In early mid-April (the 12th to be exact), when asked as part of an ESPN.com 5-on-5 roundtable which NBA star would have his legacy enhanced the most in the 2011 Playoffs, I wrote:

“The health of Andrew Bynum won’t affect Dirk Nowitzki’s hunger, but Nowitzki’s stomach did just growl. One could argue that Dirk’s legacy has the deepest hole from which to climb. Since blowing a 2-0 series lead on Miami in the 2006 Finals, the Mavericks have been bounced in the first round of the playoffs in three of the past four seasons. A championship isn’t wholly necessary to repair Dirk’s playoff legacy, but if Dallas fails to make the Finals, he may have to live with the label of a regular-season MVP who can’t come through in the postseason.”

Now, I’m not here to exactly toot my own horn as a prognosticator of all things basketball — seeing as I predicted last year’s Wizards to achieve 34 wins (only off by 11 wins), and the bastardly 2009-10 Wizards to achieve 55 wins (yes, I was off by a whole 29 wins here… like I said, “bastardly”) — however, in the same ESPN poll, in reponse to a query on the most surprising thing that would happen in the Western Conference playoffs, I wrote:

“It won’t be surprising when each of the top four seeds in the West move into the second round with relative ease. Nor will it be surprising when the conference semifinals and finals all get pushed to seven games. What will be surprising is when the Dallas Mavericks come out on top in the West and Mark Cuban holds a party for all his friends in the media.”

OK, so I was wrong about the top four seeds advancing to the second round (thanks to the San Antonio Spurs), and about each of the conference finals going seven games (both went five), but hey, Dallas, right? I am still, however, wondering if Mark Cuban will hold a media party. At least he shut his mouth during the latter stages of Dallas’ run, thanks to Nowitzki suggesting that he do so.

None of this is to exactly say that I “picked” Dallas to win it all, although I do have a $20 ticket on the Mavs to do so at 25-1 odds that I got in Vegas during the NBA Summer League last July (I also put money on the Spurs and Nuggets, FWIW). So there’s that:

But what about the Heat? In regard to potential surprising Eastern Conference events, I wrote:

“Miami will handle Boston with relative ease in the second round — we’re talking sweep or a 4-1 series win. Sure, the Celtics were 3-1 versus the SuperFriends during the regular season, but two of those wins came within Miami’s first nine games and the third came with Kendrick Perkins still a Celtic. Perhaps more surprising is that Boston won’t be as affected by wear-and-tear old tires, but rather by the inability to produce points.”

Yep, sorry Boston, but I’ve never been fond of you. But enough of my semi-lucky, semi-basketball semi-predictions, where does LeBron leave us after this NBA Finals loss? Well, pretty much right where we started…

This is what he said after the game (as you’ve likely read):

“At the end of the day, all the people that were rooting for me to fail … at the end of the day, tomorrow they have to wake up and have the same life that [they had] before they woke up today. They got the same personal problems they had today. And I’m going to continue to live the way I want to live and continue to do the things I want to do.”

Disregarding LeBron’s assumption that everyone who dislikes him leads much shittier lives than him because he’s rich and good at basketball, he is at the same time giving himself too much credit, yet not enough. People are happy to see him lose. Well, let’s get this straight, it’s not all about LeBron, as his Highness the Oblivious One seems to believe.

Dallas’ win over Miami was also a victory over instant gratification, over-abundance, and non-humble, self-absorbed obnoxiousness (not about who on which team celebrates when). And that is more than enough reason for many of various demographics to rejoice, LeBron’s snobbish assumption of regular-people problems be damned.

Sorry dude, it’s not totally about you, but it is. Thanks for being involved and everything. Thanks for making rooting against you go down so smoothly, but if not you, likely someone else. We all need our villains, especially those of legenday proportions. You’ll be back LeBron, don’t worry… And we’ll be waiting.

All of this begs the question, is anybody today thinking about poor Mike Bibby and the $6.2 million he gave back to the Wizards so he could chase a title with Miami (the same Bibby who was replaced by Mario Chalmers and Eddie House in the lineup for game 6)?

