Eastern Conference Finals Wrap-Up

"What just transpired was something I felt was needed for the league, was needed for Cleveland, was needed for LeBron." Well, if MJ said it (in the Chicago Tribune), it's got to be true.

LeBron put on such a show in Game 3 that only his sublime Game 5 performance could have topped it. In Game 3, when his team needed him most down two games to none, LeBron pulled out one of his best playoff games ever. Just one rebound and one assist shy of a triple-double, James put his team on his back a carried them back into the series. It was a spectacular game in which James physically imposed himself with such domination not seen in years. The crazy part is that we hadn't seen anything yet.

29 of the last 30 and 48 in 50 minutes of double-OT Game 5 play = absolutely unbelievable. Channelling his inner-MJ, LeBron finally decided to show his entire hand. After a season in which he routinuely turned down his effort meter any time his Cavs appeared out of it, LeBron finally showed us what he looks like with it flipped all the way to 11. He single-handedly took control of the game and the series in a hostile enviroment at the Palace at Auburn Hills. As Witnesses we finally saw what we've all been waiting for: our first glimpse at what the "LeBron Era" of the NBA will look like.

LeBron and his Cavs will square off against Duncan, Manu, Tony Parker, Big Shot Rob, Pop and the proverbial favorites, the Spurs of San Antonio. LeBron will have his work cut out for him as he tries to prove that the "LeBron Era" is not just right around the corner (I think he still needs some halfway-decent teammates), but is actaully here already. His task will be difficult, but at least he's still playing.

His opponents those five-time Eastern Conference Championship participants, the Detriot Pistons, are sitting at home right now wondering where it all went wrong. Did they really only win one NBA title? Was it that maybe they were an even bigger tease than they were a seamingly dominant team? In retrospect, I think that might be true; I think they've been a dissapointment. A slew of shrewd moves to from 2001 through 2004 set up their core (Billips, Rip Hamilton, 'Sheed, Prince, Big Ben Wallace) set them up to be a dominant team, but history will show that they never became one. They were never better than when that whipped the last incarnation of Shaq&Kobe's Lakers in the '03-'04 Finals, and that's a shame.

For all the good GM Joe Dumars did, he never put his team over the top. The Pistons' excellence was more a product of an exceptionally weak Eastern Conference than of Dumars' work. The beginning of the end started as far back as the '03 draft when Dumars passed on D-Wade, 'Melo and Chris Bosh in favor of Darko Millic, who hit the no-no three-fer: immature, lazy and white. What often goes unnoticed though is that Joe also could have had Leonardo Barbosa or Josh Howard with his second 1st round pick that year, but instead he chose the ineffectual Carlos Delfino. Unforgivable. Cleveland and Miami would not be your previous two Eastern Conference Champions had Dumars not air-balled the rich '03 draft.

Unforetunately the '03 draft failure was not an abberation, but rather a sign of things to come. From then on Dumars continued to fail in his efforts to make "the move" that would put his team into the pantheon of greatness. Dumars' draft picks and free-agents signings just have not been good enough (except for Rasheed Wallace). Granted, due both to trades as well as the success of the team, Dumars never had the picks to do much in the draft, and he never had an abundance of cap space either because he had to sign his core guys. Still, that's no excuse for coming home from three drafts with this crop of winners: Andreas Glyniadakis, Rickey Paulding, Jason Maxiell, Alex Acker, Amir Johnson, Will Blalock and Chieck Samb. Ugly. By the same token, the signings/trades for Okur, Atkins, Hunter, Webber, McDyess, Mohammed, etc, were never enough to make the Pistons truely great either.

To top off his player-personnel failings, Dumars' choices for head coach have a bit off too. The only time Detriot actually took the title, Dumars chose to sell his sole and hire the mercurial Larry Brown and the ensuing post-1 title disaster that he was sure to become. Brown was great and led the team to its ultimate goal, but his exit behavior surely held the Pistons back, waisting a year of their prime. When Larry was finally gone (off to the Knicks where I'm sure he had great fun) Dumars came up empty on his choice for a successor: Flip Saunders. Saunders' claim to fame was all the years of underperformance he spent with KG exiting the first round of the Western Conference Playoffs. True to form, Flip has gone ahead and underperformed with the Pistons, leading the team to upsets at the hands a two-man and then a one-man team in back-to-back years (Wade, Shaq and the Heat in '05-'06 and LBJ and Cleveland in '06-'07). A better coach could have gotten more out of the Pistons.

In the end, while we still have to wait through the Finals to find out whether the "LeBron Era" is upon us yet, we can already be reasonably assured that the "Cavaliers Era" will surely be taking over the reign of the Eastern Conference from the "Coulda-Been Dynasty" of the Detriot Pistons.

Please feel free to post your thoughts.
Thanks,
-MP

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