Saturday 1/13/24
The loser of today's Chiefs-Dolphins game--which is on Peacock for some greedy pig of a reason that's so typical of the NFL--will have had a very disappointing season. The Chiefs, as defending Super Bowl champions, would have lost at home in the first round. Or the Dolphins, who looked like they were going to cakewalk their way to the division would have had a total meltdown, including a disastrous loss to the Bills in their final game at home. I would expect the Chiefs to win. How do you ever believe in the Dolphins?
Last night, the Bulls had some kind of Ring of Honor event. Jordan, Pippen, and Rodman were no-shows. The crowd booed Jerry Krause's widow and made her cry. Krause was awkward, abrasive, needy, and largely without social skills. The real reason that Bulls fans dislike him, though, is because they're delusional. Yes, he played a huge part in breaking up that team, but Bulls fans think they had all of these championships still to win. I saw someone on Twitter this morning put that number at "3 to 5." They were done winning championships in my view. They gutted through that last one, and if Jordan doesn't have the greatest sequence in basketball history, they probably lose the series. Steve Kerr said after that they were running on fumes
People always make this mistake with "we shoulda won more" arguments. They don't understand life. There is life. Life happens. Time happens. Too many prices are paid. Too much is extracted. Bounces go different ways. I have a friend who'll say that the Patriots could have nine championships. Then he goes through the games, saying why they could--or should--have beaten the Giants both times and the Eagles. I laugh and say, "Okay, if you want those, then give me back the one against the Rams, the Seahawks, and the Falcons." You don't get all the breaks. Running the table on breaks. It doesn't work that way.
The 1985-86 Oilers seemed like the surest thing in the history of sports. It just felt so inevitable that the Oilers would win the Cup. Every year. They were that good. You'd never seen such talent on a team before. It was like it was unfair. Even boring. Automatic. Why tune in? I remember being almost annoyed at the time as a kid.
Then they go out and lose to the Flames, not even making it out of their division, which is how it worked back then. Four divisions. Play two rounds in your division, then a conference championship series against the winner of the other division in your conference. I liked this much better because you got oceans of bad blood and rivers of contempt from all of the familiarity. Now it's kind of whatever.
The Oilers came back and won back-to-back Cups, and then that was it for Gretzky in Edmonton. Coffey had already left. Edmonton people bemoaned the five Cups or whatever they were going to have won. But I didn't know or think that. I think the way it works is you won pretty much close to what you were going to win. Maybe there was one more, but what a team did win is never far off the mark for me from what they should have won.
It was stressful being that Bulls team, which people, again, are oblivious to, because people don't factor in reality. Stress takes a toll, especially over time. Few just can keep performing and performing at the highest level. The Last Dance should have made that plain.
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