I grew up in the 1980s, when my Detroit Pistons were actually a relevant basketball team and the NBA used to run a promotional ad featuring celebrities declaring, “NBA Action, It’s Fantastic!”
For roundball fans who appreciated great defense, hard fouls and less reliance on the 3-point shot, and were content with only a handful of teams competing for the NBA title, it was truly a golden age of basketball.
Today, there’s more talent in the league, more exciting superstars, and at the start of each year more teams with a shot at hanging a championship banner.
But make no mistake: As the NBA Finals tip off tonight, we are living in what is likely the best moment ever to be a basketball fan. Today, there’s more talent in the league, more exciting superstars, and at the start of each year more teams with a shot at hanging a championship banner in their rafters than ever before.
This statement might seem counterintuitive, considering that one of the teams competing for the title, the Boston Celtics, a perennial finals contender, is tied with the Los Angeles Lakers as the most-winning franchise in NBA history.
But consider that in the last five years, two teams, the Toronto Raptors and the Denver Nuggets, won their first NBA titles, and another, the Milwaukee Bucks, won its first in four decades. This year, the Celtics will take on the Dallas Mavericks (who won their only title 13 years ago) and feature one of the greatest players on the planet, Luka Doncic.
For much of the 2023-24 season, a seeming consensus developed among NBA fans that the Nuggets’ Nikola Jokic is, hands down, the best player in the world, and last month, he fittingly won his third MVP award in four years. Though the Nuggets lost their Western Conference semifinals matchup against the Minnesota Timberwolves in Game 5 of that series, Jokic, who had 40 points, 13 assists, and no turnovers, put up one of the greatest playoff performances in NBA history.
But Doncic’s playoff run, with his insane shot-making, preternatural court awareness and pinpoint passing, is allowing him to make a serious claim to the crown.
Doncic and Jokic, who’re both from the former Yugoslavia, along with Giannis, the “Greek Freak,” Antetokounmpo, the other contender in the greatest-in-the-world discussion, illustrate that the influx of foreign players into the NBA is a significant part of the reason why the league has flourished over the past few decades. In fact, one could argue that the NBA player with the most potential to enter the GOAT discussion is the San Antonio Spurs’ 7-foot-4 rising star, Victor Wembanyama of France.
But don’t get me wrong: I’m hardly selling American players short — neither the young ones nor the older ones.
During these playoffs, we continued to enjoy the brilliance and resilience of LeBron James, whose stat line this season was 25.7 points, 7.3 rebounds and 8.3 assists. He had the highest 3-point shooting of his career and finished a 20th-straight season averaging at least 25 points a game. At the ripe age of 39, LeBron is still one of the top 10 players in the game. The Celtics’ Jrue Holiday, at 33, remains one of the best on-ball defenders in the league. And Doncic’s running mate, Kyrie Irving, has shown throughout these playoffs that he might be the best finisher at the basket in NBA history.
But the real story of these playoffs is the breadth of young talent in the league.
The real story of these playoffs is the breadth of young talent in the league.
The Timberwolves, who made it to their first conference finals in two decades, feature Anthony Edwards, a 22-year-old phenom whose offensive talents and posterizing dunks have brought comparisons to Michael Jordan. Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, 25, might be a top-five player, with perhaps the best midrange shot in the league, and his teammate Chet Holmgren, 22, is a shot-blocking machine. Zion Williamson’s (age 23) tenure in the playoffs was short-lived due to yet another injury, but his performance in the first game of the play-in tournament was a good reminder as to why he was once viewed as a generational talent. All those players are in the Western Conference.
In the Eastern Conference, Indiana’s Tyrese Haliburton, Orlando’s Paolo Banchero, Philadelphia’s Tyrese Maxey and New York’s Jalen Brunson all point to the NBA’s bright future. This isn’t even taking into account all the great players who didn’t make the playoffs or had an early exit: Phoenix’s Kevin Durant and Devin Booker; Sacramento’s De'Aaron Fox and Domantas Sabonis; Memphis’ Ja Morant; the Clippers’ James Harden, Kawhi Leonard and Paul George; the Sixers’ Joel Embiid, the Cavs’ Donovan Mitchell; Atlanta’s Trae Young, Utah’s Lauri Markkanen and Detroit’s Cade Cunningham (I had to get at least one Piston in here).
The result of all this talent is that the NBA playoffs have become a near-nightly opportunity to see extraordinarily talented players and teams competing at levels NBA fans have never seen. Sure, the New York Knicks failed to make it past the Eastern Conference semifinals, but no basketball fan will soon forget the team’s epic two-series run against the Sixers and the Pacers. The Clippers gave their fans yet another playoff disappointment, but their first-round series against Dallas was scintillating basketball. The same goes for the first-round Cleveland-Orlando series and the second-round Nuggets-Timberwolves series. Even the Celtics’ 4-0 dispatching of the Pacers in the conference finals was arguably one of the most exciting four-game sweeps in NBA history.
The irony of the Celtics making it to the Finals — and being the heavy favorites to win — is that they are one of the least exciting NBA teams in these playoffs. Their star, Jayson Tatum, is more steady than he is sizzling. But, in this golden age of basketball, when shot-making is at perhaps the highest level we’ve ever seen, it hardly matters — every NBA playoff series feels fantastic again.
