NBA Finals start on Thursday, and with a Lakers- Celtics final, this is the first time in 15 years that I have really cared to watch the games and not just check the score the next morning. The reason is simple- nostalgia. There was a time in my life when the NBA was ahead of the NFL for me, when the Lakers were my cure for when winter came around, when I could name the 12th guy on any NBA team. I was even called Kurt Rambis (below), the only white player of note on those Laker teams, when I played basketball in school (though I was never as good as he was, and the white thing didn't fit either since the guys I played with were all white as well. Ah, kids). Those days have long since passed, and the NBA is a tenuous 4th place for me, behind baseball and pro and college football.
But Lakers vs. Celts will bring out the fans like me, who used to love this game, before it was all about 1000 dollar suits and gangsta rap, before tattoo-covered bodies and endless ESPN highlights, before even Michael Jordan. Magic Johnson and Larry Bird literally saved the NBA, a league that still had Finals games on tape-delay in the late '70s. The Celts and Lakers won all but one championship in the 9 years from 1979-88. And their 3 Finals against each other in that span were instant classics. Yes, I will be watching the next few weeks- but more for Worthy, Kareem, Parrish, and Ainge, than KG and Kobe. Maybe they can capture just a little "magic" that made this a once-great league.
For the opinion of someone rooting on the other side please go here.
No comments:
Post a Comment