Other reads from Truth About It:

• June 9, 2011 -- LeBron… But He’s ‘Our’ Villain
• June 3, 2011 -- Dallas Mavericks, Miami Heat, and Bells of War
• June 12, 2011 -- The Camouflage King

{image via Internet/Aaron Josefczyk – Reuters}

The Miami Heat may very well win the 2011 NBA Finals, but regardless of triumph or defeat, LeBron will still be the villain. It’s OK.

Washington Wizards fans almost like to gloat that they were amongst the first to whom LeBron exposed himself to — the epitome of privilege that always asks for more and will resort to less-than-savory tactics to get what it wants. So what.

LeBron is a villain, and I’ve spent a lot of pixels communicating this. And I will continue to do so. LeBron is a fact of life.

Of course he’s making you love him as a basketball player, passing exuberantly, rebounding above all, defending with no restraint, astounding with power that compresses rim paint to the point of cracking. He’s no basketball dummy. The only thing that really dwarfs his instinct for the game is what he can do with that freak of a Karl Malone-sized body that he’s in.

Yes, we know LeBron seemingly “checked out” of game four, according to DeShawn Stevenson at least, but does that mean all other memories of amazing are stricken from the record? In a contribution regarding LeBron on HoopSpeak.com (last entry at the bottom), I essentially opined that the hubbub over game four might be a tad premature. But if the Heat don’t win the championship, memories of LeBron’s basketball excellence will certainly be vastly muted.

LeBron is a villain and that’s OK. Sports needs villains. Maybe life does. Maybe all of this is just natural. The fact that LeBron, of all people, is a fan of the New York Yankees and Dallas Cowboys isn’t a coincidence. It’s indicative of his front-running nature, and what should make us more comfortable is that LeBron is a too-good-to-be-true story that’s already been written, nay, a movie. But whatever the case, we are getting to watch it unfold in real time. Lucky us. And by ‘too-good-to-be-true,’ I mean, ‘Hollywood unreal’.

“They’re great, great actors and they sell it,” Stevenson also said about both LeBron and Dwyane Wade in recent days. Yes, they flop, and it’s disgusting because of the advantages they already have.

Maybe the rightly-so stigma surrounding acting/flopping and the NBA, as it has become, is the root of this particular complaint, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that LeBron, and by default, Wade, will do whatever it takes to win.

Flopping, whining, crying, politicking, whatever (as villains are wont to do). Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t to shade the hypocrites on all the other teams who do the same thing. They may be villains too, but they aren’t the best villains. LeBron is.

Beautiful to watch and easy to dislike, and in some cases the former makes it harder to do the latter unless the former leads to a championship, which certainly could bring the latter back to the forefront, i.e., you know Miami is having a gaudy and gluttonous parade if they win.

We get caught up with the amount of silliness and zest at which the media might go at LeBron because he scored eight points and took one fourth quarter shot in game four. The thought of the furor whets out appetite more than the paltry numbers themselves (while not circumventing the fact that the Heat losing allows this to happen).

With so much of today’s media narrative resulting in creamed pants over comeback stories, while the steady, straight and narrow gets no credit, maybe we should rest assured in the fact that some villains are here stay, and they just might win every once in a while. And they just might have fans who are oblivious to their villainy.

Rooting for the defeat of a villain brings balance to life, as unrealized as that may be due to a potentially changing NBA landscape, to the detriment of fair sports, which was likely contributed to by said villain.

“In a comic, you know how you can tell who the arch-villain’s going to be? He’s the exact opposite of the hero. And most times they’re friends, like you and me!,” -Elijah Price, played by Samuel L. Jackson in the movie Unbreakable

I don’t read comic books and movies don’t always take with me, in that I know they are scripted, but this quote adds nothing wrong to seeing this world as a general place of equilibrium that can slightly sway in either direction for an undetermined amount of time. Sports is not scripted (for the most part, we hope), and I love it. Love. It. To the point where I snobbinlgy hold sports superior to the movies and reality shows that we all must “tolerate” because our girlfriends (or whomever/significant other) are entertained by them just as we are sports. It’s different I tell them, but they don’t understand.

Rooting against the villain isn’t hating, it’s simply experiencing a different tingle of excitement by taking an interest in an act opposite to our inherent comfort zones, rooting for the hero.

Win or lose, LeBron is our villain, and that’s OK.

