“Then the Heat had to go and screw everything up by making the Finals. Had they just put up a good fight in the next-to-last round, but then lost in respectable fashion, we would’ve been forced to grudgingly acknowledge their progress and perhaps concede that a title this year was a bit of a reach. Heat hate had become less tenable, with all the team had done to establish a rhythm and a passable reputation, mostly through its play. That team was pure basketball, and it would slip right through your fingers. Then came the Finals, which meant a chance to throw all that away. Because that’s the way sports works.”
At GQ.com: Congratulations, Mavericks. What does it all mean?
With last night’s win, the Mavs become the sixteenth NBA franchise, accounting for relocation, to win a title. It’s a select club, to be sure, but the Mavs aren’t the Lakers or Celtics, or Pistons, or the Rockets, or even the Hawks, who made the Finals four times between 1957 and 1961, and took it all in 1958. They are one of the seven teams with only one championship to their name. Franchises that have never hoisted the banner can still be perfectly respectable, and some fairly miserable teams have one seemingly random title to their name. The real question to ask, then, is what kind of championship was this, anyway?
This transmission marks the end of my GQ playoffs blog. It’s been real.
Dirk Nowitzki: A Simple Chair, ROLU
via rolustudio.com
Dirk has never been the biggest fan of furniture, but he would probably relate to the austere, but vibrant, qualities of this chair. We also want to imagine him sleeping in this chair as well, with a nighttime routine that consists of him merely sitting down and closing his eyes.
(more at GQ.com, from Kyle Garner of Sit and Read and Justin Sullivan. Thanks for ruining my Eames for me!)
Lang Whitaker knows the Hawks like no one else, which means that before Jason Terry was king, Lang learned all sorts of weird shit about him. At GQ.com, we offer 11 such items:
• When Jason Terry was in the third grade, his P.E. teacher was Slick Watts, the former steals and assists leader for the Seattle SuperSonics, and wearer of perhaps the jauntiest headband in NBA history. “Actually, it was probably the easiest gym class I ever had,” Terry said. “All we did was play basketball. It was in third grade. That’s all we did the whole day.” Watts is also the reason Terry wears a headband during every game.
Click over to find out the mysterious role George Gervin played in JET’s life!
For GQ.com: How LeBron can learn from Dirk, and we can learn from that:
LeBron isn’t Dwyane Wade; he doesn’t attack like Wade, and isn’t nearly as harrowing off the dribble. Wade’s been given the role of closer because it makes sense, and yet somehow, that casts doubt on everything we want to believe—and feel in our gut—about James. Wade is in the mold of Jordan, both in personality and game. To crib the easy analogy, that makes LeBron into Scottie Pippen. Some people simply can’t accept that the Pippen-esque marvel could be better than the Jordan-ish guard, since Jordan is the greatest, and Jordan-esque equals best.
I really should have included a sentence about “hard” and “soft” expectations. Oh well. Imagine it in there yourself, if you find this post lacking.
Brian Phillips, that Run of Play fellow, drops by GQ.com to love the way Jason Kidd moves:
Chris Paul, Steve Nash, even Derrick Rose when he’s charting his own route to the basket—these guys give you the sense that being a point guard means having the freedom to do math in space. Watching them, you’re plotting the vectors of moving objects with the holograms in your head. With Kidd, you get the sense that playing the point means diving into some nether-realm where no one else can go … He’s 6-foot-4, and he plays like he’s three feet underground.
There’s more where that came from!
I write everywhere: GQ.com NBA Finals preview/Good Men Project piece on those talkin’ basketballs/GQ slideshow on sports streaks.
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