I”m an NBA fan. Tuesday night, Golden State won the 2015 NBA Finals and thus the Championship, defeating the NBA sensation Lebron James and his Cleveland Cavaliers. There are some interesting stories about this NBA Finals and these two teams.
Lebron James had started his NBA career at Cleveland, Ohio, located up the road from his hometown of Akron, Ohio. The Cavaliers went to the NBA finals once in James seven years there. But the 6′, 8″, 280 pound guard who can ply multiple positions then abruptly left Cleveland, for which he was highly criticized, to join NBA superstar Dwayne Wade and the Miami Heat. They went to the NBA finals the next four years and won two championships. James had thus accomplished his goal of winning multiple NBA championships. He was now touted by all as the best player in the NBA and perhaps headed for greatest player ever status, thus being compared to the indomitable Michael Jordan of the Chicago Bulls. Michael won six championship rings there.
James then left Miami and returned to the Cleveland Cavaliers for the 2014-15 season. Cleveland had poor teams during that 2009-2013 period even though they had all-star point guard Kyrie Irving. But to get James, they also got allstar Kevin Love. Cleveland now had three all-stars and thus were primed to make a huge impact on the 2014-15 season.
Before the 2014-15 season began, I kept saying it was going to be one the best seasons ever in the NBA. Also before the season started, I was hoping Cleveland for the Eastern Conference and either the Los Angeles Clippers or Golden State for the Western Conference would meet in the finals. I think a lot of people did. So, Cleveland and Golden State did meet, but Cleveland suffered two big hits in the playoffs toward the finals when, during the first round, Kevin Love was hit and suffered a shoulder separation that ended his season and required surgery. Plus, soon after that Kyrie Irving, who was fighting injuries anyway, got hit and suffered a broken knee cap that ended his season and required surgery. So, the Cleveland Cavaliers began the finals with Golden State with only one of their three allstars–Lebron James. Lebron carried the team so that it was an exciting series even though it only went six games. Lebron proved to all again that he clearly remains the best player in the NBA.
As for Golden State, this team is located in Oakland, California, and thus in the San Francisco Bay Area. This team had not won the NBA championship for 40 years. For decades it had been one of the worst teams in the NBA. Golden State point guard sensation Stephen Curry had earlier been selected as this season’s MVP (most valuable player), which was his first. There are some interesting stories about this team which have to do with Christianity. For one, when Stephen Curry makes a basket, oftentimes he immediately points his forefinger up as he runs or walks to the other end of the court. Why? He is pointing to God. But this gesture can also be taken as meaning that Golden State is #1. The youthful-looking Stepen Curry is a very committed evangelical Christian. His dad played in the NBA for several years.
Mark Jackson was an elite point guard in the NBA. He played for seventeen years for seven different teams. In 2011, he got the head coaching job at Golden State. Mark Jackson also is an evangelistic Christian who is quite vocal about it. He had a profound influence on many of his players regarding his Christian faith. He even conducted Bible studies and prayer meetins with some of the players. He and Stephen Curry were close friends. Then Mark Jackson was fired after three years of coaching Golden State. Curry was very disappointed. But to his credit, he accepted the coaching change. So, Jackson returned to TV broadcasting of NBA games. Ironically, Mark Jackson and former NBA coach Jeff van Gundy were ABC’s two main commentators of this NBA Finals.
This Golden State win established some NBA milestones and records. For example, rookie head coach Steve Kerr joined an elite club of three other coachs in NBA history who won a championship their first year as head coach of a team. Kerr himself played in the NBA and won five championship rings–three with Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls and two with the San Antonio Spurs. After his retirement from the NBA, Steve Kerr became a TV announcer of NBA games and then worked in the front office with our Phoenix Suns. (I live in the Phoenix metro area.)
Steve Kerr’s father, Malcom Kerr, was a professor who tried to unite Christians and Muslims. His life ended in tragedy when he was assasinated in 1984 in Beirut, Lebanon, by a Muslim. At the time of his death he was the president of American University in Beirut, and his son Steve was a college freshman at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
Malcom Kerr was born in Beirut, though he later became an American citizen. Malcom had grown up on or near the American University of Beirut, a major university in the Middle East, where his parents were college professors there for forty years. Malcom then got his college degree in political science at Princeton University in New Jersey and his PhD at John Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. He then taught at UCLA in Southern California for twenty years. Yet he and his family–his wife and four children that included Steve–often visited Lebanon. Malcom Kerr wrote a bestselling book, The Arab Cold War, and Islamic Reform, which was a revision of his doctoral thesis. Malcom Kerr was very concerned about what he viewed as a deteriorating relationship between Islam and Christianity. Thus, near the end of his life he vowed to try to improve it by becoming the president of American University.
After three games in this NBA Finals, Cleveland was ahead with two wins to Golden State’s one win. But then Golden State rallied and won the next three games to win the championship. In doing so, they proved many NBA analysts wrong, who claimed that the high-scoring Golden State, that played a lot of small ball (smaller players), would not win against the bigger Cleveland Cavaliers. In the televised media interview of Cleveland’s Lebron James that followed the fifth game, Lebron responded to a media question by saying, “I’m the best player in the world.” Indeed, Lebron was not saying anything we didn’t know. He had been awarded season MVP status four years. But this remark was remindful of his and Dwayne Wade’s televised celebration when James joined the Miami Heat and boasted they would win many NBA championships together. Especially Lebron was heavily criticized for it by NBA fans.
TV analysts of this NBA Finals discussed often about who would be selected as the NBA Finals MVP. Everyone thought it would be either Lebron James or Stephen Curry. But Golden State’s Andre Iguodala was having a great finals series also. He was a new, veteran player for Golden State who was used to starting in games. But at the beginning of the season, Coach Kerr asked him join the second squad. To his credit, Andre accepted this role gracefully. It is one of the evidences of the team spirit that Golden State players continually have been claiming. Then Kerr made a surprising change by starting Iguodala in the finals game four because he and Draymond Green were the Golden State’s two best defensive players to guard the unstoppable locomotive Lebron James. Then Iguodala had a tremendous sixth game that made a huge difference in them winning the game. Surprisingly to many, but very deserving, Andre Iguadolo was awarded the Finals MVP trophy. As it was announced in the celebration ceremonies afterwards, Stephen Curry shouted and raised his arms in celebration as if he had won the coveted title.
In the TV interview after Golden State won the championship, Iguodala couldn’t say enough about how much he enjoyed playing with this Golden State team. In the NBA, just as in all professional sports, there are lots of players with big egos. After all, personal confidence is so essential to performing at the highest level as a professional athelete. Competition is the name of the game. And to bring it, you better believe in yourself. Yet this Golden State had something more in the believing department. Many of these players are united in their Christian belief. In the interview, Iguodala was so effusive about his praise of the character of Stephen Curry. He even said, “I want to be like Steph Curry.” What a tribute to a professional peer who is even slightly younger in age. I thought it was really heart-warming seeing this brotherly love between professional atheletes.
The pre-Finals hype had been so centered on Lebron James and Stepen Curry. In this interview with Andre Iguodala, a media question put him caused him to say of Lebron’s boast a few nights previously–about being the best player in the world–“I don’t think he should have said it.” Now, I like Lebron James. He’s a family man. And it is so exciting for me to see him play basketball. I also enjoy hearing him talk. But even though Lebron might have made this comment to inspire his teamates, I agree with Andre. The Bible says, “Let another praise you, and not your own mouth” (Proverbs 27.2).
But I have lots of praise for these NBA players for entertaining us with their athletic skills and prowess.
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