OT: The Celtics win is good for Basketball
Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 4:49 am
I love the 76ers but I could not help but root for the Celtics in this series. Why, well there is Kevin, but besides him, the NBA marketing machine and NBA sport writers have gone Kobe crazy. Now I acknowledge that he is probably the best player in the game today, but to compare him to Jordan is crazy. But even more importantly than that if the Lakers won the series it would have been more of an individual victory Kobe's Lakers than a team victory. And after all is basketball not a team sport. The NBA and the media seem to be overly concerned with the emphais on the individual player rather than the team concept. The dunks, the flashy passes etc all make for good highlight footage, but good team defense, good team chemistry is how the game should be played and as we saw tonight makes for good championship teams.
Also it is good to see Kobe get to the finals and not win another championship after he helped get Shaq out of LA, after he demanded that Bynum be traded in a package for Kid, after he himself demanded a trade and after he basically threw the LA organization under a bus. As one writer put it, Kobe showed he is no Michael Jordan. And Kobe can win you a title as long as long as there is a Shaq to do the heavy lifting.
Also it is good to see Kobe get to the finals and not win another championship after he helped get Shaq out of LA, after he demanded that Bynum be traded in a package for Kid, after he himself demanded a trade and after he basically threw the LA organization under a bus. As one writer put it, Kobe showed he is no Michael Jordan. And Kobe can win you a title as long as long as there is a Shaq to do the heavy lifting.