[This article was originally published at Talkhoops.net]
In the wake of Team USA’s Gold Medal run in the 2008 Olympic Games, those of us whose lives are fueled by basketball are already looking forward to the upcoming basketball season. Around this time last season Kobe Bryant and the Lakers were the most dominating and interesting story of the offseason for a myriad reasons that included, but were not limited to A) Bryant throwing both his teammates and management under the conjectural Buss (yes, Jerry too), B) Dr. Buss saying Bryant could be traded and Bryant’s wanting to get the hell out of Los Angeles and C) Lamar Odom’s tattoo on his scalp. The Lakers being the most interesting team heading toward training camps has been the case for the last three or four seasons, however, with Andrew Bynum coming back with Pau Gasol in the front court, the Lakers look to be an actual basketball team going into a season for the first time since the 2003-2004 season, which is why the Lakers aren’t the most interesting team next season. And with that being said, this may be the most awkward thing I’ve ever considered writing in my lifetime (for reasons to be explained later).
Unlike the two other major American sports, football and baseball, fans of basketball have been captivated by individual players instead of team concepts for as long as I can remember. There are a plethora of athletes who are larger than their teams and there was even one, Michael Jordan, who was bigger than the sport itself. We as basketball fans love being able to watch a single player dictate how a game is going to happen just by his own abilities, which is why guys like Allen Iverson, Tracy McGrady and Paul Pierce (God forbid) will always have fans. This is why, when we talk about the Celtics in the 1980s, we immediately garnish beautiful words about Larry Legend instead of everything every player on that team represented, and this is completely different from baseball and football. When we think about the Steelers of the 1970s we remember that Steel Curtain defense and how they owned the AFC, we really don’t think about any individual players, and I’m sure if I asked either of my two roommates (who are both three years younger than I and are both huge football fans), they would be able to give me Larry Bird’s name in a conversation about the Golden Era of basketball before they came up with Lynn Swann, Terry Bradshaw, Joe Green or Jack Ham’s names when talking about that dynasty of the 70s. The same goes with baseball. We’ll remember Hakeem Olajuwon as a representative of the Rockets of the 90s, but we won’t remember guys like David Cone and Derek Jeter as much as we remember the Yankees of the late 90s as a whole unit.
This idea of the individual vs. the team, as far as basketball vs. football and baseball go, is a very interesting concept and isn’t only applied to eras, but to individual years too. Terms like the ’72 Dolphins or the ’85 Bears resonate with football fans as much as Jordan in 1987 or Charles Barkley in 1993 does with basketball fans – which leads me to the reason why this season the Lakers will not be the most interesting team going into the 2008-2009 season. With the acquisition of Gasol, the emergence of Bynum’s talent and the depth of their bench, Bryant no longer has to go for 45 points every night for his team to win games. The seasons of Bryant averaging 30 points per game are over even though he still remains the single greatest game closer and offensive force that this league has witnessed since 1998 (as we all watched in the fourth quarter in the U.S. vs. Spain gold medal game). Non-Lakers fans will no longer have to monitor the progress of Lakers games just to make sure they aren’t missing another Bryant scoring binge. The probability of Bryant going off for 50 points has decreased because the level of play from his teammates has increased. You can look at Bryant’s production, or the production of any great scorer, like you would look at a supply and demand graph with supply being surrounding talent and demand being points. As supply increases, the demand will ultimately decrease, which is why Bryant only had three games where he scored 50 or more points before the 04-05 season and only one 50+ game with Gasol on the roster. Every other 50 point game Bryant has had (and there have been twenty others) have come between the dates of December 20th, 2005 and April 15th, 2007, times when the talent surrounding him was unquestionably low...[You can find out which team I think will be the most interesting to watch by clicking this link to Talkhoops.net]
Stay Hideous
-PB
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