Welcome!

A WARM WELCOME, AND NBA FINALS THOUGHTS

Hello everyone and welcome to my sports blog! For those who don't know me, I'm a former sports writer and an avid sports fan. People have been telling me for a long time that I should start blogging, and today... well, I was finally bored enough to start doing it.

A quick aside: Full disclosure, I'm kind of a pro wrestling nerd, so from time to time I may choose to write about that. I can't help it. I grew up watching the WWF, now WWE, and in a way it connects to my childhood. Wouldn't you watch episodes of Saved by the Bell if they still made them? Anyway, even though the outcomes are predetermined, I don't usually know what they are, so it also appeals to the sports fan in me. This probably won't happen often, but I feel my readers (if I actually have any) should be warned

I should start by saying that my favorite sports teams are the Indianapolis Colts, the St. Louis Cardinals, the Oklahoma City Thunder, and Indiana University athletics (mainly basketball and football, but since I'm an alum, I cheer for any sport). I'd have to say the Cardinals were my first love. I've been a fan as long as I can remember. Living in southern Indiana, St. Louis is just a three hour drive across Illinois, so we took many family trips there during the summer when I was a kid. IU basketball was something else I grew up watching as a kid, and truth be told, it was probably about 60 to 70 percent of the reason that I opted to attend school there. My family has been Colts' season ticket holders since 2003, but I'd have to say I truly became a fan the first time I went to game in 1997. At the time it just astonished me at how much support there was by some of the diehard fans in the upper level for a team that really wasn't any good. From then on I was hooked, and I guess you could say I was lucky they stumbled into Peyton Manning the following spring, but more on that at another time. Finally, my love for the Thunder began just as organically.

I always watched the NBA when I was a kid, but I never really had a favorite team. I mostly just enjoyed rooting for players, like Larry Johnson, Shaq with the Magic and of course Michael Jordan, just to name a few. I fell out of love with the league shortly after MJ's second retirement (the lockout probably had just as much to do with it), but sometime around the 2004-2005 season I started watching again, namely because my favorite sports columnist, Bill Simmons, spent so much time writing about the NBA. When I tuned in, I really enjoyed what I saw, especially Steve Nash running the show in Phoenix. Looking back on it now, I'm pretty sure the Suns/Lakers first round series in 2006 was what got hooked on the NBA again. Anyway, I was back in, but I still didn't have a team to root for.

I went to a game on my birthday in Oklahoma City in 2008, the team's first year there, and it was the same experience as I had with the Colts. As a birthday gift, my brother was able to scalp tickets two row behind the visiting Timberwolves bench. We ended up sitting about 20 feet away from then T-Wolves president (or GM, or some higher up, can't remember) Kevin McHale. I loved being able to see the game up close like that, and I loved how the fans rallied around a floundering, albeit young and growing, team. Now they're three wins from a championship. Unfortunately, they're also one loss away from the season ending....

Ah, the NBA Finals. It's been a while since I've had this much of a vested interest in the Finals. Actually, it's been 14 years to be exact. The Heat are one win away from eliminating the Thunder and winning the first of "not one, not two, not three..." You get the idea. The thing is, it's hard for me to be too upset about the idea of the Thunder losing. For starters, I'm not sure a lot of people thought they'd get this far. Yes, a lot of people did pick them, but along they way they had to take out the defending champion Mavericks, Kobe Bryant's Lakers and the Spurs, who won 20 games in a row. Eliminating all those teams is quite an accomplishment, especially when (assuming James Harden comes back) there is a young nucleus here that is likely to be together for years to come. Durant's shot a title will come. And I'm not counting out my team. Hell, his time could come in five days.

But the main reason I'm not that upset is because of LeBron James. Something else I should have mentioned from the start is that along with loving sports, I love watching greatness. And this guy is playing out of his mind! He's doing exactly what we knew he could do, and exactly what we'd hoped he'd do since he joined the league in 2003. Had you told me before the series that he'd be playing this well, I'd have probably said the Thunder have little to no chance of winning. Yes, an argument could be made that the main reason the Heat are up 3-1 is because their role players are stepping up (seriously, 25 points from Mario Chalmers???!!!), but to me LeBron is the difference maker. The reason guys like Chalmers, Shane Battier and James Jones are getting those open looks is because of LeBron.

On the one hand, this shouldn't be that surprising, because he's been doing this during the regular season for the last, well, pretty much his entire career. At the same time, when his team's have been eliminated from the playoffs  the last few years, LeBron was nowhere to be found. He was standing in the corner while others took the big shots or made the big plays.

It's almost as if something clicked during the Pacers series. The Heat fell down, 2-1, and all of a sudden LeBron realized he had to put the team on his back. Again, they fell behind to the Celtics, and LeBron had one of the all-time great playoff performances. I noted at the time that if the Heat didn't end up winning the title, LeBron's haters will still call him a choke artist, despite glaring evidence to the contrary.

It's still funny to me how much everyone hates LeBron. I'll be the first to admit that I didn't really like The Decision. It bothered me the way LeBron strung the city of Cleveland along and then ripped their hearts out on national television without even a hint of sadness towards leaving the city he called home. To be clear, I had no problem with him leaving. He didn't really owe the city anything... except a courtesy call to let them know he wasn't staying so they could head towards plan B, even though I'm not sure the Cavs had one (you know, besides the owner writing an angry letter in comic sans font). But he had a right to go wherever he chose, it's just the murdering a franchise on national TV was in very poor taste. The other thing that bothered me was that the fans of Miami, it seemed, were getting a free ride to a title, and likely multiple titles (and these ungrateful fans can't even get to the game on time!!!). Needless to say, I was very much rooting for the Mavs last season, and I enjoyed seeing the Heat crumble.

Still, the backlash that LeBron took from The Decision stunned me a little. It's amazing to think how much everyone loved LeBron three years ago, and now he's probably the most hated superstar in sports. It'll be interesting to see if that changes if he wins the title.

This year has been different. Now that LeBron has showed he can take it to that next level when he has to, the sports fan in me loves to watch, although the Thunder fan in me hurls curse words, throws hats, kicks tables and begs for fouls that we just don't seem to get.

I guess that's actually the main reason I'll get over it quicker than expected if the Thunder can't win the next three games. The LeBron haters will finally shut up. It's astonishing how much this guy gets picked apart, and maybe even more astonishing the way he's (for the most part) kept his mouth shut and let his game do the talking these past few months.

Having said all that, when you look at the way LeBron vanished against the Mavs last year and the Celtics in 2010, wouldn't it be about right if his team became the first team ever to blow a 3-1 lead in the Finals. I guess Jeff Van Gundy said today that if the Thunder win tonight, they're back in control of the series, and there's probably some truth in that. If nothing else, shouldn't every basketball fan be rooting for the Thunder tonight just to see  how LeBron reacts if the series heads back to OKC?

Regardless, these playoffs have been fun, and this series has been great. We can only hope that it goes seven games.

I guess that's all for now. Once I get used to this format, maybe I'll start adding pictures, links and whatnot. Hope you enjoyed, and please feel free to pass along!