ESPN is now fake news
The NBA playoffs have been, in a word, boring.
The first round of the two- month post- season saw only one of the eight series progress to a winner- take- all game seven — the battle between the Jazz and the Clippers — and even that culminated in a comprehensive victory for Utah.
The second round, currently ongoing, has featured a couple of better balanced series — CelticsWizards and Spurs- Rockets — but has featured few thrilling finishes, with only two of the first 18 games in the round decided by fewer than 10 points.
And, through it all, we have the over- riding ‘ problem’: the Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers are simply too good.
The winners of the last two titles, the two titans are destined to meet in a third straight NBA finals, the deciding chapter of a thrilling trilogy. Which will be great, when it arrives. Problem is, first we have plenty of lopsided games to watch, with both teams advancing to their respective conference finals with a perfect 8- 0 record.
Which leaves basketball fans and the media looking for an alternate source of entertainment until the finals start on June 1. And when looking for entertainment, you can do a lot worse than turn in the direction of Draymond Green.
The outspoken Warriors forward is always good for a quote — or, as Steven Adams knows, a kick — and the eager press pack have this week readily called on his services when looking for headlines, occasionally to Green’s chagrin.
When asked, for example, to discuss the topic raised above, Green expressed his disappointment at how easily the rival Cavaliers had seemed to conquer their early- round opposition.
“I thought teams would compete a little harder,” he said. “When you watch Cleveland play, you're only watching one side of the good basketball. That's kind of weak.”
Those words inevitably produced headlines about Green dissing the Cavaliers’ opponents, which, you know, he pretty much did. But Green was upset that those headlines were missing the context in which his comments were uttered, essentially employing a President Trump tactic and calling the media fake news.
“I didn't say I was disappointed with their competition,” Green said. “People always want to take a piece of a statement and then say, ‘ Ah, man, Draymond said the Cavs aren't playing anybody'. They never say, ‘ Draymond said Cleveland is playing great basketball’.
“So everybody is always chasing a headline, the controversy. Watching ESPN is like watching a controversial reality TV show. It's pretty pathetic.”
I can understand Green’s complaint but, in defence of ESPN, a controversial reality show is probably more interesting right now than watching the Warriors waltz to the finals.