With just a few days left in the season, naturally, there’s been a lot of discussion recently of who should win all of the various postseason awards. Our Eric Walden has a great look at those races, for example, but all around the country, various papers, websites, blogs, front offices, coaches, and even the players are themselves having similar arguments.
But when you allow yourself to step back and think about the totality of what we’re seeing, well, it’s pretty remarkable.
Think about it: For MVP, we have two exceptional leading candidates. One — James Harden — is scoring like the absolute prime of Michael Jordan while also adding 7.5 assists per game. The other — Giannis Antetokounmpo — has the numbers and the dunking abilities of prime Shaq while also being a legitimate candidate to win the Defensive Player of the Year trophy while playing for the league’s best team.
Consider the other top players, too. You have Kawhi Leonard and Paul George, both of who play like evolutionary Scottie Pippen, but with even more scoring ability. Nikola Jokic plays with the scoring and passing grace of prime Bill Walton. Steph Curry has no legendary analog — but only because he’s the best shooter of all time, such that no one gets close. Damian Lillard might be 90% of Steph; Kemba Walker and Bradley Beal might be 85%.
Who do you compare Kevin Durant to? Maybe a stretched-out Larry Bird with more Twitter accounts? We haven’t mentioned LeBron James — who is widely considered top-five all time and put up 27 points, eight rebounds, eight assists per game this year — or Anthony Davis (26 points, 12 rebounds, and a couple of blocks and steals per game) due to their team’s bad seasons, much of which were out of their control. Russell Westbrook plays with Sonic The Hedgehog levels of speed and force, more energy than anyone I’ve ever seen. Karl-Anthony Towns would be wildly eye-opening for anyone 20 years ago, and how would you explain Rudy Gobert? Like Mark Eaton but actually good offensively?
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Golden State Warriors forward Kevin Durant (35) goes in for a shot as Utah Jazz guard Kyle Korver (26) defends, in NBA action between Utah Jazz and Golden State Warriors, in Salt Lake City, Wednesday, Dec. 19, 2018.
And the style of play is fascinating, too, with some really beautiful and contrasting offenses and defenses. The Warriors have the Splash Brothers and a whirling system of cuts and pingpong passing, the Bucks have Splash Mountain and the ability to attack inside at any time. The Nuggets play out of the post thanks to Jokic as everyone moves around him. The Jazz stifle teams with smothering defense, the Blazers get their best players open from outside, while the Raptors go inside, out, and back in again. The Rockets are the lone exception, boring in their isolations, but even that forces some pretty unique defensive approaches that at least approach interestingness for nerds like me.
It’s also never been easier to watch the NBA. Remember when many games weren’t even televised, even on local channels? Now, you can subscribe to League Pass and watch every single NBA game at any time. You can watch any individual play on the NBA’s website, just look it up. Want to watch every Donovan Mitchell layup? It’s all just a search away. The league’s stat-keeping is at a whole new level, as is its reporting: Rather than waiting to tune in for the weekly Peter Vecsey report on NBC, we have literally hundreds of reputable sources reporting on the thoughts of the league every day on Twitter.
Maybe it’s all of the different ways that the league can be viewed that has diluted TV ratings. The most-viewed NBA Finals ever is still the 1998 showdown between Jordan with the Bulls and John Stockton and Karl Malone with the Jazz. But the TV ratings for nearly everything have fallen in the past few years, and the 20 million that tuned in for the NBA Finals between the Warriors and Cavs is still pretty impressive.
The one caveat to the modern Golden Age is this: We’re pretty sure the Warriors are going to win every year. I think that will change after this offseason, as it seems that Kevin Durant is poised to sign elsewhere. But for the time being, if you’ll allow me to read from the decorative throw pillow section at Etsy for a moment, life is about the journey, not the destination. Or this one: Life isn’t about where we end up, but who we spend it with.
So as we head into the 2019 NBA playoffs, let’s take a moment to enjoy the landscape. It’s one of the best we’ve ever seen.
THREE MORE THOUGHTS
• As mentioned above, Steph Curry is the best shooter of all time. It turns out he couldn’t even see straight. Over the break, Curry finally got a prescription for contacts to correct an astigmatism in his eye that made the floor somewhat blurry. It turns out that seeing helps Curry even more: He’s shooting 48.7% from 3-point range since mid-March, according to NBA.com.
• Russell Westbrook put up a remarkable stat line against the Lakers this week: 20 points, 21 assists, and 20 rebounds. It’s only the second 20-20-20 game in league history, with Wilt Chamberlain the only other player to get one. That was a different era, but that Westbrook did it at will — he dedicated the game to Nipsey Hussle, his friend who was killed in L.A. last Sunday — is wildly impressive and reminiscent of Chamberlain as well.
• The Wizards finally fired Ernie Grunfeld, the man in charge of 16 years of Wizards futility. Want to know the saddest fact of all, though? In those 16 seasons with Grunfeld as GM, the Wizards had a .440 record, never making it through the first round. However, in the 16 seasons before Grunfeld, they went .388, making it to the playoffs only twice. Poor, poor Wizards/Bullets fans.