Other reads from Truth About It:

• June 13, 2011 -- Picking Dirk, Picking On LeBron
• June 12, 2011 -- The Camouflage King
• June 3, 2011 -- Dallas Mavericks, Miami Heat, and Bells of War

["What he did? Told them he cut his eye ... in sparring." -Wu-Tang Clan, Bells of War]

I kept telling myself, even Tweeting, when Miami was looking like unstoppable beasts for all but about seven minutes of NBA Finals game two, “Is Dallas the type of team you don’t want to let hang around?”

Of course they are. The Mavs are a unit well-versed in veteran composure, lest they would have had a seven game series with the Oklahoma City Thunder. But Miami isn’t Oklahoma, in so many senses.

Late in the game, after countless amazing dunks with little defensive resistance, Miami finally pulled away and took an 88-73 lead on a Dwayne Wade three. After nailing the shot near Dallas’ bench, Wade held his follow through and slowly walked toward his own bench, as Mavs coach Rick Carlisle had called a timeout. LeBron came over to give Wade celebratory chest jabs.

At that point, we all thought it was just about over… and I’m taking the entire series, not just the game. I wasn’t quite traveling toward the doomsday scenario of the Heat shutting down league competition (lockout and team parity be damned) with unforeseen future domination, but figured that they were the scariest, most unimaginable basketball animals alive and the Mavericks were simply prey in their territory.

I then thought back to the first quarter. After a Miami turnover midway through, the ball found itself in Shawn Marion’s hands with mostly open court in front of him. Well, when LeBron has an angle in transition, you can’t say “mostly” — but Marion didn’t attack the basket on the break against the bigger foe with reckless abandon, as LeBron or many other NBA players larger than 6’6” would do. It was a game of calculation and deception with Marion able to deftly sneak past LeBron for a quick layup because his intentions, aside from wanting to score, were relatively hidden.

Sure, James already had one foul (and three turnovers) at that point six minutes into the game. And sure, James wasn’t chasing the block from behind like he’s done successfully so many times before. Still, thinking back to that one instance when it all but looked like Miami’s game midway through the fourth period, it seemed like a rare instance where the lamb just happened to be able to escape the wolf.

But if Miami was so dominant, why was Dallas allowed to “hang around” (even lead) for most of the game? The game was tied at 28 after one quarter, the largest lead being 12-6 Dallas. The game was tied at 51 after one half, the largest lead being 51-42 Dallas (Miami closed the second on a 9-0 run in the final three minutes). The Heat led 75-71 after three quarters, their largest lead in the period coming at 71-61 before the Mavs closed on a 10-4 run in the final three minutes.

The Heat can’t look so easy on the eyes with dunks and a show worthy of an All-Star game and still not be blowing the game wide open. ‘What was Miami doing wrong?’, I wondered.

What was Dallas doing wrong? They looked sloppy. They looked like the scars from the 2006 Finals, along with the vagabond, non-championship careers of other team veterans had been magically removed by a new-age product. Dallas finished the game with 20 team turnovers (Nowitzki and Kidd had five each) that led to 30 Heat points (almost a third of the Miami points). Those are Washington Wizards numbers.

After that Wade three and the subsequent Dallas timeout at the 7:14 mark of the fourth,  the Mavs committed just one turnover that didn’t lead to any Miami points. And all of a sudden, Dallas went from the sloppy blood bath of trying to gut and clean a chicken with a plastic knife to the precision of patient butchers with the finest Honyaki knives. Their 22-5 run to close game two 95-93 in South Beach could go down as one of the epic NBA Finals memories in my lifetime (Dallas has to win first, of course.) If there’s a patience switch, the Dallas Mavericks players and coaches have it on their chest.

And the basketball beasts of the Miami Heat? Those who like for every little thing they do to be seen on the scene and the big screen at levels equal to their talent? (You know, LeBron-a-Thon stuntin’ on the jumbo-tron…)

Well, they were reduced to animals on the chopping block. The calculated German butcher won. And I think Dwyane Wade cut his eye, at least that’s what he wants you to think. Maybe he should put a cold slab of meat on that.

