NBA Finals Begin With Questions About Last Year. Were The Heat Lucky?

When Tim insured they would get it done this year, did
he open up speculation about what happened last year?

When an NBA fan watches the conference finals finish in 6 games, leaving several days before the championship series begins, you have a lot of down time to fill. I've grown weary of the May/June swoon of the Colorado Rockies, so an angry flip of the channel found me on game one of the Stanley Cup finals. I don't have anything at all against the NHL.  In fact (as long as my team is still in it), I am quite the fan.  When the playoffs come around though, I love the intensity of the game and hate the intense need for pure luck.

Of all the major sports, hockey is the hardest championship to win because luck is simply too much of a necessary quotient.  However, don't get confused on this luck thing.  It is necessary for sure, but the luck that we common folk speak of and the luck of a champion are hardly cut from the same cloth.

Enter the reigning NBA world champions, the Miami Heat, and suddenly the conversation of luck has taken on new dimensions.  If you followed last year's finals, you understand clearly the reason for such opinions, but it might take a deeper knowledge of winning and losing to understand what luck is and what it is not.

Was it lucky that Ray Allen got his feet behind the line to tie game 6 on a miracle 3 pointer when San Antonio had the game all but wrapped up just moments before?  Ray Allen won't let you describe his well practiced jumper as lucky.  To me, the long bounce off of the rim that gave Chris Bosh, an exceptional rebounder, an offensive rebound and the assist to Allen was much more akin to luck.  Had that ball bounced a little less than it actually did, then Bosh possibly gets called for an over-the-back foul and luck rewrites this story.

Yet, all of this is belaboring the obvious when it comes to luck.  No one argues with the cliche', "I'd rather be lucky than good", including the greatest of them. No sensible human being would sacrifice the benefit of luck.  In the end, life, and sports, demands a healthy dose of luck just to get an opportunity at greatness.  Deep thinkers and coaches try to sell the notion that luck benefits the aggressor, but at the highest level of competition the lines blur between who is truly the most aggressive, especially since aggression has to be tempered by wisdom and prudence to become a champion.

We would all rather be lucky when our good isn't better than the competition  Luck notoriously chooses sides.  Sometimes it stays where it began, other times it becomes a bit fickle, but most often it walks out with the winning team.

I say often and not always because the beauty of sports is that you can make luck, and your opponents fall prey to your exceptional effort and unity.  Revisionist' might revise you into the seat of the lucky one because that is what they do, but you and luck will always know the truth.  Overall, it even takes a bit of luck to remain healthy enough just to be good.  Greatness in team sports like basketball demands the luck of your good and my good showing up on the same day.

The Miami Heat know how to be great.  They are a team in every sense of the word, but so are the San Antonio Spurs.  Each team understands that they must exhibit the ability to play multiple styles of basketball and be fortunate (not lucky) enough to stay one step ahead of an opponent who is perfectly capable of doing the same to you.  Had San Antonio won last years series, they would have had to mention the good fortune (luck) of overcoming LeBron and them, but it would be disrespectful to assign such a monumental achievement to the sheer luck of the draw.

As game one of the Stanley Cup finals came to an overtime end last night, one team came out playing really really good hockey....only to see a lucky bounce go in the net for the other team.  The Colorado Avalanche opened the playoffs this season with one of the greatest efforts ever seen to erase a deficit and win in overtime.  As they sit at home watching two other teams chase after the cup, I wonder if they feel lucky just to have won that first game and to have pushed Minnesota to a game 7.  In hindsight, this Av's fan certainly feels a lot luckier than I did as our boys cleaned out lockers for the season.

The best team will win the NBA finals because the best team always does.  No matter the nature of a game and the plays within it, the lucky team will always be the winner and the losers instantly become the team who's luck ran out.  This years champion will need to overcome injury and in-game adversity. This years champion must shoot and defend, or run the risk of losing control of scoring. This year's champion also really needs luck to fall their way just to take advantage of the few advantages that great teams give up.

Call it what you want, but only the greatest teams ever get lucky enough to come within reach of a championship crown.  The Spurs have plenty of rings and got a fairly good sniff of the crown last season.  If the Spurs add to their championship legacy by winning another title this year, I can guarantee you that they won't care what adjectives we add to the word "Champion"
.

Lucky Champions smile just the same.