SAN ANTONIO – At the end of these NBA Finals either the Knicks or the Spurs will be crowned champions and will order the coveted rings to symbolize their achievement. They will be entered into the record books as the best team in the league for the 1999 season, succeeding the Bulls, who had won six of the last eight titles.
Ultimately, they will be accorded the same prestige as any other champion of their sport. They will enjoy a parade and probably a visit to the White House. But whether it’s the Knicks or Spurs who emerge as winners of this best-of-seven series, no amount of celebration and adoration will erase the indisputable fact that the shortened season will leave them with a tarnished trophy.
Certainly, the players of the victorious team won’t feel that way. Neither will its coaches or the city that will honor its heroes. They will say it is not their fault that the players union and the league’s owners couldn’t agree on a new collective bargaining agreement until January, shrinking a normal 82-game schedule into a 50-game format.
And I’m sure David Robinson, Tim Duncan, Avery Johnson and Mario Elie will wear their rings with pride and satisfaction if the Spurs win. Patrick Ewing, Latrell Sprewell, Allan Houston and the rest of the Knicks will do the same should they prevail.
But the indisputable fact remains that a 50-game schedule is not an 82-game schedule and the difference can’t be overlooked just for the sake of putting this dreadful year behind us. It is easy to get caught up in the excitement of the Finals.
The Knicks overcame adversity within their own organization to become the first eighth-seeded team to get this far. The Spurs have been the most dominant team in the playoffs, winning 11 straight playoff games to take a 1-0 lead into Game 2 last night at the Alamodome.
With Ewing out with a partial tear of his Achilles’ tendon and Larry Johnson hobbled with a sprained knee, the Spurs could make quick work of the Knicks and would establish themselves as clearly the best team in the league. Should somehow the Knicks prevail after all they’ve been through, there would be little question that they are the best team.
But the fact remains that they would be the best team through roughly 70 games, including playoffs. During a normal NBA season, the champion would play roughly 100 games, meaning whoever wins the Finals this year will have done so by playing about 30 percent less games.
Winning a title is not only a measure of talent, but also durability and perseverance. The Spurs and Knicks are considered the two best teams in the league now. But would they be, if they had to play 30 more games?
You can argue the Knicks might be even better, if Ewing had not been forced to play so often on a sore Achilles that final tore. Given more time to understand the talents of his team, Knicks coach Jeff Van Gundy might be just starting to get his team into playoff form after 70 games.
They might be even better than they are now.
The Spurs might be better, too, a frightening thought, given the way they’ve performed in these playoffs. But Portland, Minnesota and the other teams that bowed out in early rounds might have been better, too.
It’s all hypothetical because the season was only 50 games, with scheduling sometimes on back-to-back-to-back nights. Enduring and conquering the grind of a season is part of the satisfaction of winning a championship. Injuries, distractions and adversity all play a part in weeding out weaker teams. Only the strong can survive an 82-game regular season and four rounds of the playoffs. It leaves you with a credible champion, whose statistics can be compared accurately with past champions.
But winning the NBA title this year will be like winning the Indy 300 instead of the Indy 500. Eighty-two games is the current standard for an NBA season, not 50. The shortened season is why flawed teams liked the Heat and the Hawks earned high seeds, while the Knicks barely got in as the eighth seed.
It’s because of the shortened season that Knicks GM Ernie Grunfeld got fired after 42 games and now Van Gundy has a $4 million bonus for finally utilizing his players. And you can argue that it’s partly because of the shortened season and lack of a proper training camp and conditioning time that Ewing is hurt and unavailable to defend against Robinson and Duncan.
There are those who say there was more adversity during this shortened season because of the hectic schedule and lack of practice time. But that’s precisely why there should be an asterisk beside this year’s winner in the record book. No team in the league was given time to properly develop and evaluate their players. Agendas were rushed, players were pushed, some front offices panicked. A normal season was a marathon. This was a sprint.
We might well have ended up with the Knicks and Spurs in the Finals if it had been a regular 82-game season. Ewing might well be out with an injury, and the Knicks might well be trying to find answers for keeping Duncan under 30 points. But 30 fewer games is too significant of an amount to ignore.
Whoever wins the title this year will be charged with proving they can do it again next year when the regular-season is 82 games and everything else is back to normal. That in itself will proves that this year’s trophy is tarnished.