James Opts Out...29 Other NBA Franchies Are All-In

Sometimes, you want to write, but have nothing in particular to write about. Today, I contemplated writing a general news & notes post about the happenings of the NBA offseason or focusing on the Miami Heat's potential moves. But when LeBron James officially opts out of his contract thus becoming an unrestricted free agent, it's hard to pass up writing about that.

The last time James was on the market, the league and media frenzy was unimaginable. It all culminated with the oh-so-regrettable The Decision on ESPN. 4 years later, LeBron is in a very different position. He's no longer chasing rings (he has 2). Prior to coming to Miami, James' clutchness/greatness/legitimacy as a great player/mental toughness was often criticized (those things are no longer in question).

Basically, in every aspect of the LeBron James package that was viewed as a weakness in the summer of 2010, James is now coming from a position of strength. To paraphrase ESPN's Brian Windhorst, James needed Dwayne Wade, Chris Bosh, and everything the Miami Heat had to offer 4 summers ago; now, they need him.

Of course, I would say that the odds-on favorite to land LeBron is still Miami. Teams will again look to move heaven and earth just for the chance to sign him, but the grass isn't always greener. And if Wade and Bosh also decide to opt out of their contracts, and the Big 3 collectively decide to re-up with the Heat at a discount rate allowing them the chance to add a better supporting cast, then it would be tough to envision a better chance for James to collect more rings than right where he is.

The point is that LeBron seems more at peace with himself now more than ever though. His got his titles. He's married. He seems to have finally grown comfortable in his own skin. Maybe 4 years ago, James was too worried about pleasing other people when he took his talents to South Beach. Now, his demeanor seems much more relaxed. It seems he is going to make the best decision for him, and damn what everyone else thinks about it.

James appears to be in a much better place than 2010.

If the Heatles have a gentleman's agreement to take a little bit less money, then I think James' choice is pretty easy. If Pat Riley and the Miami brass can successfully have some kind of come to Jesus meeting with Wade and convince him to sign on for closer to what he would truly be worth on the open market ($12 million a year? $10 million? $8 million?), then I think this is a slam dunk. If a very proud D-Wade still thinks he's a $20 million a year player (which he's due next season), then Miami may have problems.

The possibilities (even the ridiculous ones) then become magically delicious. James to Chicago to team up with Joakim Noah, Derrick Rose, Taj Gibson, and Jimmy Butler. James to Houston with Dwight Howard and James Harden. James back to Cleveland with Kyrie Irving, this year's number 1 overall pick in the draft, and a roster of young talent. James bringing Carmelo Anthony along with him to the Lakers to team up with an aging Kobe Bryant...eh, I'm not sure how great that sounds actually. Or my personal favorite, James to LA (but to the Clippers) to play with his buddy Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, and being coached by a guy he truly respects in Doc Rivers.

Oh, what a tangled web we weave.

If James is about winning championships, the Cavs and Lakers seem the least likely fits. The idea of going back home to Cleveland is intriguing, but Irving has not been durable or consistent enough to make him championship-ready, and draft picks are too uncertain even in this year's talent-rich field. Melo's scoring ability as a compliment to the defensive attention James attracts and his willingness to pass is a deadly formula in any uniform, but I can't envision Kobe being anything but a shell of his former self, and we are talking about 3 guys who basically play the same position (if in different ways).

The other 3 choices put James on teams that are contenders already without him. And unlike when James 1st got to Miami and it wasn't clear how 2 guys who played basically the same position would mesh, the Bulls, Clips, and Rockets could slot LeBron right into his natural position on the floor. The Bulls and Rockets also have the ability to clear the requisite cap space to make a deal with James work. And the Clippers just had a guy agree to pay $2 billion for the franchise, so I don't think the luxury tax would stop them.

