Alas, the long national nightmare is over and a member of Michigan University's famed "Fab Five" has finally won an NBA Championship. So congratulations are in order to you, Mr. Juwan Howard. You finally did it and this is truly your moment. Good show.
Oh, and maybe some other guys. Total team effort, of course.
***DEEP BREATH***
Look, this year could be a difficult one for a lot of Bulls fans to accept because for so long throughout this season, there were moments when many fans wanted to believe Chicago could win a seven-game series against Miami in this year's playoffs. And we waited and we waited all year long before every hope was disintegrated in the closing moments of the very first game of the playoffs. Brutal. Championship window closed significantly, if not entirely.
The playoffs continued nonetheless, and while many of us once again were seduced by the seeming superiority of the basketball being played in the Western Conference, the Oklahoma City followed up their Game 1 Finals win with absolutely no answer for LeBron or any other Heat role player for the next four games. Oh, Miami-OKC sure could be a marvelously entertaining conclusion to future postseasons too in the tradition of Lakers-Celtics, but this year ended up being a little too one-sided. Despite the laughable-in-retrospect scares from Indiana and Boston, Miami took charge in this year's NBA Finals and let the Thunder play the part of the heartbroken.
Again, this was the Finals most people had at the beginning of this year, and I resisted ... probably in part to hold out hope for the beloved Bulls. Going forward, however, I assume Heat-Thunder now becomes not just the Finals I will more than likely join in predicting, but maybe also wanting to see in the sense that there's two legitimate superstars now competing on the highest level in LeBron and Kevin Durant. Derrick Rose, bless his knee, will need some help to enter that conversation.
Ultimately, when you consider that we weren't entirely certain that the season was ever going to even tip off, the Heat-Thunder Finals provided all the more reason to believe that the future for the league is probably going to continue to get brighter and brighter.
Oh, and maybe some other guys. Total team effort, of course.
***DEEP BREATH***
Look, this year could be a difficult one for a lot of Bulls fans to accept because for so long throughout this season, there were moments when many fans wanted to believe Chicago could win a seven-game series against Miami in this year's playoffs. And we waited and we waited all year long before every hope was disintegrated in the closing moments of the very first game of the playoffs. Brutal. Championship window closed significantly, if not entirely.
The playoffs continued nonetheless, and while many of us once again were seduced by the seeming superiority of the basketball being played in the Western Conference, the Oklahoma City followed up their Game 1 Finals win with absolutely no answer for LeBron or any other Heat role player for the next four games. Oh, Miami-OKC sure could be a marvelously entertaining conclusion to future postseasons too in the tradition of Lakers-Celtics, but this year ended up being a little too one-sided. Despite the laughable-in-retrospect scares from Indiana and Boston, Miami took charge in this year's NBA Finals and let the Thunder play the part of the heartbroken.
Again, this was the Finals most people had at the beginning of this year, and I resisted ... probably in part to hold out hope for the beloved Bulls. Going forward, however, I assume Heat-Thunder now becomes not just the Finals I will more than likely join in predicting, but maybe also wanting to see in the sense that there's two legitimate superstars now competing on the highest level in LeBron and Kevin Durant. Derrick Rose, bless his knee, will need some help to enter that conversation.
Ultimately, when you consider that we weren't entirely certain that the season was ever going to even tip off, the Heat-Thunder Finals provided all the more reason to believe that the future for the league is probably going to continue to get brighter and brighter.
No comments:
Post a Comment