MY MEMORY OF THE LADDER #pistons #nba #isiahthomas
MY MEMORY OF THE LADDER #pistons #nba #isiahthomas
The NBA playoffs are here. The weekend brought the first game for every series. Some blowouts. Some good games. Some are merely a processional. Some are the beginning of a possible seven game chess match. But, before we dive in the coming weeks into present items, I thought I would share with you what the playoffs meant to my fandom years ago. The Ladder is what I called it.
I never got into following teams in the NBA. I seem to follow players. One of my followed players was Zeke. Isiah Thomas. Pistons. Two titles. The WAY that group of guys, with just a few modifications, made it to the promised land is almost scripted. Almost storybook. Then, their fall was swift.
I love the Bad Boys. They had my guy, Zeke, but you could go man by man through the roster and find a personality. You could find a guy you would want to have a couple beers with. You could find a guy you would listen to a long story from. You would find a…character. They played basketball bending the rules a little, but it was still great defensive basketball with enough offense to JUST piss you off.
Anyway, I actually hadn’t looked back on how precise the script was in quite a while. So, when I Googled it before writing about it, I was amazed to see it was exactly how I remembered it as a kid. I am 44, so the rise to glory from the Bad Boys stretched through late grade school and into high school. But, the POINT of this whole exercise was this. You have to LEARN to win as these NBA Playoffs begin. Playoff basketball and how to win at it seeps into you slowly. Sure, there are people like LeBron changing teams and loyalties, and you have other guys trying to form super teams that have failed thus far (talking to Blake, Chris, and Mr. Jordan). But, it is a process still to this day. Check this out.
THE RISE:
1984: Pistons lose in FIRST round to Knicks.
1985: Pistons lose in conference SEMIFINALS to Celtics.
(WRITE OFF YEAR: 1986 they lose in first round to Hawks)
1987: Pistons lose in conference FINALS to Celtics (seven games)
1988: Pistons lose in NBA FINALS to Lakers after beating Celtics in conference finals.
1989: Pistons BEAT Lakers 4-ZERO in NBA Finals.
1990: Pistons BEAT Blazers in NBA Finals.
1991: Pistons lose to Bulls in FOUR games in conference FINALS.
1992: Cycle is complete. Pistons lose to Knicks in FIRST round.
Interesting what is above. They fought and advanced further each year, in most cases beating the team they lost to the previous year, and then fall OFF the ladder when MJ comes into HIS time (lots of teams have this excuse). And Magic and Bird probably were not too happy to give up the crown to Zeke. Scripted. A ladder. It is a process. Good luck to the teams in the playoffs this year and THEIR process. Waiting for LeBron to retire should NOT be Plan A.
SHORTS:
-Miles Bridges has decided to stay in school. Aside from a slight conflict on position of a new stud coming in (NOT a bad problem to have), him coming back gives them INSTANT Final Four cred for 2018.
-I don’t know the guy personally, but Eli suddenly has become the shady, sly brother with this jersey heist in relation to the monk/ deadpan/ honest brother personality Peyton has built up.
-I think I will go off of Twitter temporarily a lot more in the future. I fight to get 500 followers for three years, go dark for a month, and come back and hit 500 plus in three days of tweets. Don’t expect to hear from me while on my cruise. Maybe I can bump to 600 when I return from my silence.
-WHY do we care about Aaron Hernandez being innocent on double murder??? He is already serving a life sentence, and are we just surprised about him NOT killing two more people? I. Don’t. Care.
-Blow UP this Knicks thing. Poor Porzingis is skipping meetings and saying this player and this GM are the BEST you Americans HAVE? Get rid of Melo. Jackson. Both. Whatever. Remember a couple years ago when we said the Nets would go crazy in a Russian way? The NYC Americana way is far surpassing that idea.
-I watched that Costner movie, Criminal, the other day. It is EXACTLY what you expect it to be. Not a waste of time, but not worth watching twice are telling people about it. It just exists in the not sucking world and that is about it.
-The Minnesota Gophers let one of their walk-ons know during an Easter egg hunt about getting a scholarship. That is fun.
-Amazing that Chara was the mindless delay of game penalty guilty one that gave Ottawa a power play and then the game shortly after in OT.
-Yes, I retweeted a tweet about the lack of traction Skip Bayless has in many markets. I get depressed every single day that THAT guy is successful in sports. Dude is an idiot.
-Not sure if I would have cared that it was a horrible shot, but I would have made sure Paul George got SOMETHING up in the final seconds of that Pacers loss.
-ONE guy made the rodeo nighttime finals at the Denver Rodeo this weekend. How does THAT go down with one guy?
-I can’t read enough articles about Jackie Robinson Day.
-I read a single article on Todd Heap’s horrible weekend and that was enough. SO sad.
-I think Trump’s tweets are just dumb enough to make me believe that it is HIM making time to tweet and not a team under his name.
-Not saying they will DO it, but feeling pretty nice about me putting the Bucks on the cover of my predictions blog and them taking Game 1.
That’s it for today. Will I blog again? That’s a CLOWN question, bro (chalk up a walkoff for Bryce yesterday). Peace.