Good-Bye NBA; I'll Miss You

If this is the last image we see of Tim Duncan on an NBA court, it will be a fitting one.

By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin)

At the end of the 2013 season, I said that the Spurs deserved better.

2014 was what they deserved.

After losing the Finals in the most heartbreaking way possible, losing a series only because the rules say one team has to win and one team has to lose, the Spurs rebounded and claimed their spot atop the NBA world.

The 2014 Finals didn’t elicit the same giggling schoolgirl response that the 2013 Finals did. But the 2014 Finals weren’t about beauty, they were about revenge. It was a brutal assault on the establishment. The Spurs, with all their class and professionalism, would never admit to being motivated by something as dark as revenge. But make no mistake, the Spurs wanted to go through *this* Heat team on their way to the title. That they won so convincingly makes it so much sweeter.

Good-bye, NBA; I'll Miss You

LeBron James (left) and Dwyane Wade left their mark on the 2013 NBA season (flickr)

By Jeremy Conlin

The only reason the Spurs lost the 2013 Finals is because the rules dictate that only one team can be crowned champions.

That’s really all it came down to. These two teams play seven games. Miami won four, San Antonio won three. For the series, the total net scoring margin was five points. In favor of the Spurs.

This was the most evenly-matched series I’ve ever seen. Ever. Full stop. The Spurs did everything necessary to win the title, they were just on the wrong end of some of the flukiest plays in recent memory. There isn’t a reasonable person on the planet that can say that the seven games of the 2013 NBA Finals proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that one team was better than the other.