Right place, wrong time.
One of professional basketball’s truisms that gets tossed around a lot is that the late-90’s Stockton-Malone led Utah Jazz team was one the greatest in NBA history, but that it was cursed to exist in the era of the MJ Bulls version 2.0.
Here is another b-ball truism from today to go alongside it:
This year, the Spurs are on pace to win 70 of 82 games, which by all rights should put it among history’s greatest squads.
But no one is going to remember them for that, because the Golden State Warriors are on pace to win 75.
Seventy-Five!!!!
Holy crap.
A reading from the book of Revelations.
12:7. And the lamb opened the fifth seal. 12:8. Silence covered the sky, and there was a great darkness over all the world. 12:9. And the lamb opened the sixth seal, and lo! The defending World Champion 12:10 Golden State Warriors did win twelve games of every thirteen, 12:11 and the Lakers lost their last superstar, and did sucketh.
This is the word of the Lord. Amen.
[Congregatio, unsettled:] Amen.
This better be one effing good homily, is all I gotta say.Report
Who hit more than 60 home runs in a year the most times? Hint: he did it without ever leading the league. (He did lead it the years he hit 49 and 50.)Report
You’re asking me? You know I know the answer full well and will readily admit it. Dude commanded respect. Didn’t he lead the league in intentional walks those years, too? And who could blame the pitchers?Report
He led in IBB only one of those years. You know, I’m not sure we’re talking about the same person.Report
Okay, I looked it up and no, I wasn’t thinking of the right guy. You were going for the “great player in bad circumstance” theme of the OP, the “Dan Marino” award.
Central division player, right?
And I too am curious as to who @el-muneco is thinking about.Report
Central division player, yes. (Bonds only ever hit over 50 once.)
Curious? No. The answer is right in front of you.Report
Rob Schneider’s daughter even wrote a song about him.Report
Just like the HR numbers, he only led in IBB one of the years…
And neither the right answer or the klaxon for wrong answer are within 100 career HR of the real all-time HR king.Report
Oh?Report
Oh yeah.Report
Not Mike. That Sooser fella.Report
I can’t get over how cool it is that Steph Curry has been this successful. Seeing somebody that you spoke to once in college on a Wheaties box is bananas.Report
I just missed Doug Christie (young’uns can google him) in high school.
I’m still kind of miffed that everyone remembers the basketball state champions (fifteen or so, since my era, so it’s not exactly a surprise) but no one remembers our golf team that made it to the state finals when no one expected it before or since (1).
(1) Well, yeah, we got absolutely destroyed. It’s probably my fault – in my entire golf career I have yet to play in a state-level tournament and not finish second-to-last.Report
Sigh. In researching that, I googled my old high school. Apparently I went there just about at the absolute zenith, when there was both academic and athletic success. Then the academics dried up, then everyone fled except the athletes, and now even that is probably not long for the world. This year’s enrollment is smaller than my graduating class…Report
@el-muneco
1. Did not know you lived in the PNW! (Or maybe you don’t, but you just grew up here?)
2. It is the curse of all high schoolers who do not play football or boys b-ball that no one will remember what they did. Even people who went to high schools that had bad football teams, I have noticed, have clear memories of their football/basketball team and little else later on. (Excepting for those extra-curiculars they themselves participated in, of course.)
3. I loves me some Doug Christie.
For those too young to remember, Christie was a guy who could shoot the lights out when he was at Pepperdine, but a kind of meh defender. When he got to the NBA and he was just the fourth or fifth best scorer on his team (or even further down, when he was a Laker) he reinvented himself into a lock-down defender — something not a lot of players are willing to do, since it’s not a glory role and it takes a lot of freaking effort, night in and night out. He made himself into one of the best players of wing D in the league.
Man, even though I hated the Kings out of contractual obligation (being a Laker fan and all), I loved to watch him play.Report
even though I hated the Kings out of contractual obligation (being a Laker fan and all)
Which is totally your right, The obnoxious part is that the refs felt the same way.Report
I was thinking about this just yesterday in terms of whether the Warriors should go for the record. Right or wrong, I think they’d be going for it no matter what (personally, I think it is okay to “chase” stats like this because there really isn’t a way to get them cheaply*… and in this particular case, I think they are good and deep enough that they could go for it without hurting their chances for a long playoff run).
But the reality is they HAVE to rack up as many wins as possible because if they take their foot off the gas, it isn’t impossible that the Spurs overtake them for the #1 seed. That’s INSANE!
* As compared to a stat like a triple-double which some guys pursue making objectively bad basketball decisions, like Ricky Davis trying to throw the ball off his own backboard for his 10th rebound.Report
Or Draymond, who “selfishly unselfishly” gave up good shots to get his 10th assist.Report
Yes, you do see that, though depending on the particular situation, that can range from “egregious” to “lame but harmless”.Report