Other reads from Truth About It:

• June 13, 2011 -- Picking Dirk, Picking On LeBron
• June 12, 2011 -- The Camouflage King
• June 9, 2011 -- LeBron… But He’s ‘Our’ Villain

The last ex-Washington Wizard* to appear in the NBA Finals used to be Larry Hughes. Not anymore. Hughes, a Wizard from 2002 to 2005, played for the Cleveland Cavaliers in game one of the 2007 Finals against the San Antonio Spurs. He scored two points on 1-5 shooting with two fouls and three rebounds in 23 minutes; the Cavs lost 85-76. In game two, Hughes missed all five of his field-goal attempts, didn’t score a point, and tallied two turnovers, two assists and two rebounds in 20 minutes; the Cavs lost 103-92. Dealing with foot issues pertaining to his plantar fascia, Hughes didn’t play in games three and four as the Spurs swept LeBron James in his only Finals appearance to date.

Now that the Dallas Mavericks have beaten the Oklahoma City Thunder for the right to represent the West in the 2011 Finals, three more ex-Wizards will be playing for the Larry O’Brien Trophy. Antawn Jamison, who always kept a picture of the NBA’s championship trophy in his Wizards locker (now it’s John Wall’s locker), is probably really happy for his ex-teammates, but most certainly in a ‘I wish it were me’ kind of way. And if you want even more of a storyline as Brendan Haywood, DeShawn Stevenson and Caron Butler (okay fine, I’ll include Brian Cardinal, another former Wizard (2002-03)… so, four ex-Wizards), head to championship holy ground with Dallas, consider all the history those three most recent Wizards have with one potential opponent, the very same LeBron James, this time of the Miami Heat.

All but calling him a cry-baby, Haywood once led to LeBron being labelled “They trying to hurt me” James. With Stevenson, you can pretty much begin and end with him calling James overrated, and then Jay-Z coming to James’ rescue with a blown whistle on a diss track. Oh, and there’s also that back-and-forth gossip girl thing between the Stevenson and James, thanks to Drew Gooden’s loose lips. So yea, DeShawn and LeBron pretty much hate each other. Butler mostly aimed to remain neutral through the familiarity the Wizards used to have with James’ Cavaliers via first round playoff matchups in three straight seasons from 2006 to 2008.

But the Heat are not there quite yet, they have to finish off the Chicago Bulls first. The Dallas Mavericks are your Western Conference champs. So congrats goes to Stevenson for the duration of his NBA career, going from potential high school-to-pros bust to staying relevant with hustle work, defense and knowing his role (for the most part … surely DeShawn’s collection of busted threes don’t fall into an “ideal” role; he was 5-21 from deep in five games versus the Thunder). Congrats goes to Haywood, the warmth of whose body eats up a majority of his 6-year, $55 million compensation. But hey, Dallas wasn’t going to get to the Finals without two serviceable bigs in Haywood and Tyson Chandler. Congrats goes to Butler, currently recovering from knee surgery, for being around — decent work in the regular season, and thanks for your positive attitude, but let’s be honest, the Mavericks are probably better if you remain out due to injury for the rest of the season (unless someone else gets hurt). And finally, congrats goes to Cardinal. Thanks to Trey Kerby, you will always be the most dad looking dad in the current NBA.

[*NOTE: The last ex-Washington Bullet to appear in the NBA Finals would be Rasheed Wallace with the Boston Celtics in 2010.]

Other reads from Truth About It:

• October 3, 2011 -- Washington Wizards Suspensions & Fines Since 1995
• June 8, 2011 -- ShareBullets: A Man With A Plan
• April 1, 2010 -- Celebrating The Wizards Departed in Portraits and Stories

The NBA playoff drool of “Glen” Big Baby Davis is as epic as Stephen Strasburg’s debut … and it occurred in the NBA Finals.

