San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Warriors wouldn’t stand a chance in playin tournament
What kind of chance would you give the Warriors if they qualify for the NBA’s playin tournament? The way things look right now, not much.
The first thing to know is that the conventional route to the playoffs — this year, finishing in the top six — is out. No. 6 Portland (3019) holds a huge lead over the 10thranked Warriors (2326), and the edge looks even more dramatic if you’ve watched those teams play of late.
As it stands, the Warriors would join Dallas, San Antonio and Memphis in the 710 group. Those are three teams (especially the Mavericks) who feel good about their prospects and have plenty of motivation to take a shot at the Western Conference elite. Even Sacramento and New Orleans, the teams directly below the Warriors, seem locked into a more positive frame of mind.
If it seems awkward to speculate right now, it’s no more ridiculous than the NBA’s hopelessly drawnout season itself, about to enter that dreadful stretch in which the story lines are firmly set and start the
playoffs, already. Instead, we’ll get weeks of tedium, hoping that no more superstars get hurt.
Then again, if you’re into tedium, the Warriors are your team. They’re going to need an emotional makeover at a time when a familiar concern — Stephen Curry’s health — is in play. They’d love a shot at the playoffs because they have pride, and even a fleeting experience would be beneficial for the team’s young players. But when Draymond Green recently admitted being less than thrilled about being stuck in a playin tournament, he spoke for many.
The world of whatif
Nobody works a room better than LeBron James. He’s the man who has everything, but never stops recruiting. You’ve probably heard the unsubstantiated rumor about his latest target — Curry — and it’s at least worth a bartalk discussion as the regular season drones on.
The odds are stacked overwhelmingly in the Warriors’ favor. Curry isn’t the type to bail out on his cherished franchise after a depressing few months of play. He’s excited about next season’s prospects, he likes the idea of spending an entire career with one team, and as he comes up for a contract extension this summer, before becoming a free agent in 2022, everyone expects that deal to be done. Majority owner Joe Lacob leans toward extravagance when a crucial decision looms, and he’s not about to let Curry walk under any circumstances.
James doesn’t care about any of this. That was apparent at the AllStar Game, where he engaged Curry in a number of warmhearted conversations and made certain to include the world’s greatest shooter on his team. These two haven’t been the best of friends; on the contrary, they had some bitter exchanges over the course of four Finalsbound years. But LeBron is no fool. Put Curry on the Lakers, with the rest of that talented group, and it’s one of the most heavenly twoman alignments in league history.
Especially if you could turn back the clock about five years.
James gives the impression he just might play forever, but in this mythical scenario — Curry joining the Lakers for the 202223 season — James would be turning 38, with 19 seasons in his wake. Curry may be the world’s most youthful veteran superstar, but he turned 33 last month. As often as “old guys win” in the NBA, this would be a curious commitment on Curry’s part. A more likely scenario, should he leave the Bay Area, would be spending his final season or two back home in Charlotte.
Not terribly social
Nightmare matchup on Twitter: Actorcomedian Michael Rapaport against Kevin Durant. Really hard to pick a favorite in this one.
It’s a familiar story for Durant, with his strange obsession for socialmedia warfare. It’s hard to imagine someone so magnificently successful spending any time with the trolls, lunatics and naysayers of Twitter. But Durant, in his idle moments, apparently lives for that.
It’s difficult to know whether these two men genuinely despise each other, or whether they get a kick out of exchanging nasty Twitter comments. But it got pretty ugly in December, when Durant made several homophobic references toward Rapaport, took shots at his wife and challenged him to a fight. These were all direct messages, under the cloak of privacy, but Rapaport recently decided to make them public.
Durant was fined $50,000 by the NBA for “using offensive and derogatory language on social media,” and it’s a message he should take seriously. Most likely, he won’t. He’ll be back on Twitter, descending into that dark, foreboding netherworld where nothing good can happen. And when he gets back on the court he will be flawless, one of the most reliable, unstoppable scorers in league history. Such will be the essence of his legacy.