Hurtin' for certain

So I guess by the time this is all over, the NBA Finals will be decided by a Chuck Nevitt double-double. Or maybe by DNP - Coach's Decision putting up 45 and 15 for the Nets in Game 7 of the Finals against  the Yogi Ferrell/Daniel Oturu Clippers.

Hard telling how the NBA's bold experiment in attrition will wind up, now that Kawhi Leonard is out with a bum knee and Chris Paul is in the Covid protocol and Kyrie Irving has an ankle that bent in a particularly alarming manner the other night. 

(Pro tip: Do not watch the replay of Kyrie's injury. When a guy comes down in such a way that you can see the bottom of his shoe, it's not a good thing. And liable to make you lose your lunch.)

Oh, and don't forget James Harden, who played the other night but remains no more mobile than a tree stump thanks to a nagging hamstring injury (as if there's any other kind of hammy injury). And Joel Embiid, whose playing on despite a slight meniscus tear in his right knee. 

So in these NBA playoffs, the stars are definitely out -- and we do mean out. And LeBron James is bashing the League for essentially trying to cram two seasons into a year-and-a-half, saying he tried to warn the poobahs this would happen if they tried.

Now, I don't know if he's right about that or not. But his essential point pertains.

The Blob never did understand the Weird Summer Thing coda the League foisted on everyone in 2020. It never felt right, and not just because the whole thing was played in a Bastard Plague bubble in Orlando and the NBA Finals wrapped in mid-October. It never felt right because, as LeBron points out, it meant there was never really an offseason between last season and this.

The Plague shut down the League in March, and, instead of scrubbing the mission like people with half a brain would have, the Weird Summer Thing coda started up again in August. LeBron's Lakers ended up winning a title that never felt like a real title, closing out the Heat in six games in the Finals on October 11.

Training camps for the 2020-21 season opened less than two months later, on December 1. The season began three days before Christmas.

That's not nearly enough recovery time for basketball at this level, the season being the wearing physical and mental grind that it is. Eighty-two games has always been about 20 too many, in the Blob's estimation; trying to cram in a 72-game season on the very heels of the season before was absurd on its face.

And now it's getting on toward late June, and pieces are falling off the remaining playoff teams like a '72 Pinto. Again, maybe it would have happened even if the NBA had been smarter (and less greedy).  And, yes, if the players, who signed onto the deal, had been less greedy, too.

In any case, welcome to the NBA playoffs, aka This Way To The Training Room.

Your Finals MVP: Dr. Arthro "Granny Knot" Scoppy, the winning team's physician.