The NHL’s two best players brought much-needed mainstream attention to the sport, highlighting what has been an excellent season for the league.
The only thing missing was higher stakes, as Bettman surely would have preferred the series to have taken place in the Stanley Cup Finals. But for now, as each player skates in the Eastern Conference, Bettman’s desire for Crosby and Ovechkin to compete against one another for a championship remains an impossibility.
For David Stern, on the other hand, this wish is becoming reality.
As the NBA’s Conference Finals approach their respective conclusions, a variety of enticing NBA Finals remain in play. Any mix-and-match among the remaining teams’ stars produces a marketable matchup that any true basketball fan can enjoy.
If you’re interested in a contrast of playing styles, a Denver-Orlando battle includes the best pure scorer in the NBA, Carmelo Anthony, against the game’s best young big man, Dwight Howard.
It might not be the series you’d select with your first choice, but after getting over the initial disappointment, fans would be delighted by the quality of play provided by these two teams.
Denver-Orlando is a solid ‘consolation prize’ for NBA fans.
Or, how about witnessing the first playoff series between Anthony and Lebron James, the same two players who were expected to recreate the Magic Johnson-Larry Bird rivalry upon their selections from the same 2003 draft class?
Sure, fellow Class of ’03 graduate Dwyane Wade beat ‘Melo and Lebron to the punch by winning the 2006 Championship, but he did so without getting past Melo or Lebron (as well as with the help of Shaquille O’Neal).
A Denver-Cleveland Finals would be the first playoff series pitting two of the three young stars against one another, potentially sparking a decade of Sugar Ray Leonard/Marvin Hagler/Tommy Hearns-like playoff series' amongst the trio. For what’s left in Kobe Bryant’s prime, he can play Roberto Duran in the analogy.
But there’s only one encounter that can approximate the NBA’s edition of Crosby-Ovechkin.
Each of the previous series remains second-fiddle to the one fans have been waiting for since 2005—the two best scorers in the country finally getting a chance to go head-to-head for all the marbles.
On one side is the explosive jump shooter with a propensity to score in bunches. On the other, is the bearded 6’9’’ scorer with the multi-faceted offensive game.
They are two men who have continually been compared to one another—by fans and the media alike—since their respective ascensions to the top. A showdown in the NBA Finals, five years in the making, would be a fitting culmination.
Which is why, with each team one win away from the NBA Championship, David Stern needs a Los Angeles Lakers-Orlando Magic NBA Finals. What better way to finally settle the Adam Morrison vs. J.J. Redick debate than a seven game series on the world’s greatest stage?
We have been deprived of this matchup for too long. Now is the time to finally make it happen!
Sure, both players choked in college, leaving the media and rural-America without the Duke-Gonzaga NCAA Championship Game that each so desperately longed for. But America is the home of redemption.
And nothing would scream ‘redemption for the coverage given to the two most hyped college basketball players of the decade’ more than watching Redick and Morrison cheer their NBA teammates to a championship, while actual NBA-talented players compete on the court.
Forget those puppet commercials; this would truly be amazing.
(What? You mean there’s a different series you expected me to pull for? Nah, couldn't be.)
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