NBA Action, It's Fantastic. And Confusing. And Possibly (A Little?) Staged.

Sorry if you're not a sports fan

I’ve really been enjoying the NBA Playoffs. Maybe the Knicks giving me heart palpitations every couple of nights isn’t great for my health, but it’s great to see the team I grew up loving playing in a consistently competitive fashion. Having suffered through the 2000s and 2010s as a constantly disappointed (when not infuriated) Knicks fan, these last two seasons feel like a relief.

I was fully expecting them to get swept out of the second round, as the Celtics had their number all season. They got lucky (twice) in Boston (twice!) and made incredible comebacks to win both games. They then got trounced in Game 3 at MSG (I got to hang with my brother for the game, so I wasn’t even super bothered that they lost) and then pulled out a solid victory last night in Game 4. In the waning minutes of that game, with the Knicks pretty much having sewn up the victory, Celtics superstar Jayson Tatum went down with an Achilles tear (maybe the second worst injury a basketball player can suffer) and probably took the rest of the Celtics’ season with him—in addition to next season, as these injuries can take a year to recover from. JT kinda rubs me the wrong way (I have a thing against pretty boys, I think), but no one wants to see a good player get hurt and also I’d rather the Knicks win the series facing a completely healthy Celtics squad. Then again, I think of last year, when a superior Knicks team, decimated by injury, lost to the Indiana Pacers in seven games, and somehow fairness doesn’t seem like so much of a factor. Of course, there’s also the fact that the series isn’t over yet. A Celtics comeback from a 3-1 hole without Jayson Tatum feels hella unlikely, but it’s certainly not impossible. Especially considering how insane the last couple of weeks have been in the NBA.

Steph Curry is hurt. Donovan Mitchell is hurt. The Lakers got bounced unceremoniously in the first round. Giannis is sitting at home, perhaps having played his last game in Milwaukee. The Cavs (who had the best record in the East by a significant margin) are on the ropes. The Thunder (who had the best record in the NBA) are in a dogfight with Nikola and the Jokics. We might be looking at an Indiana/Denver NBA Finals. Hell, the Dallas Mavericks made the dumbest trade in NBA history and got rewarded with the Number One pick in a loaded draft. It feels like we’re in the upside down. I guess that matches up with the way this country’s felt the last 18 months or so. However, it also makes me think about a conspiracy theory that’s been floating for almost the entire time I’ve been a sports fan—the theory that the NBA is fixed.

Have you ever read Bill Simmons’ book of basketball? I read it almost in its entirety on a December night maybe fifteen years ago while snowed in at Penn Station, and still pick it back up from time to time. Parts of it have not held up well (inclusive of a few sections that now feel a bit racially problematic), but Bill is clearly a basketball scholar and has a fairly entertaining writing style. Anyway, I’m not gonna grab the book and find the exact passage where it’s stated, but Bill intimates-via then-NBA commissioner David Stern-that the league participated in some “WWE tactics” for a while in the early 2000s. There was clearly some weird shit going on with the officiating, as the Tim Donaghy refereeing scandal made clear. In a league where marketing is key and the need for money to keep flowing outweighs everything else (hello, capitalism!), assuming everything is fair and square is a bit of a stretch. Now, whether the NBA will ever admit anything like that publicly is also a stretch (and if there is funky shit still going on, it won’t be made public till like 20-30 years down the line). The funny thing, though, is that this assumption doesn’t make me enjoy the game any less. Now, I may feel different when my favorite team sucks again. But for now, I’m grasping on to any joy I can take from this world, and my Knicks (and the NBA as a whole) are providing that in spades right now.