http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/page...run-2017-title
You can't affix an asterisk to a championship. NBA titles require too much precision and will, irrespective of the talent on the roster. Over the course of a season, players and coaches routinely proclaim some variation of, "It's hard to win in the NBA," and that aphorism holds a lot of truth.
The Golden State Warriors understand this firsthand after seeing a 73-win regular season vaporize in seven days last June. Stephen Curry stumbles into the NBA Finals at less than 100 percent. Draymond Green loses his head and gets suspended for Game 5. LeBron James reminds the universe he still reigns supreme, leading the Cleveland Cavaliers to a drought-ending NBA title. The basketball gods lay down a trip wire. It's hard to win in the NBA.
So Kevin Durant's ring doesn't come with a discount or dull under the halo of the Warriors' almost perfect postseason. And it isn't diminished by the fact that, as a member of the Oklahoma City Thunder, he fell to the Warriors 12 months prior. Golden State's star forward asserted himself as the most dominant player on history's most dominant postseason team in a series crowded with stardom.
If joining the Warriors allowed Durant to do less of the heavy lifting, as some suggested, then he certainly didn't get a notification. He won the Finals MVP Award going away. As much as Durant has been deflecting praise to his teammates from the podium these past two weeks, nobody on the Warriors believes his Finals performance was the product of anyone else's coattails.
The scrutiny of Durant's free-agency choice to join an already elite team too often focused on the misperception that he wasn't willing to carry a team to a championship, that he wanted it to come easy.
As superstars have discovered a new power of self-determination -- elevated by LeBron James in 2010 -- we might see more of them concentrate their talents on a single team. These superstars drive the value of the NBA, so why not leverage that power to find the most appealing situation? James conceded that the practice of elite players joining forces is itself part of the gamesmanship of the NBA. "You have an opportunity to sign one of the best players, and you can do it, go ahead and do it. Why not? If I become an owner, I'm going to try to sign everybody."
If the Warriors had come up short this postseason, Durant would've been pummeled -- a ring chaser who couldn't even find his car keys when it was time to drive the bandwagon. Instead, he deferred to a system that worked better than the one in which he thrived in Oklahoma City.
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by aberdien
