2016 NBA Playoffs: Warriors, Blazers A Battle Of Good Guys
By Luke Duffy
There’s no clear bad guy in the Golden State Warriors-Portland Trail Blazers series and it’s great viewing for fans of the 2016 NBA Playoffs.
Although the Golden State Warriors currently hold a 1-0 series lead over the Portland Trail Blazers, even the most casual of fans know how this one is likely to end. Even without the historically great talents of Stephen Curry, the Warriors should win this series in five games, maybe six if the Blazers continue to surprise us as they have done all season.
That’s the thing though; this Blazers team has not only become must-see TV during their time in the playoffs for fans who know their recent history, but they’ve also become the fun underdog to root for. They’ve taken this mantle from other teams like the Boston Celtics and Indiana Pacers purely because they’ve hung around longer and advanced to the second round.
That presents a bit of a problem, however, as they’re facing the Warriors, the darlings of the NBA right now, not only because they’ve changed the game, but the manner in which they’ve done it. Their image is damn near impeccable and it’s led by the cherub-faced Curry, the family man who made good after injuries threatened to derail his career.
It puts us fans in an unusual position and it’s tough to know which team to root for to advance to the conference finals. On one hand you’ve got the Warriors, the historically great team that just posted the all-time best regular-season record with 73-9.
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Opposite them are the Blazers, an organization that lost four of its starting five last offseason and has actually advanced further than it did last season.
So, which team are you cheering for? It’s a fun question to ask because unless you’re a fan of either team, you don’t get the straight answer you normally would. Seriously, try it with your friends as I have. They might pick a side before pondering the question further and conceding that actually, the other team is worth cheering on for a variety of reasons as well.
It’s quite rare that this happens and it’s something to really enjoy. A lot of playoff matchups can be broken down to star player X going up against team Y.
The NBA is a sport where following and supporting players can trump actually being a fan of a team, so most series at this time of the year consist of fans who either like a certain player and want them to win or dislike them so much they want the other team to win.
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LeBron James and Kobe Bryant are two great examples of this. When James was with the Miami Heat, fans of other teams wanted to see him lose every series he went into. Ditto with Bryant. While fans of these stars wanted to see them win … and win big. It’s not that this story line is boring, it just happens year after year and is a running theme of many playoff battles.
This goes as far back as Michael Jordan and beyond.
But with this Warriors vs. Blazers series, it’s different. Sure, Curry is the superstar here, even if he’s currently injured. But he’s also hard to hate … like, really hard. I have a theory as to why this is and it goes beyond his marketable image off the court and fairy-tale story from undersized kid to NBA MVP.
The talent he excels at, shooting, is the one trait of the game an average person can improve at if they put in enough dedication. Soaring through the air, dunking, all that stuff; it’s impossible for mortals like me to even think about attempting. But shooting? Yeah, I can do that and when I make three shots in a row, I feel great.
Curry is the best shooter ever, but even I might get one half-court shot in if I attempted 100.
He’s relatable in a way no superstar has ever been before and it makes him hard to dislike. By extension, it makes the perfectly constructed Warriors hard to dislike as well. They’re kind of like The Avengers, assembled to rid the basketball world of mid-range efforts, hacking poor shooters and average shot selection.
It would also seem like such an anticlimax if they didn’t win a title this year after beating the regular-season record of 72 wins set by the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls. Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman–their place in history didn’t die only for the Warriors to fall themselves before reaching the top of the pile for the second season in a row.
It wouldn’t feel right. Do you really want to root against that?
The Blazers, though? They lost All-Star LaMarcus Aldridge, sharpshooting Nicolas Batum, center Robin Lopez and two-way menace Wesley Matthews before the start of the season. They surrounded Damian Lillard (also an All-Star, and as crazy as it is to suggest, still possibly underrated) with young players in the hopes they could get back to the playoffs sooner rather than later.
What happened next was amazing, with backcourt partner C.J. McCollum winning the Most Improved Player award, as the two guards put on a show for the entire season. They don’t have a ton of help around them, but the hope is that one day soon they will. In the meantime though, they continue to defy expectation and have played the role of the underdog beautifully this postseason.
Would they have advanced beyond the first round if not for the injury issues that hit the Los Angeles Clippers? Probably not, but you’d be lying if you weren’t secretly a little happy to see that happen. The underdog had its day and at a time when many feel basketball has become too predictable with only a couple of true contenders, it’s also refreshing.
Do you really want to root against that?
So what we’re left with is something that doesn’t happen all that often. Like The Rock vs. Stone Cold Steve Austin at the turn of the century (I was on The Rock’s side myself), there isn’t really a bad guy here, just two teams with so much to like about them. Is it a fair fight? It is not and that’s without Curry even playing in the series yet.
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But that’s what is making this series so entertaining. It’s hard to dislike either team for the way they go about the game and it’s helped breathe life in a playoffs that had an underwhelming opening round of games. Who do you want to win this series though? More importantly, why?