Welcome to Wonderland, where things are seldom what they seem. Or so says librettist WS Gilbert in the musical HMS Pinafore.
Same goes for the National Basketball Association (NBA) where, just a few weeks leading into the playoffs, results and standings are quite different from what seemed to be the sure fire direction of things when the season had just begun.
Case in point: everybody thought the Boston Celtics would be the kings of the East after the return to action of their top guns Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward who were out of it for all or long stretches of time during last season. The fact that The King (LeBron James) had vacated his Eastern throne to travel west gave the Celtics that much bigger a chance to dominate, but no. The Celtics sputtered at various times during the regular reason, losing to so-called weaker teams that they could have easily defeated with their vaunted strength.
“I’d be surprised if the Celtics didn’t play in the Finals next season,” Brian Scalabrine said emphatically when he was in Manila last year for NBA 3X. And so did many believe when the season began. But comparing this year’s performance to the previous year’s, the Celtics ended up on top of the Atlantic division despite running on the motor of just rookies and sophomores. But now, the Celtics had just clinched a playoff berth, way behind teams it had overtaken swiftly last year. How will they fare when the playoffs begin? Well, that’s another story.
Likewise their archrivals, the Los Angeles Lakers, did not quite live up to pre-season billing. Add on their main man, LeBron to that mix too. In what was almost a foregone conclusion that the arrival of The King in Los Angeles would completely turn around the fortunes of the franchise (as he had done for both Miami and his native Cleveland) this venture out west did not completely turn out as planned. The Lakers are out of the playoffs for the sixth straight year. They have missed it only five times in their 65 year history.
To be fair, it is not James’ fault at all. It was just that a bad fairy seemed to have cast a dark spell on the team from season opening onwards. LA has had suspensions, injuries and miscues galore. On Day One, Rajon Rondo and Brandon Ingram immediately earned suspensions because of a run-in with Chris Paul. The Lakers started losing more than they were winning. Magic Johnson admonished his coach in December and the Lakers came out fighting—good enough to be at Number 4 on Christmas Day. But down the stretch, Rondo fractures his finger, LeBron James suffers a groin tear that takes him out of the action for 17 games.
Then comes that overt pursuit of Anthony Davis before the February trade deadline that sours the punch once more. Speculations were treated like facts and affected feelings. The thought that the Lakers were willing to completely overhaul their roster to produce a dream team with both LeBron and AD as centerpiece had some, er, bad ramifications.
Everything went grey from there, with a few sunny yellow Laker patches here and there. Now the Lakers have five months off to contemplate the next season and deal with other matters like free agents and their head coach. Seven LA players are going to be free agents soon. And Luke Walton needs to deal with the idea of job security.
But again, things are hardly ever what they seem. Even when experiencing really dismal seasons, the sun can shine through just one season later. There are three NBA teams that missed the playoffs one season and came out top seeds of their respective conferences the following season. The New Jersey Nets (now known as the Brooklyn Nets) were top seeds in 2001-2002 after missing the playoffs in 2000-2001. The Phoenix Suns had a blah 2003-2004 but ended up on top in 2004-2005. The Boston Celtics finished 24-58 for the second worst record in their franchise’s history in 2006-2007. They became top seeds in 2007-2008 and won their seventeenth championship banner that season.
The Hindus are right. It is all illusion. What matters is how people and teams come to grips with their reality and do something about it. Things can be what you want them to be. Just work your ass off and be wise.
“If you want it, you can have it. If you dream it, you can become it.” Those are lyrics from another musical, The Wiz.