Other teams will likely pop into the conversation in the upcoming week, as everyone will attempt to trade away their entire roster just to clear up enough cap space for the possibility of signing James, and the teams I just mentioned are each intriguing, but at the end of the day Miami still looks like the destination to me. They have history. They have the Miami mafia. They have James' trust. What do I see happening? Wade and Bosh also opting out and resigning with Miami along with James, and all leaving a few dollars on the table so the Heat can bring in more shooters, a point guard, and another big guy who can protect the rim. After all, the Big 3 aren't dumb...it's likely they realize their best chance of winning is staying together too.

Elevating Expectations: The Evolution of Louie

Watching the season 4 finale of Louie last night left me with a mixed bag of thoughts and emotions. Part of Louis CK's genius is that he doesn't give a s*** what anyone else wants. His network, FX, legendarily never sees so much of a snippet of the show before it's aired. He sells his hour long standup routines on his website for $5 a pop because he doesn't want the middlemen of Ticket Master and the like in his or his audience's pockets. Louis CK could care less what I or anybody else thinks about him. It's part of his charm and what makes him super-rad.

Yes, I'm using super-rad as an adjective...deal with it.

You have to know there's a but coming, right? But season 4 of Louie left me wanting more in so many ways. Part of this was simply the format of the show. Playing back-to-back episodes on a single night is great in an instant gratification sort of way, but because of that the season basically spanned a month and a half from beginning to end...an especially short period of time considering CK took off a year from the show last year. Now, I have to wait 11 more months for more?!? And what the f*** happened to the song in the opening sequence?

Louie's biggest problem in 2014 is that it lacked the one thing that CK is known for delivering: laughs. Sure, the show still had it's moments, like the opening scene of the season's premiere episode with the comically invasive garbage men, and the season finale where Pam asks a question regarding his ex-wife's race that Louie audiences have been collectively asking for years. But other than those scenes and some of the scenes from the hurricane episode, there aren't many of those absurd moments that made Louie great early on.

Instead of those ROTFLMFAO moments, CK opts for more nuance and better storytelling this time around. It's more clever than hysterically funny. You find yourself thinking wow, what he did there was really smart much more often than busting a gut. In that way, season 4 is undoubtedly the best season of Louie. Seasons 1-3 each had a few minor storylines (like the Letterman angle from season 3), but each episode mostly followed CK's stream of consciousness, where one episode might contain 3 completely separate and unrelated scenes, stories, or ideas. The majority of season 4 revolved around Louie's love life. We still got to see Louie in all his clumsy, self-loathing glory, but this angle showed him in a different light as well, which was nice (however, 6 episodes of the "Elevator" storyline was probably too much). On a side note, one particular story arc, "In The Woods," while not particularly funny might have been one of the best anythings I've watched on television in a long time.

...and also, romantic, naked, candlelit bubble baths.

Season 4 of Louie is interesting, thought-provoking, and beautifully written. The season finale was Monday night, and I honestly haven't read any reviews yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if CK's work on the show was up for another Emmy. Louie is still one of my favorite shows on TV, and I will continue to watch however many seasons CK is willing to give us. We should just continue to expect the unexpected though...because if there's one other thing it's clear Louis CK doesn't give a s*** about, it's our expectations. And we love him all the more for it.

Spurs K-I-L-T Heat...Nuff Said

Before I say a word about last night's outcome and the outcome of this year's NBA Finals, I'm just going to bring up point number 5 from my Finals preview a week and a half ago. What kinds of lineups are we going to see? To me, the answer to this question ended up being the deciding factor in the series.

Going into the series, seasoned basketball fans universally acknowledged that this season's incarnation of the Heat was slightly worse than the version of Miami that eked out a Game 7 win against San Antonio last year, while this season's Spurs were better and deeper. However, we also wondered aloud if Miami's possession of the best player on the planet and the ability to rise to the occasion would trump that. Games 1 and 2 of this year's series didn't do much to change those thoughts, as Heat-apologists could argue that Miami was a LeBron James full body cramp away from going back home with a 2-0 series lead.

