Everyday People
Sam Presti, a man from Massachusetts who split time at colleges before graduating from Emerson and landing with the more or less dynastic San Antonio Spurs of the mid-aughts under Gregg Popovich and R.C. Buford, is 47 years old. Since private equity clown[1] Clay Bennett hired Presti to generally manage the Seattle SuperSonics in 2007, the team has 1) moved cities, which has nothing to do with Presti and everything to do with Bennett, and 2) drafted four (4) NBA Most Valuable Players[2].
Three of them played together in a decisive NBA Finals game thirteen (13) years ago; the fourth plays alone on Sunday night. Drop your phone and stop talking about the Lakers, or Desmond Bane, or wherever you think Ace Bailey is going to land. Ex-Sonic Jeff Green – still active! – will likely be watching. Will you?
It’s stupidly, deceptively simple: win one game, and win the championship. Stand up next to the mountain; trust the edge of your hand. Any team that is clearly superior, well – they would’ve gotten that out of the way before G7, no? Our preconceived notions and well wishes[3] for both teams are out the window. This is it.
It’s annoying when you just say “this is this,” so what is this? Well: the Oklahoma City Thunder are an as-yet historically-great team: 68 wins with an MVP driving the bus, and every rotation player is under 30 and under contract for a minute or two.
There is every reason to think that the Thunder are going to come together at home and do this thing. They should! Being the up-and-coming team with the budding star(s) is the start; Winning 68 games and playing some of the most comprehensive basketball that any team ever has earns you some favoritism.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has put together one of the better all-around offensive seasons in history[4], and the quote-unquote supporting cast is exceptionally designed: Chet Holmgren, former number-two pick; a big, good Jalen Williams, and a slightly smaller, also good but more situational Jaylin Williams; and Isaiah Hartenstein: ah, what could have been[5], but safe to say he’s the reliable big when Chet has to opt out.
Aaron Wiggins and Isaiah[6] Joe have put in minutes, and the plus-minus leader per Zach Lowe of this series is uhhhh Kenrich Williams. Sure! Cason Wallace, let’s go ahead and get you out there. Mark Daignault looks at his rotations and has a conniption, every other night, nine months a year.
They’re the second-youngest team in Finals history. While the Pacers as a unit haven’t been here before, neither have the Thunder. Beating Denver in the second round felt like it should’ve been the push forward that this team needed, the coronation for the next half-decade of Western supremacy.
Alex Caruso is the world’s most dangerous defender. Ernie Johnson jokingly refers to him as his son because of his follicles, but you saw Caruso win a title in Los Angeles and play through it in Chicago. This is a guy who knows how to hold onto something he holds dear, and he knows when to let go. He values what’s important.
Opposite corner, we have the Indiana Pacers, a relentless and fearless team that is ceaselessly looking at the clock, and back at you, and back at the clock, and asking: “You sure?” Tyrese Haliburton is not a guy who looks at his own busted ankle and says no; corny though he may be, to an extreme, I’ve got some space in my heart for a dude who turns out a 5:1 assist-turnover ratio on a bum anything if they lead an offense like that[7] to a win[8].
Especially for the second half of the season, when they were arguably the best team in the NBA, the Pacers have been able to turn to so many players in key moments. Conventional wisdom (along with, you know, the salary cap) holds that you can only have so many key players; the most recent CBA and its various tax[9] aprons uphold this. Because of draconian limitations surrounding the eventual non-estate taxes of many billionaires, it’s going to be very hard to be a fan of the Phoenix Suns for the next six or so years.
Ask any fan of the New York Knicks about Aaron Nesmith, and you’re likely to hear some garbles about minutes, and Tom Thibodeau, and maybe Obi Toppin (now a Pacer, btw, and one who had a splendid Game 6). Andrew Nembhard has always had some diehards going for him, but only now do they rise. His defense and twitchy playmaking have given Rick Carlisle, a coach not lacking for them, some situational moments of genius.
