A NBA Finals like no other

Watching the NBA playoffs, the two most impressive players have been Jimmy Butler and Nikola Jokic.  Butler moreso as he came out of nowhere to lead Miami to the brink of the Finals.  Maybe not nowhere, but no one was expecting such a standout performance in the playoffs.  I expect the Heat to finish the deal tomorrow as Miami ripped the heart out of the Celtics on Sunday.  

Butler came into the NBA with little fanfare but made his mark at Chicago.  Unfortunately the Bulls couldn't pull it together as a team, and decided to see what they could get for Jimmy.  He jumped around the league for several years before ending up at Miami, where he has been solid but nothing spectacular.  One of his problems is that he rarely completed a season, averaging about 60 games per year.  Now, everyone is comparing him to Michael Jordan.  Even going so far as to post "Dad" memes as Jimmy's father abandoned him at a young age.  Jimmy says he has long since reconciled himself with his real dad.  Even if the memes were true, it wouldn't say much about Michael to have abandoned his "kid" as a toddler.

Jimmy has been simply electric in the playoffs, crushing the spirits of the Bucks and Celtics virtually single-handedly.  He's got a good crew backing him up at Miami but this isn't a team one would expect to make a deep run in the playoffs, especially at the number 8 seed after winning the last play-in game.  Yet, they took out the Bucks in five, the Knicks at six, and will probably sweep the Celtics.  All the while, Jimmy has been putting up 32 points per game, a huge chunk of them coming in the second half when it mattered most, like leading the Heat on a 24-9 run in the fourth quarter of Game 2 to put away the Celtics on their home court.

Jokic is a different story.  Twice league MVP and barely losing out to Joel Embiid this year, he was expected to deliver this year after disappointing playoff runs the two years before.  The Nuggets got bumped by the Warriors in the first round last year.  It didn't matter that the Warriors went onto win the NBA title, Jokic was already being viewed as a paper tiger.  A guy who could put up big numbers during the season but went missing in the playoffs.  Not this year.  He's been unstoppable in the low post, and his pick and rolls with Jamal Murray have been unguardable.  The two combine for two-thirds of the Nuggets' points each and every night.  Denver finds itself in its first ever NBA Finals after nearly 50 years.

The Nuggets were part of the old ABA, an exciting league that had an up tempo game like we now see in the NBA.  The Nuggets have put together some great teams over the years but could never quite deliver.  They had David Thompson at one point, who earned the nickname "Skywalker" for his ability to hang in the air.  The Nuggets' best year was 1975-76 when Thompson teamed up with Dan Issel and Bobby Jones to reach the ABA Finals only to get beat by the incomparable Dr. J and the New Jersey Nets.  Most kids today have no idea who these guys were, but I grew up trying to imitate their moves on the driveway with my red, white and blue ABA ball.

The ABA folded with four teams joining the NBA, which included Denver.  The NBA adopted some of the ABA rules including the three-point shot.  The stars of the ABA found new teams in the NBA.  The others were consigned to the dustbin of history.

Today, we see a new merger occurring with so many European players in the NBA.  Whereas the merger with the ABA healed a rift, the opening up of the NBA to European, South American, African, Australian and Asian players has greatly expanded the reach of the NBA.  It is now a worldwide phenomena, although still a long way from matching the international audiences for football, or soccer as it is called in the US.

Jokic hails from Serbia, where he was a standout at age 16, and was drafted by the Nuggets in 2014.  Like many Eastern European players, his big dream was to play in the NBA.  He joined Denver in 2016 and has been steadily improving to the point he is now one of the most dominant players in the league.  It took Denver a while to build a team around him, but here they are finally in the NBA Finals.

I think there is a bit of resentment toward foreign players now being so dominant in the league, especially those from Europe.  We saw it in the Warriors-Kings series, where Domantas Sabonis clearly got the better of Draymond Green, resulting in the infamous stomp.  The Warriors were able to gut out the series in seven games, no thanks to Green, but Dray didn't waste any opportunity dumping on the young Sabonis, oblivious to the young man's history.  His father Arvydas was the first European player to be drafted by an NBA club in 1986, although he was still playing in the Soviet Union at the time and didn't come to Portland until 1995, long past his prime.

There is a bit of a "hood" mentality in the league, which is why many players favored Embiid over Jokic for this year's MVP, even though Embiid is from Cameroon.  Miami had a bit of a run in with Jokic in a game they played earlier this year but Butler insists there is no bad blood.  Unfortunately, Embiid failed to live up to expectations in the playoffs as Philadelphia fell to Boston in the second round.  Now many of the same players are saying Jokic should have won MVP again.

Barring a historic collapse, Denver will face Miami.  No one expected this and in fact many are disappointed.  The NBA was hoping for another Lakers-Celtics match up, setting the stage for a possible fifth ring for "King James," who eclipsed Kareem this year for the most points in NBA history.  However, the Lakers were a ragtag team, cobbled together in the second half of the season.  LeBron James willed them through the first two rounds, including a big series win against Golden State, but at nearly 40 years of age LeBron simply ran out of gas, only able to put up 9 points in the second half of the final game of their series with Denver after a stellar first half performance.  Boston had the new kid on the block in Jason Tatum, who is being heralded as the next Lebron.  

The NBA has built itself on such historic matchups, to the point there were a lot of complaints that the refs were aiding the Lakers in their series with the Warriors and Nuggets.  Steve Kerr complained about all the flopping the Lakers got away with in their series, and then there was this "self foul" and flop by LeBron in Game 2 against the Nuggets that became a viral meme.  A Jokic-Butler Finals will not be the ratings bonanza the NBA is hoping for.  Nevertheless, I imagine there will be a lot of viewers tuning in to see this improbable matchup.

These are two guys you simply never would have expected to reach the NBA Finals.  Jimmy's story is the most improbable as he wasn't a blue-chip high school or college player.  He went to junior college after getting no scholarship offers and then transferred to Marquette, where he two good years.  Chicago took a chance on him with the last pick of the first round in the 2011 Draft.  He did little his first two years before becoming a key player in 2014.  For a brief moment it looked like the Bulls might be a contender again but then they flamed out and Jimmy was traded to Minnesota.  When that didn't work out, Jimmy was traded to the Sixers.  When that didn't pan out, Jimmy ended up in Miami where he has been playing since 2019.  He's put up solid numbers, but was virtually forgotten until his incredible playoff run this year, making a lot of teams regret their choices.

To look at Jokic as a kid, you would never imagine this guy playing any sport. That's him in the bottom right hand corner. He doesn't fit the hardbody prototype we so often see in the NBA.  Yet, here he is leading Denver to its first-ever NBA Finals.  

I'm sure the NBA will do its best to sell the Finals to its international audience.  I'm actually looking forward to it.  I find myself rooting for Denver, but Jimmy's story is so incredible I would love nothing more than to see him finish the deal.  So, I will just watch and enjoy!