There was every reason to believe coming into the NBA season that despite the summer of “The Decision,” the 2011 playoffs were already decided and destined to lack intrigue and upsets, with no team embodying the “we already know who’s going to win” spirit other than the Los Angeles Lakers.
Instead, the two-time defending NBA champions were swept out of the postseason in a manner that shocks and disrupts on multiple levels, from the performances of the players themselves to the never-imagined role reversal of the Dallas Mavericks to the impact on how the final chapter of a team on the edge of legendary greatness will now have to be reconsidered.
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Starting with the roster itself, this year’s Lakers were supposed to be deeper and better than the team that captured the title the last two seasons. Steve Blake and Matt Barnes, replacing Jordan Farmar and Sasha Vujacic, were massive upgrades to the deepest rotation in the league, right?
The problem was the Lakers’ sense of entitlement. Even at their dominant best during the regular season, the potential of a mailed-in stinker that revealed the reliance on Kobe Bryant, deterioration of Pau Gasol and fragility of Ron Artest always loomed.
But since when were the Mavericks clutch in the playoffs? Mark Cuban‘s fantasy team has consistently been chum in the postseason shark tank since choking on a 2-0 lead in the 2006 NBA Finals.
Now all the historians who had been saving pages to expound upon Bryant’s place in the pantheon of the greatest champions the game has seen have to rewrite — and at the same time reopen the thought-to-be-closed book on Dirk Nowitzki.
But there’s a warning against anointing the Mavericks in a postseason that this year more closely resembles the NCAA tournament than the traditional NBA war of attrition. It’s the same notion that might’ve been heeded by Lakers coach Phil Jackson, who will test the levels of his Zen after suffering the indignity of a sweep he had seemed immune to: The basketball universe can be a cruel place for those who expect to ride off triumphantly into the sunset.
