A daily look at the big story of the day in sports as seen through the eyes of writers and bloggers all across the internet.
In Sunday's New York Times the columnist Harvey Araton wondered why a team as successful as the San Antonio Spurs has been largely ignored by the American masses.
How is it that this team, three victories from its fourth championship in nine years of metronomic excellence going into Game 2 of the N.B.A. finals against the Cavaliers tonight, has not, given all the aforementioned technology, generated more widespread interest and acclaim?
True, Tim Duncan, the Spurs’ best player, generally shuns publicity and is nobody’s idea of the model sneaker pitchman. Their defensive stopper, Bruce Bowen, is occasionally accused of being a dirty player. This spring, Robert Horry stepped out of character to level Phoenix’s Steve Nash, a flagrant foul for which the Spurs wound up being rewarded when key players left the Suns’ bench to respond and were suspended for the next game.
But where is the love for a franchise that thrives on visionary planning, progressive thinking, commitment and continuity? That over the past decade has become the furthest thing from a big-market bully that owes its success to a carnivorous payroll? That has seldom housed me-first braggarts, incorrigible trash talkers, gun toters or pit-bull players?
Those are some very fair questions Araton raises. People wailed and wailed about the Portland "Jail Blazers" because of the way ownership took a small-town team and filled it with undesirable characters. The antics of J.R. Rider, Darius Miles and others turned off the community and turned a point of civic pride into an eyesore that plummeted out of relevance. The New York Yankees are hated across the country because of their large payroll and arrogance, the Knicks are a laughingstock because of the way Isiah Thomas sullied a proud franchise and Peter Angelos and Daniel Snyder are personas non grata on the Beltway because of the way they've built the Orioles and Redskins. Obviously the cities they call home have something to do with why they garner so much attention but if people were really so down on the things they claim to be down on wouldn't a team like the Spurs be America's darlings? Shouldn't they at least be able to sell out their own stadium for Game One of the NBA Finals?
There are parallels to the national response to the Spurs in other places. Miguel Cotto and Zab Judah put on a hellacious boxing display at Madison Square Garden Saturday night but no one noticed. True, it's a summer weekend and there are a plethora of things to do that don't include plunking down hard-earned dough for a boxing match that could be a bust (it's a story for another time but boxing's model just doesn't work) but why then did so many people pay up to watch an over-the-hill Oscar De La Hoya fight a boring opponent in Floyd Mayweather? Many people who watched that fight were disappointed by the lack of slugging and there's been a lot of talk about the current preference for ultimate fighting and its offshoots beacause the action is nonstop. Check out Cotto-Judah and tell me that's not as, if not more, compelling than something involving Chuck Liddell. Similarly, people lauded The Sopranos for years because it changed the playing field for television. It told stories in a different way than the shows that had come before yet when it ended without the pat conclusions those other shows featured people pilloried it. Isn't that what you said you wanted, America?
It's a big country and obviously you are never going to get everyone to agree on anything but aren't we selling ourselves short. People like to bitch and moan about Kobe Bryant but they actually watch him. People like to scream about Barry Bonds but they actually pay their money to go to the stadium to watch him play. People claim to want honesty and transparency in their government and then reelect George Bush. Paris Hilton, Lindsey Lohan and Britney Spears are called everything short of the antichrist yet US magazine flies off the racks. And the Spurs, even though we say we want to have a team worthy of our rooting interest and players our children can look up to, trudge toward their fourth championship in near anonymity. Is it that we don't tell the truth or can't recognize it when we get it?
Maybe in a big market this team is a compelling narrative. Maybe if Tim Duncan would let the media in a little it would be different. Or maybe it's time to admit that, despite what we may have told the waitress when we sat down, we wanted to watch Kobe Bryant and Allen Iverson all along. (True Hoop)
You want to know how truly lopsided this game was? Well, my friend Matty and I talk during the occasional regular season game. The frequency of phone calls increase as we get further into the post season. We have exchanged literally hundreds of phone calls over the years and not once have we ever talked during actual game play. We've always limited discussion to commercials only... until tonight, during the second quarter. The game, and this series, was that over. O-V-E-R. (Pounding The Rock)
WTXL-TV in Tallahassee, FL pre-empted the first half of Game 2 of the 2007 NBA Finals with something far more entertaining. Black space. And while that was more incompetence than purposeful decision-making, it could not have helped the ratings for an NBA Finals now almost assured to set a brand-new record low. Game 2 of the 2007 NBA Finals drew a 6.9/12 overnight, the lowest overnight rating for an NBA Finals game since at least 1981. No game of the 2003 NBA Finals drew a lower overnight. (Sports Media Watch)
But there’s a reason the celebrations in San Antonio were mostly subdued after outing the Jazz. The Spurs have been here before, and they know there’s no prize for second place. Sure, advancing to the NBA Finals is an impressive achievement that only two teams can boast about each season, but in the annals of basketball history, few ultimately remember the runner-up. And for the fourth consecutive time in the big show, San Antonio looks determined not to settle for that footnote status. They have a dynasty at stake–not their first title–and by this time next week, we could all very well be mentioning these champion Spurs teams as some of the best in NBA history. Hell, the discussion should be open already. (Empty The Bench)
A packed Madison Square Garden. A major title bout. Both men bleeding. And the possible fight of the year...Cotto (30-0, 25 KOs) and Judah (34-5) turned in a tremendous fight to cap an action-packed show that lived up to its title, "X-Plosive!" (Dan Rafael, ESPN)
In a finale that was spectacularly disappointing, creator David Chase delivered just one hit. After making us think for the last five minutes that Tony was about to get killed . . . nothing. Dead air. Chase will have to live with what he did last night. (New York Post)
Call us naive, but how does a mobster whose ‘family’ is on the verge of extinction not even pull the trigger in the final episode? We did enjoy the kid vomiting after Phil got shot in the head and run over, but that’s about it. (The Big Lead)
This made us sad, because it was a clear example of David Chase underestimating himself and his show. We longtime Chase apologists didn't just forgive, but enjoyed the red herrings and feints perpetually tossed our way. We appreciated that he wanted his show to be like life, that he didn't want it to fall prey to the usual conventions of episodic television. But he never seemed to understand that "The Sopranos" changed that, that he had created a program that broke those rules and stood on its own. He thought we all were just watching a TV show; those devoted to the show knew we were watching something much different, and better. He wanted to mess with what we thought a television show was supposed to be, but because of his achievement, we no longer had those constraints. Years of television have trained you to expect a conclusion, he seemed to be saying, but you're not gonna get one. To which we respond: Years of "The Sopranos" have trained us to expect nothing. We just thought you might be nice and give us something anyway.
He didn't. Instead, we had a last scene that was perfect and infuriating and beautiful and agonizing and all the things we love and find frustrating about "The Sopranos." He turned a show that was about them and made it about him. We respect David Chase's stubborn nature. We just wish he could have thrown us a bone. But we're probably wrong: If we'd have had the big ending, we'd surely find something to complain about with that too. We will just salute the achievement, and do what we can to move on with our lives. (Deadspin)
And so, we get more or less what was expected, besides the oddly edited ending. Tony's family is around him. Life, such as it is for a mobster facing possible criminal indictment, goes on. Chase manages, with this ending, to be true to reality (Tony's lawyer says earlier in the episode, "It's not like we haven't envisioned this day") while also steering clear of trite TV conventions. Tony isn't killed in a blaze of gunfire. Multiple plotlines are left unresolved (like life). There is no hugging, no moral lesson, no pat ending. It just ends. Before a lot of people wanted it to, but with a clever Chase-like nod to the unknown. (San Francisco Chronicle)
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