A half century ago, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar — a young goliath then known as Lew Alcindor — led the Milwaukee Bucks to their first championship. For decades, it was the only time the franchise had reached that height. That is, until now.
On Tuesday night, the Bucks capped off their return to greatness. They are once again led by a behemoth with unique skill, this one a 26-year-old player from Greece nicknamed the Greek Freak, Giannis Antetokounmpo. On its home court, Milwaukee defeated the Phoenix Suns, 105-98, in Game 6 of the N.B.A. finals to win its second championship and complete a grueling N.B.A. season of injuries and coronavirus pandemic disruptions.
(The New York Times, July 20, 2021)
The way most sports analysts rushed to tweet out congratulations, you’d think the Milwaukee Bucks were as favored to win this NBA championship as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are to win the next NFL championship.
But nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, I noted this in going out on a limb to pick the Bucks.
Here is how I’m on record doing so in podcast episode, “LeBron Is Good, but He’ll Never Be Great. Dr. J Says So,” May 8, 2021:
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Everyone is expecting the Los Angeles super team LeBron picked to meet the Brooklyn one KD picked in this year’s NBA championship finals. And the consensus is that KD’s will easily prevail. No doubt this is because LeBron is already conceding with preemptive excuses about recurring injuries being such that he doesn’t think he will ever be 100 percent for the remainder of his career.
Except that teams Giannis Antetokounmpo is building in Milwaukee and Luka Doncic is building in Dallas, like Mike, respectively, might throw a monkey wrench in that road to the finals. Of course I couldn’t care less because my team, the Washington Wizards, hasn’t been a legitimate contender since the late 1970s. …
Still, this is not college basketball, where a Cinderella team can have one good night, and eliminate a prohibitive favorite from the playoffs. A team has to win the best of seven games for four rounds to win the championship. Even so, I am picking Milwaukee to win it all. Because, unlike LeBron and KD, Giannis is doing it the old fashioned way [like Mike] he’s earning it.
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Much has been made about whether Michael Jordan or LeBron James is the GOAT in basketball. I first delineated why Michael is the easy pick in “LeBron Abandons Cleveland for Miami,” July 13, 2010. And I’ve been making the case even since, including in the podcast episode I excerpted above.
The bottom line is that, if you leave your home team to join a super team to win your first championship, you forfeit even any consideration in this respect. This is why Giannis is more worthy of being hailed as the GOAT today than LeBron and KD.
Oh, one more thing, those same sports analysts who boldly picked Los Angeles or Brooklyn to win this championship are now waxing rhapsodic about what a thrilling and competitive series this was. Whereas, after the Phoenix Suns won the first two games on their home court, the Milwaukee Bucks swept them over the next four, including game five back in Phoenix, to win this championship.
So yes, at times this series might have been thrilling, but it was hardly competitive.
Congratulations, Milwaukee!
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