And then we all witnessed the Spurs layeth the smacketh down on the Heat for 3 straight games. So, what the hell happened? Coach Popovich finally figured out how to utilize his roster's advantages and pick apart the Heat's lack of depth. In Game 3, Popovich inserted Boris Diaw into the starting lineup over Tiago Splitter. Splitter's plodding style is mostly rendered ineffective against Miami's small ball heavy lineups. Diaw's versatility and ability to move the ball was a much better fit. Splitter's minutes decreased every game (23, 19, 16, 15, and 11), while Diaw's minutes increased from 32.5 mpg in the 1st 2 games to 37 mpg in the last 3. With Manu Ginobili rolling and Miami's point guards completely overmatched, Popovich also ditched Marco Belinelli (20 mpg in 1st 2 games and just over 6 mpg in the last 3 games) for the ultra-quick Patty Mills (13.5 mpg 1st 2 games/over 16 mpg last 3 games).

The Spurs' depth and ability to make rotation adjustments on the fly proved to be the difference.

Meanwhile, Heat Coach Eric Spoelstra had no where left to search for offensive production. Bosh had a solid but unspectacular series. Wade looked like he's on his last legs more than ever. But the 2013-2014 Heat had no Mike Miller to turn to. The Mario Chalmers/Norris Cole point guard platoon fell flat on its face. Ray Allen is more 1-dimensional now than ever before. Birdman Anderson didn't look quite as spry as he had in years past. And Udonis Haslem and Shane Battier appear to be done as impact players (literally done for Battier). While I wondered all postseason if Michael Beasley was worth giving a few minutes a game, it's obvious that Spoelstra for whatever reason didn't trust B-EZ and Greg Oden given the stage. What I thought would be offseason steals for Miami wound up being huge whiffs in retooling that bench mob.

Rashard Lewis played admirably when pressed into starting duty and important minutes for the 1st time in his 2 years in Miami, but that was all Miami's role players had to offer. The Chalmers/Coles situation got so bad that Allen started Game 5, and Mar-orris Cham-oles played only 24 minutes. But as Coach Spoelstra searched for a combination that worked, this tweak only made Miami's already weak bench situation even uglier. With Allen starting, the Heat's 2nd unit had no scoring punch whatsoever. So, after the Heat raced out to a 22-6 start, there was no where for them to go but down.

All this while the best player in the world had a great series individually: 28 ppg, 8 rpg, and 4 apg on a hyper-efficient 57% from the floor. How do you beat the Heat while James still plays at an all-world level? Make sure you K-I-L-T everyone else, that's how.

Can't Wait For Round 2: Wrapping Up Season 1 Of The 100

So, to get away from the constant stream of NBA posts, how about a little TV? Post-apocalyptic settings are all the rage these days in TV land, from zombies to alien invasions to nuclear fallouts. There are so many that not all are bound to make it, such as NBC's Revolution (which Krissy and I enjoyed, for the record).

Another such show is the CW's The 100, which just wrapped up it's debut season last night. In recent years, the CW (then WB) has kind of moved away from the smarmy night time teen soaps like Dawson's Creek and One Tree Hill. If the failed reboot of 90201 isn't evidence of this, then I don't know what is. They are still targeting that same age range, but over the years they at least have shown the good sense to infuse these basic premises with more and more backdrops like superheroes (Smallville and Arrow), sci-fy (Roswell and Supernatural), and, of course, vampires (The Vampire Diaries).

The 100 fits mostly in that sci-fy category. I was intrigued at the concept because it looked kind of like Lost meets Lord of the Flies. It started out a little slow I think, and the writing could be a little better. For example, when the 100 land on planet Earth, you would expect there to be some extracurricular activities for a gang of teenagers living for the 1st time without parental supervision. But they seem to have a 3 day bone-fest before ever finding anything to eat or drink...and then are we to accept the idea that 1 mountain lion is able to feed 100 ravenous kids? So, you have to suspend your disbelief at times.

At least wait a couple weeks to start touching each other's naughty parts like these 2.

