FanNation - The Republic of Sport

One of the biggest stories in all sports recently has been the Golden State Warriors ending their 13 year long playoff drought, and knocking off the number one seeded Dallas Mavericks in the process. While this was an incredible series, with all six games being suspenseful and exciting, especially Game 5 (the Mavs 118-112 victory), the sentiment expressed by many that this was the "best thing to happen to basketball" is not at all a fair judgement of the situation. The Warriors are a team that are built almost exclusively to exploit a team, such as Dallas' weaknesses: quick guards that can exploit poor individual defenders playing an uptempo style of basketball. In their upcoming series against Utah, the Warriors will most likely have trouble defending against a low post scorer, which the Mavs did not have, like Carlos Boozer and will struggle with Utah's good individual defenders such as Deron Williams. In short, I believe that the Warriors dream will end fairly soon. Now, last year's playoffs were incredible: the Mavs-Spurs semifinals and the various Suns series were great last year, and with the potential for a Mavs-Jazz/Rockets and then a Mavs-Spurs confrence finals rematch, I was really excited for this year's playoffs. This would have provided NBA fans everywhere with both these series and the Spurs-Suns series, which is already starting to look like a future classic, and another great postseason, continuing to draw more fans in, as last year's playoffs did. Now we're stuck with a weak Warriors-Jazz series, the incredible Spurs-Suns series, and some so-so series in the east. It appears that the closest thing we'll get this year to a Finals quality match up is between San Antonio and Phoenix. Either that or yet another Detroit-San Antonio final because I don't see either of those teams being stopped in their respective confrences. Without Dallas, these playoffs become pretty bland in my eyes. Dallas and Phoenix would have been sure to provide fireworks and Spurs-Mavs is a classic rivalry matchup with a trip to the Finals in the balance. How awesome would that have been? Let's even say that Golden State pulls another upset against Utah: then they either face San Antonio, the kryptonite to their Suns-style basketball, or Phoenix, who plays the same way they do, only better. Either way, chances are not good. If the Warriors suprise everybody, then the excitement will definately be restored, but I just don't see it happening. In the end, now that the feeling of excitement about the initial series is over, I'm starting to doubt how great this was anyway. The best thing to happen to the NBA? I'm not so sure.