The 2018 NBA Finals has officially come to an end, although it was really over five minutes into the season when Celtics star Gordon Hayward broke his leg.
In regards to this year’s Finals, it was, as expected, a complete joke. The Cavs never had a chance, and the Warriors coasted to another NBA championship. ESPN analyst Stephen A. Smith aptly pointed out last night that the Cavs basically gave up in Game 4 and he added that he “do[es]n’t want to hear another damn thing about Jordan comparisons again” because “this effort would’ve never happened under his watch.”
These are strong words from a man who is generally a big defender of King James, but he’s right on the money. LeBron has never been able to consistently carry himself as a leader should; instead, he simply gives up as he did in last year’s NBA Finals when he scored only 6 combined points in the 4th quarters of Games 1, 2, and 3. He also tends to descend into embarrassing meltdowns. His latest shenanigans led to a broken hand after he punched a whiteboard following a tough Game 1 loss.
Of course, James, as per usual, decided to brag about about the fact that he played with a self-inflicted injury by saying that he “pretty much played the last three games with a broken hand.” Oh, and his biggest fan Brian Windhorst reported this, and LeBron-obsessed ESPN headlined the video, “Brian Windhorst explains that LeBron James fought through a right hand injury in the NBA Finals after punching a blackboard after Game 1.” Wow, how tough! LeBron fought through an injury that he gave to himself! What an inspiring story! Thank you ESPN for letting me know that LeBron persevered in the face of an injury that he gave to himself by acting like the little baby that he is!
In regards to the Warriors, I don’t have a major problem with Kevin Durant winning the Finals MVP award over Steph Curry. Either of them could have won it, as both of them showed up for 75% of the series. That said, I continue to give KD little credit for his back-to-back titles and Finals MVP awards. His decision to leave OKC for a team that had just beaten him (and had just gone 73-9) puts a massive asterisk on his accomplishments. As bad as LeBron’s original exit from Cleveland was, it certainly wasn’t as bad as what KD did. Imagine if LeBron had left the Cavs for the Celtics in 2010, after Boston had just knocked him out of the playoffs again. Kevin Durant made his bed, and now he has to sleep in it. He’ll have to live with the fact that people will forever include a nice big “but” when talking about his titles. It’s also fairly amazing that Steph Curry has three titles and zero Finals MVP awards. Something just isn’t right about that!
As for the series as a whole, some might take issue with me describing these Finals as “boring” since the first few games were competitive, but let’s be honest for a moment––we all knew who was going to win this series even before it began, and that’s a massive problem for the NBA.
The last four NBA seasons have been incredibly boring; we knew exactly who would be in the Finals––in fact, we knew from the beginning of the last two seasons who would ultimately be crowned champion. My sincere hope is that the NBA finds a way to break up these super teams and, in doing so, creates a situation where six teams or so have a chance of winning it all.
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