But The 100 started gaining steam about midway through Season 1 when the group captured a "grounder." Of course, one of the coeds couldn't help falling for his rugged good looks, caveman tats, and heart of gold, which pretty much spurned on the rest of the action. As is custom these days, The 100 couldn't help but leave us with a complete cliffhanger at Season 1's end, but there are a lot of ways Season 2 could go. This is especially true with the introduction of more groups on post-nuclear-war Earth. The 100 and the grounders we knew about already, but now we have terrifyingly cannibalistic "reapers," the surviving adults from the Ark, and the "mountain men," who were not what I was expecting at all compared to what they were revealed as! (I envisioned basically grounders on plutonium-enriched steroids with lumberjack beards, not special forces agents sporting futuristic military tech). And where will Octavio and Lincoln wind up? What the f*** happened to Finn after he was locked out of the ship?

Time to make beautiful Ark-grounder babies, I guess.

Regardless, I think The 100 has some legs. Can't wait to see where the go with it this fall.

Spurs-Heat, Game 3: San Antonio Spits Hot Fire

As I watched, I could hardly believe what I was seeing. The numbers were incredible. The Miami Heat shot 56% from the floor in the 1st half, scored 50 points...and trailed by 21 heading into the break!

Actually, it looked like the Heat couldn't believe it either.

The Spurs broke out probably the greatest shooting display I've ever seen in my 29-plus years on planet Earth: 71 1st half points, making 19 of their 1st 21 attempts from the floor, shooting 76% from the field after 2 quarters. After Game 2, I broke out a bullet list of 5 my main thoughts from the game...no such list necessary today.

Any other analysis other than the Spurs shot the lights out is completely unnecessary and absurd. Maybe the 1 other point you could make is that Miami was too careless with the ball. They coughed it up 20 times on the night (LeBron James had 7 and Dwyane Wade had 5), which only served to pile on in San Antonio's offensive fireworks display. Miami also had a couple defensive lapses early on that led to Spurs' layups, but on this night even when they played solid D the Spurs shot-making rendered it irrelevant.

But stop with everything else, please. People trying to make a story out of Kawhi Leonard outplaying James are silly. For the record, LeBron scored 22 points on only 14 shots, grabbed 5 boards, dished out 7 assists, and was the only thing even keeping the Heat within shouting distance of the Spurs early on. How badly Tony Parker and Patty Mills have outplayed Miami's point guards may be consequential in the grand scheme of things of this series, but it's merely a footnote for this particular game.

After 2 mediocre games, Leonard was a stud last night.

All you need to know are the offensive numbers from 2 paragraphs ago. As the saying goes though, in the NBA, everybody makes a run, and Miami predictably scrapped back into the game in the 2nd half. Several times, they trimmed the deficit to single digits, but the Spurs always seemed to push the lead back out to a comfortable 14 points or so. The fact is that unless Miami matched San Antonio's historic 1st half output in half number 2 or the Spurs simply stopped scoring the ball completely, the Heat had no chance. As another NBA cliche goes, it's a make or miss league. And the Spurs didn't miss very often.

Here's the most basic fact of all: if the Spurs shoot anything close to that again, there's nothing the Heat can do about it, and this series will be short and sweet...end of story.

Spurs-Heat, Game 2: We've Got A Match

5 thoughts about last night's Miami victory pulling the NBA Finals even at a game apiece...

1. Resilient is LeBron and Miami's middle name. Last night, James' 3rd quarter reminded me of like a mini-version of his Game 6 in Boston a few years ago. His bounce-back games following a career playoff worst 7 points against Indy and Cramp-Gate in Game 1 and the fact that the Heat never lose back-to-back playoff games are both pretty remarkable.

For 1 night at least, James silenced the haters.

2. That was impressive. James seemed to compartmentalize each part of his offensive game last night. He lived in the paint in the 1st half, worked exclusively on deep jumpers in the 3rd quarter, and found Bosh for the go-ahead 3-pointer on a pretty drive-and-kick late in the 4th. Aside from a couple missed bunnies in the 1st quarter, he pretty much did what he wanted.

