Thunder vs. Pacers is bad for the NBA, but not because of ratings

Let me tell you something as a former indie, emo, hipster whatever I was. Sitting on awesome things because they seem special to you does not make you interesting. Hoarding beauty feels like a sing to me. It’s not a personality type. It’s a disease. A deficiency. Don’t do it. The best part of finding something awesome is sharing it. It’s the opposite side of the coin to the fact that the best part of filling a somewhat obvious gap in another’s knowledge is going along for the ride with them, not mocking the existence of that gap in the first place.

I’m sharing this: these NBA Finals could be fun as heck. If we want to go by narratives, we have the MVP versus the most overrated player in the league. We have a team built through the draft and internal development (mostly) versus a team that jumped up tiers in the league quickly via trade. We have the unstoppable force of the entire season in OKC versus a really pesky bird that keeps convincing opponents to play capture the flag and winning because it’s a h*cking bird.

Just because the two teams don’t have quite the national or international presence of other contenders, or just because the teams kinda have fewer fans than the Knicks or Ant doesn’t mean we’re going to be bereft of anything spectacular. We’re getting basketball. Good basketball. Enjoy basketball. If you like basketball, it really tends not to matter who plays in the finals. Whoever is there is whoever deserves to be there based on merit, not based on what the Darren Rovell reports in a month or whatever. We don’t have to worry about ratings if we actually just appreciate good hoop.

Okay? I’m sorry. That was preachy as heck. I decided to be annoying to distract you from less good news.

Heck yeah! Time to not reach into the luxury tax to keep franchise staples because apparently it’s not necessary to win!

Man, it’s a little sudden. As annoyed as I was by the concept of Boston winning another championship last year, at least the team that won it seemed to be comprised of some sort of core that fought, grew, and ultimately overcame together. I’m sure it has the perfect story arc in a movie I’d never want to watch. Loss, pain, grief. Fortitude, resilience, endurance. Ultimately, success. Yay fine good whatever. I like it. I just don’t like you.

Both the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Indiana Pacers aren’t quite like that. If you look back at the Basketball Reference season summary from two years ago, you’ll find two teams below .500. No real playoff experience yet. OKC was seen as a future juggernaut with all their assets, but they were still perceived as a ways off to many. Indiana broke up their logjam in the frontcourt to bring in a guard midway through last season, but while there were flashes, it’d be hard to predict this Tyrese Haliburton kid being quite talented enough to bring a team to the NBA Finals one day.

My point is that neither team, in some estimations and in at least part of mine, maybe shouldn’t be here quite yet. That means, they haven’t accumulated the costs of players now versus assets later. They haven’t had to re-up their young guys. They’re young, cheap, and incredibly talented. They are incredible, incredible outliers.

This is a copy-cat league. And if people can pay less money, they will

Actual innovation is so much harder than trying to be the first to mimic what someone else just did well for the first time.

Despite the fact that this situation, these two teams facing off, would be pretty (by which I mean “extremely”) outlandish to predict two years ago, there are going to be owners, managers, people looking to impress their superiors thinking “If these two guys can build potential champions below the luxury tax in two years, we can too!”

I wish them the best in their efforts, but I wish they would do it in a video game instead. I keep saying it, but I hate that rosters only get certain chances or certain lengths of time to bloom and grow in a city because with the new CBA long-term player retention becomes so incredibly costly.

So yeah, we’ve gone from “I don’t want to pay the luxury tax” to “Maybe I don’t even need to pay the luxury tax.” The first one is probably worse, but the second one is going to trap more people than the first one would and will give an excuse for whom the first would better apply. That makes sense. I read it twice. You have to believe me. It sucks.

But anyway, the basketball will be good!

I’d like to end on this note, I think. You can’t fault the two teams who made it this far for their unanticipated runs. They’ve earned their shot, and I can’t wait to see them face off. The hope is that nothing else diminishes as a result.