Also check:

Dictionary Definition: The Step-Back Corner Three Point Jumper by Kobe Bryant

Other reads from Truth About It:

• April 12, 2011 -- Wizards and Celtics Get Physical With Blatche and A Big Baby
• June 13, 2011 -- Picking Dirk, Picking On LeBron
• June 9, 2011 -- LeBron… But He’s ‘Our’ Villain

Out of 10 players polled, four ultimately picked the Cavaliers, three the Lakers, and as mentioned, one went with the Magic. Two players declined to make a choice. Time to watch…

Other reads from Truth About It:

• July 2, 2010 -- CHECK MY STATS: Kirk Hinrich, Sioux City Shooter
• May 27, 2010 -- Rooting Interests of The Washington Wizards
• April 19, 2010 -- The Washington Wizards Talk Nicknames

Mentioning Nick Anderson sounds very “woe is us” from Orlando. Thing is, true fans aren’t making the association, rather some professional MSMers.  These hacks need to be called out:

1) D-bag from the AP [via Sports Illustrated]:

A shot that couldn’t have been much easier.

Uh … no, a-hole. If you’ve played basketball before, you know how difficult Lee’s shot was — to time his jump, catch the pass, be concerned about an oncoming Pau Gasol, while slowing down uncontrollable momentum to lay the ball softly off the glass … exactly.

Yes, Lee is an NBA player … and maybe he makes that shot eight times out of 10. But please, whomever you are AP story writing guy/gal, don’t make a fool out of yourself, showing what I assume to be uneducated and inexperienced athletic ability, by equating that shot with something ‘easy’.

2) Joe Henderson of the Tampa Tribune:

Until that moment, the Magic had done what they needed to against the Los Angeles Lakers.

Uh … sorry Joe. The Magic played o-kay, but they certainly didn’t “do what they needed” in game two. They didn’t need their stars, Dwight Howard and Turkoglu, to combine for 12 turnovers. Super Jesus Howard certainly didn’t need to be complaining to the refs so much while not busting his butt to get back on D.

Henderson and others such as Stuart Scott also ran with the Nick Anderson comparisons in a sensationalistic act of ‘hey look! I can cite another tragic piece of history and how they are similar because it’s the same franchise’ — good for you guys, way to work.

Missing four free-throws, while pressure packed, cannot be compared to Lee’s miss. As Rob Mahoney aptly highlighted on Hardwood Paroxysm, the play called by Stan Van Gundy was a high-risk, high-reward gamble … a ballsy move not equivalent to getting tight at the line.

There is no “Curse of Nick Anderson” … curses don’t bring a franchise #1 picks in the form of Dwight Howard. Even if Orlando loses this series, with a guy like Howard, they are set for years to come … perhaps one day making people give Nick Anderson the Mike Jones treatment, who?

The Block.

Clock running down. Tie Game. Ball in Kobe Bryant’s hands.

And the Black Mamba gets blocked by the Michael Jordan of Turkey … the great NBA Finals block that almost was.

Other reads from Truth About It:

• February 1, 2012 -- Gilbert Arenas To The Lakers? What Nick Young Thinks
• January 5, 2012 -- DC Council Game 6: Wizards 85 at Magic 103: Making Progress Harder To Find
• January 4, 2012 -- 3-on-3: JaVale vs. Dwight and Ernie vs. Otis

It is what it is. Thankfully, someone who is a real Lakers fan, Kurt from the Forum Blue & Gold, has been kind enough to take time to answer some questions I had about his team. Read on…..

[UPDATE: Head to Forum Blue & Gold to check my return answers about the Wizards]

1) In the olden days, when it came to Phil Jackson, I was like “meh…..he’s a convenient opportunist and I’m not buying his Zen B.S.,” but more and more, I’m beginning to like Phil because of his snarky sarcasm that screams, “Will you baby NBA millionaires just grow up and be men?” Plus, the realistic side of me knows that he’s always been a damn good coach.

That being said, what’s to make of the latest with Andrew Bynum? To me, what amounts to about a half an NBA season (last year and this year) does not make a boy a man. So, is he really a kid who doesn’t know better, or should he be in at the end of games for boards? And why do the Lakers do so much communicating in the press anyway?

Bynum is a 21-year-old kid who will quickly learned that while the players may have the leverage over the coach on a lot of NBA teams, that is not the case here. He’s a kid trying to fight for minutes on a deep roster with lots of veterans, but he needs to pick his battles. Saying you should have played more when you were part of a unit that shot 1 of 11 and turned the ball over 4 times to start a quarter (as happened in Indiana) is a hard fight to win.