3. ...and that was ugly. It's tough to pinpoint any 1 play as the deciding factor in a 2 point game where the lead seemed to change a zillion times in the 2nd half, but it's hard to forget this 2nd half sequence: Tony Parker goes down after catching a Mario Chalmers elbow, Parker misses 2 free throws, Tim Duncan misses 2 free throws, and LeBron cans a 3 at the other end. San Antonio shot just 12 for 20 on freebies for the game.

4. How about Chris Bosh? Can we stop calling Bosh the most maligned member of The Big 3 already? Ok...out of him, Wade, and James, he is the obvious 3rd option, but out of the 3 no one has had to change or sacrifice more from his game. So he's not the greatest defender in the world, but how about his 2 and 1 throwdowns and the knock-down corner 3 to put the Heat up for good? Leave Chris Bosh alone, everybody.

Posters! Get your posters here!

5. San Antonio should feel worried. Now, as I say that, there's not going to be any panic in their locker room. But if not for LeBron's cramping in Game 1, the Spurs could be looking at being down 0-2 heading to Miami. Maybe even more alarming, if you watched the 1st 2 games and paid no attention to the scoreboard, it just seemed like the Spurs were up comfortably in both games (maybe aside from LeBron's Game 2 3rd quarter flurry). And it doesn't feel like the Heat have played particularly well. And yet Miami has been right there with the Spurs in Games 1 and 2.

Now, it's time for Tony Parker and the Spurs to show some resilience of their own.

Spurs-Heat, Game 1

I usually put some kind of tagline with post titles like this, but all the cliches have already been written at this point. I dozed off on my couch as the 3rd quarter of last night's game started. By some odd coincidence, I actually woke up at the exact moment when LeBron limped/had to be carried off the court in the 4th quarter because of severe leg cramping. I watched the next minute or so until Danny Green buried another 3, causing a Miami timeout. At that point, I sensed garbage time was upon us, powered down, and climbed into bed.

Predictably, from that moment on the story wasn't the outcome of the game; it was the world's best player watching the last 4 minutes of a Finals game whose outcome was still very much in doubt. Also predictably, it served as an opportunity for any and all LeBron-haters to come out of the woodwork. Listening to "Mike & Mike" on the way in to work this morning, it's amazing how wide the chasm is between said haters and the hate-nots.

The players and coaches, including those of the Heat, mostly played it close to the vest: that the conditions were not ideal, but that both teams were subject to them, and that the Heat still could have found a way to pull this one out sans James. As Michael Wilbon often says on "PTI" though, more than one thing can be true. Both teams did play in the same heat. Miami still had 3 future Hall of Famers on the court to try to take care of business even after LeBron took to the bench. And yet, there are these simple facts: everyone's body reacts differently to different situations; the best player in the world wasn't on the court for the last 4 minutes of what was a 2 point game where his team lost; and San Antonio blew the doors off Miami once James left the game for good.

Also, while James was the only player that the 90+ degree temps took out of the game from either team, you couldn't pick out another player that exerts more energy and has more responsibilities on the court than LeBron.

People (and even Gatorade) can troll James and point to athletes overcoming much tougher conditions than last night's blown arena AC if they want. I can speak from personal experience that cramps can be as debilitating as just about any other injury in that moment if they are severe enough. I've played different sports with sprains to knees, ankles, wrists, shoulders...I've played with broken bones before. A bad cramp can cause your body to literally seize up to the point where you can't move. LeBron is a once in a billion athlete, but there's something in his physiology where this has given him problems in the past from time to time. So, those that would suggest James is no MJ or Kobe because he didn't force himself out there are buffoons.

So, do I think James' leg cramps were the reason San Antonio won Game 1? No. Do I think it was the reason Miami lost any chance of winning that game? Yes. Either way, just one more factor that makes this series fantastic theater if nothing else.

2014 B-Court All-Star NBA Finals Preview

So, it's been 2 weeks since my last post, where I gave San Antonio and Miami the best odds of winning the NBA Finals, and where are we? Heading into tonight's Game 1 we have the Spurs hosting the Heat in a rematch of last year's epic Finals series. This might be the most hyped I have been for a Finals matchup since MJ's Bulls faced the Payton-Kemp Supersonics back in 1996. With almost a week off since the last Conference Finals game, the juiciest storylines have already all been dissected, but here's what I will be watching for.

