IMAGINE AN NBA WHERE SHAI IS STEPH AND THE WARRIORS AND LAKERS FALL
A league dominated by the same names is taking on new appearances, where teams such as the Thunder and Timberwolves suddenly share top billing while Curry and even LeBron James could fall this week
The effortless name is Steph Curry, whose three short initials lead to basketball’s affectionate chore of zingers from everywhere. A not-so-easy name is from Oklahoma City, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, by way of Canada. We all should be very agog to know something strange is happening between them.
This week, NBA voters are considering SGA for Most Valuable Player. They’re also wondering if he outsang teammate Chet Holmgren in an AT&T commercial parody of “What A Girl Wants,” while noting the Thunder stand as No. 1 seeds in the almighty Western Conference postseason. It’s possible they’ll make a run at the Finals and not even notice Tuesday in Sacramento, where fans rant at Draymond Green for stomping on Domantas Sabonis’ chest as Curry and the Golden State Warriors are eliminated.
Shai is Steph. The Thunder are the Warriors. The leather orange roundball swirls again, leading to new paths and funny noises. “You know, it’s do or die. Probably feels more NCAA tournament-ish,” Green said. “Kind of gives you that feel.”
A loss means owner Joe Lacob, the man who once said his franchise is “light years ahead” of other competitors, must finally break down what’s left of a dynasty that ran its four-title course two years ago. Let Klay Thompson find a new team. Boot Green to the nearest counselor or some general manager who wants him. Make calls and see if Giannis Antetokounmpo wants a change of Wisconsin scenery and helps Curry finish his career. Meet the new NBA, where the Thunder and Minnesota Timberwolves are threatening history while the rest of us are booking flights for Boston and Denver for the championship round.
The drama right now features the Warriors and the Los Angeles Lakers, who must survive a play-in round against New Orleans to progress as a No. 7 seed or fall back to a last-gasp game against the Kings or WARRIORS. Imagine the horror of a sports TV executive who banked on another year of Curry and LeBron James and sees one or the other crash — or both — before the actual playoffs. The Lakers should have enough to win one of two play-ins, with James, but the next round would be against the Nuggets or Thunder. It’s simple to sit here and say LeBron’s final spring path of his 30s will end trashily. At the moment, we should start listening to him.
If he fails quickly, that could mean his ego takes him to another team. Knowing he can’t win with the Lakers, in a conference of emerging powerhouses, maybe he finally removes one last chance from LA. His son, Bronny, has declared for the league draft in June. LeBron might want the Lakers to take him and develop him, but they don’t pick until No. 55 in the second round. The Philadelphia 76ers have Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey waiting for a final piece. LeBron can wiggle out of a $51 million player option. What stops the Sixers from giving him a shot in the Eastern Conference, where only the Boston Celtics matter at the moment? They draft Bronny, sign LeBron — and life starts anew for a man at 40 who had 28 points, 17 assists, 11 rebounds and five steals Sunday while shutting down Zion Williamson.
Look, Bronny can’t shoot and scored 4.8 points a game in his freshman season at USC. He had a difficult time after suffering cardiac arrest. He’s 6-2. In due time, his pro potential may or may not appear. But his father makes the call, and if the 76ers or Dallas boss Mark Cuban takes a shot with Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving, he doesn’t have to catacomb to retirement at Crypto.com Arena. All someone must do is draft Bronny. “At the end of the day, Bronny’s his own man,” James said.
At the end of all NBA days, LeBron calls the shots. So whether the Lakers get past the Pelicans, Kings or Warriors — or go away — doesn’t matter. They aren’t beating the Nuggets, who seem bored and are ready for a championship run. A Thunder series would be curious, but who deals with Gilgeous-Alexander? Only the sports crazies know who coaches Oklahoma City. His name is Mark Daigneault. You might know of their masterly fold-and-reset general manager, Sam Presti. Some think they’re too young and will clog early, but listen to Daigneault speak of SGA, who averaged 30.1 points, 6.2 assists and a league-leading two steals a game.
“I don't study all the players, but I do see one of them every single night,” he said. “There is not a night where I don't feel like we have the best player on the floor. We're a top-five defense, top-five offense. He's a two-end player that contributes to both of those things. I think his consistency, his poise, his confidence has had an unbelievable contagious effect on one of the youngest teams in the league, one of the youngest teams in history to accomplish what this team accomplished. When you look at what he did this year, what seeds he has planted in previous years, there's no one I'd rather have on our team than him.”
He won’t win the MVP this time, losing either to Nikola Jokic or Doncic. But if you want fresh reasons to watch the NBA, turn on OKC. We used to try that back in the day, when Kevin Durant joined James Harden and Russell Westbrook in the lineup and lost to Miami and James in the Finals. Today, Durant is on his third team after fleeing the Thunder — the Phoenix Suns, who will have difficulty beating a Timberwolves team led by another emerging superstar, Anthony Edwards. The only hangup in Minnesota is why Alex Rodriguez tried to buy majority ownership and immediately wanted to lower payroll below the league’s luxury-tax threshold. Here are the Wolves, hosting a first-round postseason series for the first time in 20 years and possibly advancing for the second time in 35 years. They have Edwards, Karl-Anthony Towns and Rudy Gobert. They should be pondering a prosperous future.
A-Rod was called out by 82-year-old principal owner Glen Taylor, who burned him as Major League Baseball did twice in steroids testing. Taylor says Rodriguez and Marc Lore didn’t have the necessary transfer money by March 28. Commissioner Adam Silver isn’t getting involved, apparently siding with Taylor. “The dispute is precisely that, as to whether they had acted within the window of the option that Glen Taylor had sold them,” he said. “That’s the very basis of the dispute. So that dispute will be resolved independent of the league office. In their purchase agreement they, in essence, pre-agreed to a dispute resolution mechanism that includes mediation and arbitration, and that’s where it stands. There is no role for the league in that process.”
The West demands your eyeballs, whether it’s Curry and/or James throttling the newbies or the likes of Edwards, SGA and Jokic joined by Doncic. Luka finally should have enough maturity genes to romp past the Los Angeles Clippers in their final downtown campaign. The East? Not since Paul Revere rode a horse from Charlestown to Lexington has New England waited for something already acknowledged. Only an injury to Jayson Tatum, who must produce like Celtics legends in the crunch, will stop a superbly built team by Brad Stevens. Only a miraculous health run by Embiid possibly could slow them.
Milwaukee? Why did Doc Rivers leave the safety of the ESPN booth to coach the Bucks? With Adrian Griffin, they were 30-13. With Rivers, they were 19-20. If they win three games in the opening series against Indiana, his record in such a situation is 16-33. All while a calf strain might keep Antetokounmpo out of Game 1, while he tries again to find his lost game ball.
For now, we focus on the Warriors and Lakers, as we have forever. Steve Kerr is in no great mood to take a bus to Sacramento, then a flight to New Orleans or LA, then advance to wherever. Or nowhere. But the Warriors coach left us with a thought.
“Steph Curry is one of the great clutch players in the history of the league,” he said. “We’ve seen him win championships, seen him win the Finals MVP. Steph Curry is Steph Curry. He’s that guy. He’s him, I think Austin Reaves said.”
Reaves plays for the Lakers. He’s talking about the Warriors. We’ll start here.
Don’t we always?
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.