The NBA has a chance to ring a bell now for the first time in a while, after a regular season in which the biggest news didn’t come on the court, but because of a trade. You know because everybody knows that the Mavericks traded Luka to LeBron and just like that, the league finally had everybody’s attention, in a way it really hadn’t since the last time LeBron James’ team played Steph Curry’s team in the Finals.
The Heat also traded Jimmy Butler to Steph, of course, and made the Warriors whole again. And there is a fair conversation to be had about whether or not Steph-Jimmy is an even more dynamic duo entering the postseason than LeBron-Luka Doncic.
But the real conversation right now needs to be about how the NBA has a chance to be a must-watch show again over the next two months.
Nobody would suggest that the league is going to end up having the kind of moment that golf got from Rory McIlroy last Sunday at the Masters, one of the best and most satisfying sports stories of this century.
But the NBA has a chance to be a lot again, and be the kind of attraction it continues to think it is, even while feeling the need to come up with cheesy ideas like The NBA Cup to generate fan interest during the regular season. And why is there that kind of chance? Because of compelling storylines all over the map, as many as I can ever remember at this time of year.
And as dominant as the Thunder and Cavs and the defending champs from Boston have looked across this regular season, it starts with the old guys trying to rule again, and that means LeBron and Steph. They have won eight NBA championships between them. LeBron turned 40 in December and Steph — who had one of the most memorable moments of his career at the Olympics last summer in that gold medal victory for the U.S. over France — is 37. You just wouldn’t know it watching them play right now, playing as young as the young guys.
No one was looking at either the Lakers or Warriors as a serious title threat before the Lakers got Luka and the Warriors got Butler after he had pouted his way out of Miami. But now here they both come, both of them full of big ideas all over again, even without any guarantee that their teams can make it out of the first round, or get anywhere near big games later on against the Thunder.
People keep wondering who the next face of the NBA is going to be when LeBron and Steph are gone; whether it is going to be Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the prohibitive favorite to be MVP this time around, or Jayson Tatum if the Celtics keep winning, or Anthony Edwards, or the big skinny kid, Victor Wembanyama (who won’t turn 22 until next January); or maybe even Cooper Flagg when he joins the party, and the conversation. But none of that matters right now, because the faces of the NBA remain these two:
LeBron, the best all-around player who’s ever lived. And Steph Curry, the best pure shooter who’s ever lived, still making shots from the moment he steps outside the Warriors locker room. Still reimagining the dimensions of a basketball court every time he is on one and has a ball in his hands.
We nearly had a first-round matchup between the two of them, when once they went up against each other in memorable Finals. But now the Lakers get Edwards and the Timberwolves and the Warriors get the Rockets, who quietly ended up with the second-best record in the West, right ahead of the Lakers: LeBron and Luka trying to get on a roll the same way Steph and Butler are.
Can one of them actually win a fifth title? That might not be the way to bet, but it sure is a way to dream. We already know that LeBron has won four titles with three different teams, and played in the Finals 10 times. But if Steph wins a fifth title with the Warriors, if he and his teammates can pay off on Draymond Green’s prediction after the Butler trade that they’re going to do just that, tell me something:
How many players in history are you putting ahead of him on your all-time Top 10?
So, we’ve got the old dudes going for us. We’ve still got Giannis in the mix. We’ve got Tatum, a total star and a great Celtic, trying to do it again with Jaylen Brown and Kristaps Porzingis and them. We’ve got Kawhi Leonard, another former champion, healthy again for the Clippers at last and teaming up with James Harden the way he has the last month and making you wonder if the possibilities for this L.A. team are as grand as they are with the Lakers.
The Nuggets, who won a championship just two years ago and still just fired their coach Michael Malone in the last two weeks of the regular season, still have Nikola Jokic, former MVP and one of the truly gifted big men to ever play the game. The T’wolves, with Karl Anthony-Towns’ old running mate Ant Man Edwards, are the team that less than a year ago shocked everybody by taking out Jokic and the Nuggets in the conference semifinals.
Now Edwards gets a shot at LeBron.
“It means a lot to match up against him, man,” Edwards said the other day. “Probably goes down as the greatest player to ever play basketball. Trying to get putting him out of the playoffs under my belt is going to be a tough one, but it’s going to be a fun road.”
Again: The NBA really does look like a lot right now. And we haven’t spent any real time on the Thunder and the Cavs, the two best records in the league. Of course the Knicks were built to chase down the Celtics this year and as we all know, got passed by Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland and Evan Mobley and the rest of Kenny Atkinson’s players as if our Knicks were standing still during the regular season. An Eastern Conference final between the Celtics and the Cavs would feel like a main event for this season before one of them even gets to the NBA Finals, if that’s the way things play out.
As for our Knicks? They can get back to us if they can get past the Pistons, play themselves into a 7-game series against the champs. For now, though, the Knicks are nothing more than the undercard.
This is still the best possible basketball spring, even if the Knicks still can’t make it past the second round. Legends still right there for us, in L.A. and San Francisco. Legends waiting to be written. Pro hoops looking for the moment — and TV ratings — Rory just gave golf.
AARON STILL DELIVERING DRAMA, RORY’S WIN A PERFECT REMINDER & NANTZ WAS UP TO THE TASK …
Imagine the nerve of Aaron Glenn wanting to tell Aaron Rodgers to his face that he didn’t want him playing quarterback for the Jets any longer.
And being completely insensitive to the fact that the earth might stop spinning on its axis if Rodgers didn’t get what he wanted when he wanted it, especially after having the run of the place for two years.
As my buddy Pete the Jets fan said the other day:
“I’m starting to get the idea that Aaron is more upset at being an ex-Jet than the rest of us are.”
By the way?
What prospective suitor for Rodgers’ services wouldn’t be thrilled at the prospect of a whole new season of therapy sessions on Pat McAfee’s show?
There hasn’t been this kind of drama since Tony Soprano was sitting down with Dr. Melfi.
It’s nice to see the Yankees finally doing more than talk a good game with prospects, and actually playing them, all over the field.
Start the clock on reading and hearing that the Yankees are better off without Juan Soto.
After not even a month of the season has been played.
One more time on what we saw last Sunday at Augusta National, and from the Masters:
What Rory McIlroy accomplished in the end, and the way he accomplished it after a four-hour theme-park ride, reminded us all why we love sports.
The list of people who had already won the career Grand Slam in golf is impressive, to say the least:
Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Gary Player, Ben Hogan, Gene Sarazen.
But almost as impressive is the list of immortals who only won three of four:
Arnold Palmer, Sam Snead, Tom Watson, Phil Mickelson, Lee Trevino, Byron Nelson (who never made the trip to play the British Open).
Two more things about the final round of the Masters:
Jim Nantz was never better, all the way to the Butler Cabin.
That’s one.
The second is my old friend Rick Reilly’s terrific line on X after Bryson DeChambeau complained that Rory didn’t talk to him the whole day:
“It’s not the Member Guest.”
I was worried after Jazz Chisholm Jr.’s batting average dipped to .169 on Thursday night that it might be time to torpedo that torpedo bat of his.
I once again heard after the Florida State shooting that it’s not the gun that’s the problem, it’s the shooter.
And wondered all over again how many home runs Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani are hitting without a bat.
Finally today:
Our middle son, Alex, will celebrate a birthday at the end of this week.
He is the executive producer of the family, and so much more than that:
A wonderful son, a wonderful brother, a wonderful husband, a wonderful father someday soon, a heart as big as his talent.
Nothing has ever changed for his mother, and for me:
We’ve just stood back and watched him fly.
