Goop dreams.
Apr. 21st, 2013 08:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogThat was supposed to be "hoop dreams," but the typo seemed semi-appropriate, so I'm sticking with it.
Local hockey season ended, for all practical purposes, Friday night, when the Sabres laid a total egg of a performance against the Rangers to be mathematially eliminated from the final playoff seed. They'd hung on by their fingernails for a few weeks before that, but they never got above .500 after the fourth game of the season and looked putrid more often than not. Their coach was fired, their captain traded, and their goalie and leading scorer are Dead Men Skating now.
So why does this suddenly make me interested in NBA basketball?
Partly just because it's there. I lost interest in college, after my growing-up local teams from New York both went into long-term suckage and my new-home local team, the Buffalo Braves, up and left town. I missed the Magic-Bird renaissance for the most part, and have found the current generation to be too selfish and thuggish to ever care about. Last year's Lin-sanity may have sparked a little interest, but the Knicks let him go. Also, my former Braves had their first decent season in, it seemed, forever as the little-brother LA team known as the Clippers. This year, they did even better out west- breaking the franchise season record for wins, and winning their division for the first time ever, even better because it was over the hated Lakers and the rest of the NBA Pacific.
As for my poor old Nets? They finally returned to Long Island this fall- the western part, anyway. For the first time since 1957, a major league sports team called Brooklyn home. They did well, they sucked, they fired their coach and they got better, making it into this year's playoffs, as did the Knicks.
I'd watched them, while my local favorites the Nets were still playing in the ABA in dime-store arenas, in what was their glory era of Willis Reed and Clyde Frazier. The Knicks became the third New York team in the 1969-70 overlapping season to win a championship. Then they went all Hollywood and Spike Lee and I lost interest. This year's team, though, brought in a new coach, a star new player formerly from Syracuse for his first full season, and they wound up with the Atlantic Division title and the 2-seed in the East behind the despicable Heat.
So, instead of even giving half a shit about the remnants of half a hockey season gone to hell, I checked up on My Three Teams, all of whom played their opening playoff games yesterday and last night.
All three won. Knicks at home over the Celtics in an emotional up-and-downer; Nets over Da Bulls for the first playoff game in Brooklyn since the year Don Larsen no-hit the Dodgers; and the Clippers over the Not Vancouver Grizzlies on a night their best player had a bad game and fouled out.
It's still too early to get my baseball blood going, so this might just provide some interest for the next few weeks. The way things line up, we could see Knicks-Nets or Clippers-Lakers in coming weeks, and maybe two of them meeting in the finals.
And if that wound up Nets-Clippers for the basketball world championship? The universe might just explode from the improbability of it all.
Local hockey season ended, for all practical purposes, Friday night, when the Sabres laid a total egg of a performance against the Rangers to be mathematially eliminated from the final playoff seed. They'd hung on by their fingernails for a few weeks before that, but they never got above .500 after the fourth game of the season and looked putrid more often than not. Their coach was fired, their captain traded, and their goalie and leading scorer are Dead Men Skating now.
So why does this suddenly make me interested in NBA basketball?
Partly just because it's there. I lost interest in college, after my growing-up local teams from New York both went into long-term suckage and my new-home local team, the Buffalo Braves, up and left town. I missed the Magic-Bird renaissance for the most part, and have found the current generation to be too selfish and thuggish to ever care about. Last year's Lin-sanity may have sparked a little interest, but the Knicks let him go. Also, my former Braves had their first decent season in, it seemed, forever as the little-brother LA team known as the Clippers. This year, they did even better out west- breaking the franchise season record for wins, and winning their division for the first time ever, even better because it was over the hated Lakers and the rest of the NBA Pacific.
As for my poor old Nets? They finally returned to Long Island this fall- the western part, anyway. For the first time since 1957, a major league sports team called Brooklyn home. They did well, they sucked, they fired their coach and they got better, making it into this year's playoffs, as did the Knicks.
I'd watched them, while my local favorites the Nets were still playing in the ABA in dime-store arenas, in what was their glory era of Willis Reed and Clyde Frazier. The Knicks became the third New York team in the 1969-70 overlapping season to win a championship. Then they went all Hollywood and Spike Lee and I lost interest. This year's team, though, brought in a new coach, a star new player formerly from Syracuse for his first full season, and they wound up with the Atlantic Division title and the 2-seed in the East behind the despicable Heat.
So, instead of even giving half a shit about the remnants of half a hockey season gone to hell, I checked up on My Three Teams, all of whom played their opening playoff games yesterday and last night.
All three won. Knicks at home over the Celtics in an emotional up-and-downer; Nets over Da Bulls for the first playoff game in Brooklyn since the year Don Larsen no-hit the Dodgers; and the Clippers over the Not Vancouver Grizzlies on a night their best player had a bad game and fouled out.
It's still too early to get my baseball blood going, so this might just provide some interest for the next few weeks. The way things line up, we could see Knicks-Nets or Clippers-Lakers in coming weeks, and maybe two of them meeting in the finals.
And if that wound up Nets-Clippers for the basketball world championship? The universe might just explode from the improbability of it all.