That said, the Lakers are a better rebounding team when Bynum is on the floor (they grab 53% of the available rebounds when he’s playing, 51.6% when he sits, and that is a bigger gap than you think). And it’s good that he wants to prove he’s worth the healthy contract he signed at the start of the season.

To your second question, Phil Jackson has long chided players through the media. It’s part of his MO. Vets like Odom and Kobe get the message and move on without taking it personally. Radmanovic and others, not always so much.

But the other part of that equation is the Lakers have one of the largest media entourages in the league, all fighting for stories. Look at it this way, the LA Times is slashing its workforce left and right, but for this season it hired a second Lakers beat reporter to travel with the team. Plus they have two brothers who write a full-time Lakers blog online, and they go to practices and what have you. That’s three to four guys at every game and practice from just one paper. The point is, those guys need drama and right now this team isn’t giving them much. They are winning handily on the court, getting along off it and not shooting themselves in the leg in a nightclub. So, even the slightest little thing gets blown up bigger than it really is. Welcome to LA, baby!

2) This is the last year of Lamar Odom’s contract. Things are obviously going well for the Lake Show, despite Odom complaining about coming off the bench earlier this season. He seems to have wised up (duh, contract year) and shut his mouth. So, do you still try and trade him? Do you want the guy on the Lakers in the future?

No way the Lakers are going to trade him, unless somebody comes to the Lakers with another “Kwame Brown for Pau Gasol” like deal. Odom’s minutes and numbers are down slightly, but he is playing some of his best basketball now. He thrives with the running second unit, his scoring is just down because this is a deep Lakers team with a lot of guys who can score (and Odom likes to pass). Same with the minutes, everybody is playing less. Bottom line, you don’t make trades and mess with the chemistry of a 15-2 team.

As for next season, who knows? I think the Lakers would like to bring him back, but at no more than about $10 million a year, maybe less. They just paid out a lot to Bynum, Kobe will likely redo his max deal, plus Ariza and Farmar need to be resigned. If someone comes and offers Odom $2 million or more a year than the Lakers plus the chance to start, it’s hard to blame him for leaving. But the Lakers may be able to fill his space with a vet willing to play for less to get a ring. Ideally, though, that vet is Odom.

3) Who on the team deserves more minutes?

Trevor Ariza. He has really blossomed this year, developing a decent jumper and really thriving in the up-tempo, open court game. He has the second-best +/- numbers on the team (behind Odom) and the fourth-best PER. There are calls for him to move into the starting lineup, although right now he is playing three more minutes a game than the guy he subs in for (Radmanovic).

You’ll see tonight, he’ll dog someone hard on defense then make great hustle plays all over the court. Signing him to a deal this summer (he’s an unrestricted free agent) is becoming a higher and higher priority for the Lakers.

4) The Lakers seem to be set as contenders for the next couple-three years……but would you still say it’s championship or bust this season?

In my head, I know that anything could happen, the margin between the Lakers/Celtics and a few other top teams is razor thin. One key injury changes everything, and it is possible the Lakers could go to the Finals, play well and still lose. Intellectually, I understand all that and know this team is a contender for the next four years so that one year is not the end all/be all.

But in my heart, I want it this year and anything else will be crushing. And, if we can get that title by ripping it away from the Celtics, I can die a happy man.

5) What is the Lakers biggest weakness?

Right now, nightly focus. They are getting into a “flip the switch” mode that has killed many a good team in the playoffs. But you’d like to think Phil Jackson can shake that mindset.

On the court, there are a fe
w things you need to do to beat the Lakers. One, LA is going to score a lot, offense comes easy to this group, but you have to find a way to make them less efficent.

Second, bigs (fours and fives) who can hit from 15-feet out or farther presents the Lakers aggressive, trapping defense with a challenge. Look at the two Lakers losses this year, key players were Rasheed Wallace and Troy Murphy, fours who could step out and then crash the boards hard coming in from the perimeter. That, by the way, is one thing the Wizards have tonight in Jamison.

The other thing that can get them is quick, penetrating point guards. Fisher is a good veteran defender, but he can’t keep up with the speedsters anymore.

Many thanks again to Kurt of Forum Blue & Gold. Be sure and read one FBG’s recent posts, The Vaunted Lakers Defense, and check back in the future for thoughts on tonight’s game from the perspective of “the enemy.”

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