FanNation - The Republic of Sport

(Author's note: This article was originally published at www.aarontorres-sports.com) 

If you think about it, the NBA really is entertainment's best spectacle.

In what other profession is someone that stands 6'3 considered to be too small, and guys that are 6'8 and 250 lbs., considered the norm? 

Honestly, how many times have you even seen someone 6'8 just walking down the street?  Once?   It's like Chris Rock once said about meeting Native American's: "Yeh you met one, one time, then another one three years later."  Same with seven footers, you met one in 1999, and another last October.  Yet in the NBA, they're commonplace.

And when you factor in the ability of these giants to run and jump and dribble and pass with the coordination that they do, it becomes safe to say that the NBA is the world's largest freak show. 

In turn, I guess that makes the NBA playoffs the Grammy's, Academy Awards and Emmy's of the freak show: the world's greatest athletes playing at their absolute highest level.

It is also what makes the NBA playoffs must watch television every spring. 

Each year we become enamored, enthralled and enriched with the play on the court. Players and teams we don't get to see much all year show us what we've been missing, and that when everyone's healthy and interested (not always the case), NBA basketball really is the best reality show on television.

It seems like every year some team catches us off-guard, showing us something we never thought to expect.  In 2007 it was the Golden State Warriors going on a run to remember, beating that year's best team- the Dallas Mavericks- in a shocking six game series.  That series opened our eyes to see that Baron Davis- when healthy and hungry- was still one of the best point guards in the NBA.  Stuff like that happens ever year.  It's like the commercials say, The NBA: Where Amazing Happens.

What was great about watching that Warriors team was that even though we knew they couldn't win a championship, they played a brand of basketball that made them impossible to switch off.   

(Agree with Aaron?  Disagree?  Let him know at www.aarontorres-sports.com)

There were the high-flying fastbreaks and alley-oops, Davis' deep threes and the utterly quirky, and completely unpredictable combination of Stephen Jackson, Matt Barnes and Jason Richardson.  It was like watching one of those Steven Segal movies from the late ???80s: you knew the ending was going to leave you terribly disappointed, but the action was impossible to turn off.

Fast-forward to this year, and I have the exact same sentiment about the Atlanta Hawks. 

Now I'm a realist, and the writing on the wall is pretty clear.  Through two games with the Cavaliers, the Hawks have done little to nothing to show they can even win a game in this series, let alone are ready to compete for a championship any time in the near future. 

The holes are there, and when you're playing without 2/3 of your frontcourt, and your best player just got hurt, bad things are going to happen.  Especially when you're playing the King on his court, where the Cavaliers are 43-2 so far this season.

But taking out those two games, the Hawks, when healthy, are the most fun up-and-coming team to watch.  Sorry Blazers and Bulls fans, the guys in Atlanta have you outdone.  Don't let the last two games fool you; when it comes to the "I have no idea what they're going to do next, but I better not pee until the next commercial department," the Hawks are second to none.

In a column on Tuesday I compared the Hawks to a puppy off the leash for the first time, completely unpredictable.  That analogy is a little weak though. 

To me the Atlanta Hawks are more like your old, semi-delusional Uncle Ned, the one who talks about "???Nam" all the time, and pines for the old days.  Sure you love Uncle Ned, but you also don't want him coming to your birthday parties either, too afraid he'll make some anti-semitic remark.  Or mention "off-hand," how that one "bigger," girl probably shouldn't be going back for that second piece of cake...

To read the remainder of this article, click here, or visit www.aarontorres-sports.com