How long until football
I'm not a Warriors fan, or a supporter anymore, and I'm especially not a LeBron fan. But, this is just making it hard for me to watch the NBA, and the NBA is to blame for game 5. And the splash brothers are to blame for game 7. These were the worst playoffs ever. EVER. So much weird, dumb stuff happened throughout, from the ball kicking frenzy to the NBA suspending Draymond at a key moment to LeBron lying on the ground with 10 seconds left pretending to be hurt (what was that about anyways? nobody is focused on that), nothing outside of game 7 and the Oklahoma City Thunder made these playoffs exciting, or even memorable.
I'm not a fan of any team that made the second round, so I feel that I can judge it impartially. The West had the Spurs advance, removed Chris Paul and Blake Griffin from the equation, and the Warriors and Thunder won 4-1 over their opponents as well. Then, the Warriors cruised by the Trailblazers, and the Thunder had the only real upset of the NBA when they beat the Spurs. They went on to put the Warriors on edge, but Golden State fought back to make the Finals, again. In other words, everything happened as planned, outside of the Spurs getting bounced.
The East was even worse, as Cleveland basically swept their way to the NBA Finals. Toronto's path was kind of boring as well, even though they forced two game 7's, none of the games were really exciting. The only series in the East playoffs that had some excitement was the first round of Atlanta vs. Boston, where it looked like Boston could actually "upset" the Hawks for a while for a chance to be swept by LeBron. Nothing exciting.
Then, the Finals were full of miscalls, injuries, the NBA interfering, and blowouts games 1-6. Finally, game seven had a close game and MAINTAINED a close game throughout. It was a really good game, and I'm sure the NBA raked in the benefits of it that they expected would happen by suspending Draymond Green for game 5. Now, it's done, and I'm done sitting down and watching the NBA. I'm going to keep watching the 2 teams I actually like (Boston and Milwaukee), but I can't deal with watching the NBA become reality TV. I like unpredictability. I don't like watching the league be staged. In other words, I can't wait for the return of football and college basketball.
I believe that every sports league is as rigged as it can possibly be to make the most money, that's how every company is. A restaurant I work at charges $8.50 for 8 wings, yet can "afford" to make them $.75 each on Saturday nights. Realistically, they can afford to probably get away with $.25 apiece. My point is, everything is rigged to an extent, but the NFL and MLB are so much more unpredictable and have so many moving parts that it's way harder to do it and get away with it. In the NBA, one player is 20% of a team on the court, and taking a player away, especially an All-Star, has a more catastrophic effect on the game. It's also a lot easier for refs to make calls that don't get overturned, and to keep giving fouls to star players. Type in "is the NBA" on Google and see what comes up.
I'm glad the playoffs are finally over, and thank God the Olympics are here to bridge the gap to football. Are you ready?
