The first thing I’ll say here is I didn’t watch a single second of the NBA Finals. Sorry, it’s baseball season. So you don’t need me to tell you about how great Stephen Curry is at basketball. You hoops fans out there know far better than I do.
That said, any sports fan can marvel at the accomplishment of winning four championships, especially in the 21st century. Collectively, the players are better and the people who run teams are smarter. Rules, some more effective than others, have been put in place to create parity and—again some much more effective than others—discourage tanking. Playoff fields are ever expanding, making it ever more difficult to make it through the postseason gauntlet. And everything that a player does or doesn’t do—before, during and after games—is scrutinized more than at any point in history.
Greg Nelson/Sports Illustrated