1. Will LeBron shoot the ball? Last year, it took James about 4.5 games to finally adjust to the Spurs defensive strategy when he had the ball...which was basically to play a million feet off of him. LeBron has been a much improved shooter over the last few seasons, but San Antonio knows he really wants to get into the paint, bend the defense, and pick out a wide open 3-point shooter to pass to. You could tell that James often felt the awkwardness of being too open last year, which made him hesitate and miss shots he normally is automatic on. Will Gregg Popovich employ that same strategy? And will the smartest player in the league figure it out more quickly this time around?

2. Is Tony Parker healthy? He came into last year's Finals with a gimpy hammy, but he seemed to be full-go most of the time. Now, it's an ankle. The Spurs' bench is better this season, but they don't stand a chance if Parker isn't himself.

3. Does a better Dwyane Wade make up for a worse Miami supporting cast overall? I'm hearing a lot of this line of thinking over the past week: the Spurs are better than they were last season, and Miami is worse than last season, so the Spurs should win, right? But D-Wade was basically a shell of himself the entire 2013 postseason. To me, Miami's best lineups last year were with Wade on the bench (I think if you could track down the plus-minus stats, they would support that). Wade is still a shell of his former self athletically, but his reinvented mid-range, post-up, random cut, floater game is ridiculously good. Out of the 7 Finals games last season, I remember Wade having 1 good game in San Antonio, and other than that I think he was pretty lousy. This time around, I don't think that will be the case. Does it make up for the fact that Rashard Lewis will basically be taking over the roles of Mike Miller, Shane Battier, and Udonis Haslem combined though? Yikes.

4. How motivated are the Spurs? I know, I know...what more possible motivation do you need when you have a chance to win a ring against the team that brutally took it from you the year before? But we've all watched these Spurs for a long time. They are fundamental, a machine, surgical even...but you just never think of Tim Duncan and company as cold blooded killers. I'm not saying you have to have the LeBron in Boston deathstare to win, but I think Game 1 will tell us a lot about San Antonio's mindset.

5. What kind of lineups are we going to see? This is something that always fascinates me, especially when teams play against Miami. LeBron is the ultimate Swiss army knife, and his versatility usually makes opposing coaches adjust their traditional lineups and rotations. But like Indy, San Antonio doesn't normally like to go away from playing 2 bigs at once. Then again, when Miami played James at the 4 last year, they killed the Spurs, so matching up might be wise (especially because Tiago Splitter and Boris Diaw aren't exactly the types of big guys who can punish a team for going small). Then again, we saw the Heat put James on Parker in crunch time at times last year. In those cases, if Miami is small and San Antonio stays big, that probably puts Ray Allen or Wade on the Spurs' big not named Duncan. We are likely to see some crazy lineups and matchups yet again.

6. How much will this series impact the way these 2 teams' rosters look next season? It's possible (and even likely) that both rosters will be extremely reshaped this summer anyway, but there's speculation that a Spurs win might send Duncan and Popovich riding off into the sunset, retiring with the belt. A Heat win could convince Miami's core to come back to try it again. To me, the 1st scenario is more applicable. A 5th title would be great send-off to a top 10 all-time great who's approaching 40 years old. And how long is our favorite sideline curmudgeon going to keep doing this for anyway? However, unless something drastic happens like Chris Bosh putting up a couple Roy Hibbert-esque bagels, my prediction is the Heatles stay put one way or the other. The fact is this: there's no where else better for any of the big 3 to go than where they are right now. South Beach is awesome. They play in the easier of the 2 conferences. There's no situation that would make it easier for them to win again than staying put. I think win or lose, all 3 opt out of the last years of their contracts, take a smidge less money, and let Pat Riley re-tool the role players around them once again. And who wouldn't want to come to Florida to play alongside James, Wade, and Bosh? Sounds like a good deal to me.

Oh, by the way...Miami in 6.