Note to hyperventilating media: No, the Spurs are not a dynasty. How many times do we have to go over this?
The Bill Russell Celtics (11 championships in 13 years), now that’s a dynasty. The John Wooden UCLA Bruins (10 national titles in 12 years), now that’s another one. The Yankees for the long haul arguably. The Jordan Bulls, maybe.
But, four championships in nine years? Please.
Dynasty is one of those words, like “dominant,” and “great,” that have been so overused and/or misused in sports as to amount to a crime against the language.
This is not to knock the Spurs, as some in the sporting press have done. This championship is not devalued because of the feeble Finals opposition, since San Antonio did beat Phoenix, the league’s second-best team. Nor is the Spurs entire run devalued because (supposedly) they wouldn’t have won anything if Kobe and Shaq had been able to play nice.
You can’t clear hurdles that aren’t in front of you. Playing nice is crucially important in basketball, and not easy. If the Lakers couldn’t do it, then they lacked something that long-term champions ought to have.
I still think the Celtics, Lakers and Sixers of the 1980s, and the Bulls in the 1990s, were better basketball teams than the Spurs, but still.
- The TV ratings for the NBA Finals were supposedly dreadful, which supposedly proves the sport is in dreadful shape and fortells awful things about its future.
It doesn’t. Relax.
The ratings for last year’s playoffs and Finals were considered surprisingly good, so much so that the media zeitgeist then was that the NBA was “on the way back.”
The NBA on TV continues to make money for Turner and ESPN. So (assuming you believe in the Neilsen ratings, which I don’t) what conclusion about the Finals’ numbers makes more sense?: 1. That the league is falling off the national radar a la the NHL, or, 2. That the public simply saw the series as the stinker it was and clicked their collective remote to something else.
Come on.
- The role that blind luck plays in the building of sports powerhouses is inevitably underrated. If Tom Brady doesn’t drop out of the sky, and if Drew Bledsoe doesn’t get hurt to grease the rails for him, the New England Patriots are just another team, and David Halberstam never writes an ode to Bill Belichick’s genius.
Sure, the Spurs are really smart and committed and have positive intangibles coming out their ears, but they won the Tim Duncan lottery and the David Robinson lottery. If they don’t, we don’t even know who Gregg Popovich is.
