THE BEAUTY OF A GAME 7 IS PUTTING LEBRON JAMES (WHO?) IN HIS RIGHT PLACE
We will watch two compelling teams try to win an NBA championship, which for some reason doesn’t mean much to James, who would rather be recognized as an individual who failed 18 times in 22 years
Notice how LeBron James must make another TV commercial before the NBA Finals carry on. In his latest, he thinks about retirement and cooks in a Japanese restaurant, uses clippers to cut hair in a barber shop, sings into a microphone like a wretched Phil Collins and yells “Runnnnn!!!” when animals steal marshmallows. What I’d rather see him do is apologize to the Oklahoma City Thunder and Indiana Pacers.
They have turned a repetitive series into a blockbuster, thanks entirely to Indiana’s blowout in Game 6. Ratings will rise Sunday night, when no one will care about market sizes. The cities have no beaches, no mountains, no President Trump outrages as yet — but their teams will play a seventh game that removes smoke and cobwebs from all heads. We’ll either pay tribute to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the smoothest of stat-sheet bombardiers, and Jalen Williams, who was favorably compared to Scottie Pippen by … Scottie Pippen. Or we’ll praise Rick Carlisle as a coach who belongs in the pantheon, leading the Pacers to one of the most improbable championships in basketball history.
“A great privilege,” said Carlisle, who is 65 and making 40-year-old Mark Daigneault look like a lost millennial.
“We have one game for everything, for everything we’ve worked for, and so do they,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “The better team will win.”
So why would James, who takes Amazon Prime’s money during the Finals, insult the fundamental concept of winning a championship? He believes a great player — say, himself — shouldn’t be measured by the number of rings on his fingers. Try telling SGA, the regular-season MVP, that blowing the final two games wouldn’t be a blight on his career. Try telling Tyrese Haliburton that the ebb-and-flow nature of his stardom isn’t entirely on the line. Consider Williams, Pascal Siakam, Alex Caruso, T.J. McConnell, Sam Presti, Carlisle and Daigneault. James claims not to care. He won four titles in a wealth of expansive time: 22 years. He doesn’t think the numbers really matter.
How wrong does he look?
“Trying to nitpick an individual because he was not able to win a team game or a team match — or whatever the case may be — I don't know where it started, but it's a long conversation, especially when it comes to me individually. It’s so weird. It’s never enough,” said James, who remains two titles behind Michael Jordan, who won six in a mere 13 Chicago seasons. “I don't know why it's discussed so much in our sport and why it's the end-all, be-all of everything. Like OK, 'You weren't a great player [because] you never won a championship.’ Or if you won one, you can't be in the same conversation with this person. You sit here and tell me Allen Iverson and Charles Barkley and Steve Nash f—ing weren't unbelievable? Like, 'Oh, they can't be talked about or discussed with these guys because this guy won one ring, or won two rings.’ ’’
We appreciate Iverson, Barkley and Nash. We’d appreciate them more with trophies. James wants to be known as the greatest of all time. His June output cannot be hidden. “A ring is a team accomplishment, and if you happen to have a moment where you're able to share that with your team, that should be discussed. ‘This team was the greatest team,’ or ‘that team’ — you can have those conversations,’ ” he said.
Playing in front of a loyal-dope crowd that still lined up in droves at the airport, though the Thunder were outscored 36-9 in Indianapolis, smart people expect Oklahoma City to win. They are 10-2 at home in the playoffs. They have outscored four opponents by a whopping 247 points at Paycom Center. The home team is 15-4 all-time in a Game 7. The pressure is on Presti and Daigneault to have the team prepared to devour, which achingly didn’t happen Thursday night.
“Now, we didn't play like it at all,” said Gilgeous-Alexander, who committed eight turnovers. “That's why the night went the way that it did. We got exactly what we deserved, what we earned. We have to own that. Some of it was carelessness and not being focused and not being engaged. They played harder than us tonight as well, and when a team plays harder, they usually turn the other team over.”
Yet the last time the league provided such a luxury, Cleveland stormed into Oakland and used a LeBron block — and Kyrie Irving’s jumper — and beat a Golden State team that went 73-9 in the regular season. Thanks to Carlisle, the Pacers are playing with vigor far beyond their roster talent. They should not be holding the Larry O’Brien Trophy. Don’t tell them. They’re already hearing about the history of classic upsets.
“The narratives are going to be almost poison,” Haliburton said. "To talk about what this would mean to our city and our organization and legacy talk, and we played so well and now the pressure is on (the Thunder) ... there's going to be narratives that we can't really pay attention to. But it’s so, so exciting, man. Dreamed of being in this situation my whole life. What happened in the past doesn’t matter. What happened today doesn’t matter. It’s all about one game and approaching that the right way.”
Said O’Connell: “I think we played to exhaustion. But we have to do it again Sunday.”
No one will feel more strain than Daigneault, who won’t look the part of a title coach until he grasps the hardware. “It was hard tonight. Indiana was great and we were not. We have the same opportunity Indiana does on Sunday,” he said. “The score will be 0-0 when the ball goes up in the air. It’s a privilege to play in Game 7s. It’s a privilege to play in the finals. As disappointing as tonight was, we’re grateful for the opportunity.”
What we adore about these Finals is the chance to watch new stars, how they react, how they respond when legacies are mentioned. The megastars will be watching. James will see his advertisement again, which could lead to him joining Amazon as an analyst. For now, until Mark Walter takes over the Lakers and hires Presti from OKC and chases crowning glories, two small-market franchises have our eyeballs.
“I think it's a new blueprint for the league, man,” Indiana’s Myles Turner said. "I think the years of the superteams and stacking, it's not as effective as it once was. Since I've been in the league, this NBA is very trendy. It just shifts. But the new trend now is just kind of what we're doing, OKC does the same thing. Young guys, get out and run, defend. And use the power of friendship is how they call it.”
The power of friendship means Caruso, with two rings, would be two short of LeBron. It means Carlisle, with two coaching rings, would be two short.
Please don’t “nitpick.” One will be a champion, on the 22nd of June, 53 long nights after the Lakers were eliminated.
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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.