But here we are. Riley took what he thought was a sure thing for granted, and now he has to deal with the consequences the best he can.
A time machine, Kobe
We said goodbye and safe travels to a lot of great players this year. Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett and Kobe Bryant all retired and they did it their own ways. Duncan quietly walked off into the sunset and into a mid-life crisis of a back tattoo. Garnett gave the Minnesota Timberwolves whatever he had left and is now trapped in a room in the TNT studio where they occasionally let people like Rasheed Wallace in to join him.
Kobe Bryant, well, he retired exactly the way he wanted to. With a farewell tour. With a win. With 60 goddamn points in his last game. Bryant went out shooting.
Before that night, Bryant hadn’t scored 60 points in a game since 2009, against the Utah Jazz. That season was also the last time the Los Angeles Lakers last won a championship. Before his final game, Bryant had scored 60 points five times in his 20-year career, all of which happened in his prime between 2005 and 2009.
I don’t believe time travel can happen, but Kobe definitely traveled through time, asked his former self to come back with him to the future, and dressed up as Jack Nicholson while he sat courtside and watched a 27-year-old Kobe Bryant put up 60 and captivate basketball fans everywhere.
A new juggernaut
After signing with the Warriors, Kevin Durant admitted it would have been a tougher decision had the Cleveland Cavaliers not come back from down 3-1 and beaten the Warriors in the Finals. Steve Kerr has said he doesn’t think Durant would have signed with Golden State if after winning 73 games they had also won a championship.
Durant’s decision, like Wade’s later, came as a shock. There were rumblings and there were reasons why it might happen, but the Warriors getting Durant still seemed improbable.
After beating a 73-win, 3-point rampaging team in the Finals, LeBron James now has a new challenge. A new juggernaut. New odds to beat. The Warriors seem unstoppable now, but they did last season, too. They practically were. But then 3-1. Then The Block. Then J.R. Smith lost his shirt. 2016 was the year the improbable happened, but who knows what 2017 will hold.
To a Happy New Year.