Stop Watching the Finals

First appeared on June 21st, 2012
in The Lebanon Reporter

Stop watching the Finals. Yes I know they’re amongst the highest rated of all time and ours is a free country, but the only people still watching the Finals are the very same who’ll pay money to see Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

Yes I realize there are 3 games left but they’re meaningless so catch an American Pickers marathon, teach your cat Spanish or grab your moccasins and thunderstick and go outside to pray for rain-it really doesn’t matter just don’t waste your time watching the Finals.

Will anyone really miss them after all? (Besides the 16 million people who’ve been watching each game on average of course). They were the most misunderstood Finals in history. Lost in all the static over James and his legacy, Wade and his health, Durant and his impending superstardom or Westbrook and his shaky decision making was the fact that the entire series hinged on Chris Bosh.

Bosh came to Miami the third wheel of the much ballyhooed “Big Three” tricycle. A conveyance Heat fans were going to ride to more championships than LeBron could count on one hand. After one season however it became painfully clear that Bosh wasn’t superstar material when his touches were limited by the ball hawking James and Wade.

So he was relegated to accepting a role he’d likely never imagined himself playing. It took him a while to sort all this out and find his role, but we’re finally seeing Bosh embrace it in these Finals.

James and Durant have the inside track for Series MVP, but the ultimate destination of the Larry O’Brien Trophy remains in the hands of Bosh. When he’s good, and playing the role they need, Miami is very good. But when he’s trying to be the Chris Bosh of Toronto Raptor-fame he becomes a non-factor and the Heat struggle. The latter of these two is the only shot OKC has, which is why I’ve declared the Finals over.

And forget scrambling for the stat sheet because what makes Bosh effective doesn’t show up in the box score. Nobody charts how many shots he alters around the rim or how many plays Bosh keeps alive by tapping out a rebound he can’t corral. There is no value to be placed on the energy he infuses into the arena, and consequently his teammates, by diving on the floor for a loose ball. He can do all of this as a 7 foot multi-billionaire, and yet he can also pop out of a screen and roll to nail an open 20 foot jumper when OKC sends two defenders at James.

You knew all along James would get his 30 and Wade would rack up some highlight plays on his way to 25. But what Miami needs in addition to this is Bosh’s energy and leadership. Without his presence there’s nobody to challenge Harden and Westbrook at the rim. And Bosh remains the perfect, and perhaps only, counterbalance whenever any power struggle arises between James and Wade.

Unfortunately the Finals are over and you’ll have to wait another year to prove me wrong. Should you happen to find basketball being played Thursday night at 9:00 on ABC surf on, for it is most likely highlights of the Israeli professional circuit or home movies from the VanGundy boys youth league days back in NYC.

It’s tough navigating this hypersensitive, politically correct world of ours, so when I say stop watching I don’t mean to speak to you like you are a trained monkey or loyal dog; it’s just that these Finals are over so sit boo-boo, sit.

© 2012 Eric Walker Williams