Look, we know your hometown 76ers have been eliminated and that it would take a superhuman performance for any non-Lakers or Cavs team to stop LeBron and Kobe from meeting for crown, but if you’re a hoops fan, you just can’t help but enjoy what you’ve been seeing in the NBA playoffs. We know we’re being a bit fanboyish with this one, but here are four reasons, in no particular order, why you really need to be paying attention.

• The Legend of Rajon Rondo. I know Rondo plays for the hated Boston Celtics, but his evolution has been nothing short of epic. Back at Kentucky, Rondo was a skinny athlete who couldn’t take minutes from Pat Sparks, a chubby local Kentuckian best known for hitting a tournament buzzer beater and mocking Billy Packer directly after. Now? You gotta talk about him when you talk about Chris Paul, Deron Williams and Derrick Rose as the next guard of standout point men.

• The Death of the Big Man. Every year since the Bulls started their dynasty, the argument can be made that the NBA championship was won by the team with the most dominant big man — think of course, of Michael Jordan (who may well have been the best post player in the league for his last three chips) or the 2005 Detroit Pistons. It’s a fun trend for gamblers, but an annoying one for NBA fans. But this year, barring a huge shock, the best big man will not. This means one of two things: first, and most likely, we’re entering the age of LeBron. Beware. The other possibility, however, is far more exciting: It is possible that the new set of rules that allow quick, penetrating guards to basically go where they want on the court have finally made the positions more equal. For years, everyone assumed that games slow down in the playoffs. This year, that may not be the case.

• Mavs v. Nuggets. It’s far from the marquee matchup of the round, but the Mavs and the Nugs have the potential to provide the best seven-game series of any matchup until the finals. The Mavs have no fears, they just beat San Antonio, which still carries as much playoff clout as anyone out there. In the wake of the playoff series, you heard Andre Iguodala complain that the 76ers’ younger players weren’t ready to contribute. It was a dick move, but it had some validity to it — in the playoffs, younger players often have a hard time adjusting. Think of it this way: For young players, the road to the championship is an unexplored one. Often, even though their cars are faster and slicker, they have a harder time getting to the final destination that some older, slower models who know where all the potholes and dead ends lie. Well, J Kidd, Dirk and the gang certainly know the route to a loss in the finals, which has to be worth something.

  On the other side, you have the fantastic dynamic that is Chauncey Billups being put in charge of a team of unrepentant troublemakers. Carmelo is Paul Pierce with a DUI, Kenyon Martin’s locker sticker reads “730″ (think Big L), J.R. Smith thinks he’s open right now and Chris Anderson had a well-known heroin habit. They’re also all really talented and now have a guy leading them who knows how to do it. Add in the fun individual matchups (Kidd and Billups, Melo and Josh Howard, Dirk and a suddenly youthful Martin) and you got yourself a series that could end up being pretty good.

• The Evolution of moneyball. Earlier this year, Michael Lewis made waves when he wrote a gushing New York Times Magazine cover story on Shane Battier, the Houston Rockets and the moneyballization of the NBA. Put simply, the league is now full of awesome super-secret stats that measure much of the intangibles we’ve been striving to figure out for years. Two teams at the top of this curve — the Rockets and the Mavericks — will enter round two heavy underdogs to teams that conventional wisdom has judged way better.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 5:55 pm and is filed under Afternoon Rounds, basketball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.