Season begins with promise
Chance for repeat, or taking back title, is the goal of many.
The story lines are as long as a Steph Curry 3-pointer.
With a superteam in the West, a megastar in the Midwest, superstars all around the league, its global popularity at an all-time high, more revenue than ever and labor peace looming, this season has the potential to be like no other the league has ever had. Yes, rivaling the Celtics’ run in the 1960s, possibly topping Magic-Bird rivalry of the ’80s and Michael Jordan’s run of the ’90s.
LeBron James is holding the title in Cleveland and Kevin Durant has settled in Golden State, so the NBA Finals could be headed for the same destination again next June.
“I think there is a somewhat an inevitability of this Cleveland-Warriors meeting in the finals again, which can sometimes make you overlook how enjoyable the regular season can be if you love basketball,” ESPN analyst Jeff Van Gundy said. “So I think they’ll meet in the finals again, but that doesn’t make the regular season uninteresting to me.”
A summer spending spree c reated new contenders and enticing questions for a global audience that will begin being answered tonight when the new season opens in the places the last one ended.
The record-setting Warriors will be must-see TV again with Durant, the former s c o r i n g c h a mp a n d league MVP, sharing shots with Curry, the current scoring champ and MVP.
James is on a Jordan-like run, looking for a seventh straight trip to the NBA Finals and hoping to build a dynasty where there was once just despair.
There’s Dwyane Wade in Chicago and Dwight Howard in Atlanta after both went home.
Derrick Rose left home, traded from the Bulls to the New York Knicks.
Former Commissioner David Stern used to say the NBA was in its golden age.
Under Adam Silver, it may be even shinier.
“T h e r e a r e a l o t o f charged-up players in this league,” Silver said. “There are a lot of teams, young teams in the development c ycle, where I think they would even say realistically they’re unlikely to win the championship this season, but they’re on the road to winning a championship.”
He will give James and the Cavaliers their rings before their season opener against Rose and his Knicks, and Durant joins Curry, Draym o n d G r e e n a n d K l a y Thompson in the expensive and explosive Warriors lineup later that night against San Antonio.
Their teams are heavily favored to meet in the NBA Finals for the third consecutive year, a rivalry that could turn into something like the Celtics-Lakers. But this is no two-team show.
“It’s tough,” Green said. “But at the same time I’m almost certain that it’s a goal of (Cleveland’s) to get back to try to win a championship. With that being said, there’s a lot of great teams in this league. And they’re not saying we’re going to watch the Cavs and the Warriors in June.”
Like Russell Westbrook and Oklahoma City being defiant, not devastated by Durant’s departure the way the Cavs were when James bolted for Miami in 2010.
Or young stars like Karl-Anthony Towns growing up into the spotlight, now that Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett, titans for so long, have grown old and retired. And yet another batch of unmatched international talent, led by No. 1 pick Ben Simmons, an Australian whose debut will be delayed as he recovers from a foot injury.