If you saw Myles Turner block Chet Holmgren at the three-point line – which, I assure you, Chet did – then you know how effective Turner’s defensive web can be[10]. He’s the longest-tenured Pacer, class of 2015, and was one of the longer-tenured trade pieces in hypothetical transactions that we’ve had in the hush-SHOUT (but only if the team/agent/player allows) era of sports media. He’s also one of the most versatile players with his kind of length in the East, perhaps only behind Giannis. That’s not a bad, what, third-best player on a potential champion?
Pascal Siakam has seen this all before. Granted, the last time, it was a player dropping in on him and the team he plays for rather than vice versa, but no matter: he seems perfectly happy to be here and contributing to a championship-level team. Does he see Kawhi Leonard in Tyrese Haliburton, or does he see himself in Tyrese Haliburton?
Siakam is The Other Guy at this point (T.J. McConnell is really The Other Guy at this point, and whew BOY, has he earned that contract). The status of Haliburton’s ankle literally notwithstanding, he’ll need to look to others to generate offense. The Pacers have some others; any of those could pop off Sunday night, which is what has made Indiana dangerous enough for them to get to this point. Go ahead, say it with me: Pascal Siakam knows what it takes to win a title.
Ah, yes: Following the unanimous MVP and the 3-1 deficit and the Draymond Green of it all, the last time the NBA Finals went seven, before the clutch time ballistics, Iman Shumpert had a four-point play in the deciding game. Golden State, which lost that game in absurd fashion given who and what that team was and was supposed to represent at the time, shot 15-41 from three. We remember the one, but LeBron James had three chase down blocks in that game, all before Kyrie did that, and Kevin Love stopped him[11].
While I did make note of how glad I was not to be a Game of Thrones fan that night, what I wrote about that game, three years into this blog’s existence and nine years in the past, has not ended up being commensurate with the impact it has since had on basketball and my own perception of it, nevermind how often I watch the last three and a half minutes of it. Game 7s don’t happen every year, and no title window is guaranteed. Possibly holding on all lines about various window-expanding trades, by the way, are: the Boston Celtics, the Denver Nuggets and the Milwaukee Bucks.
Nobody has any idea where this Game 7 is going to go: that’s how we got here. Haliburton’s ankle pulling up shockingly healthy after the first quarter in Game 6 was a ride. Oklahoma City won 68 games in order to be able to play its final game at home. Indiana keeps hitting on…well, anyway, it’s anyone’s guess what happens Sunday night.
These teams are bizarro versions of each other: charging, adaptable point guard; switchable wings that can shoot; variable Larges that aren’t necessarily centers; actual centers that can space and pass; and sixth-to-eighth spot starters who do most of the work everyone else doesn’t.
Both of these teams had some time in the wilderness without completely bottoming out, each missing the playoffs for several years before last season and, now, showing up in the Finals. This is it: this is what the NBA’s past twenty years and the positional revolution have given us. Somewhere, FreeDarko smirks.
Pretty much just because loud people with money they had before their grandparents were born who either hate or were hated by their parents that you don’t know and who would have you killed for a single dollar bill say so, it’s bleak out here[12]. I’m sure I’ve internalized something that is complete garbage coming from nothing and nowhere as fact and will eventually repeat it to some poor soul without a viable search engine because those, by design, don’t exist anymore; you almost certainly have, too[13].
If we’re going to keep staring into the sun like this, though, at least let’s have that sun set. Sam Presti, after drafting four MVPs over all this time: Game 7 in Oklahoma City. SGA can cap off one of the greatest individual seasons ever with one of the greatest team seasons ever[14]. Hali and co could finish one of the great upset playoff runs in history, with Carlisle at the helm. The Indiana Pacers could win a title for the first time since they were in the ABA. Game 7! GAME SEVEN.
[1] Redundant
[2] Kevin Durant (2014); Russell Westbrook, my heart (2017); James Harden (2018); SGA (2025)
[3] Blowing kisses at my sweet, sweet 2024-’25 New York Knicks. See u in Rocktober bbs!
[4] Not to make this a retread, but if you’re in contention with That Guy in Denver, who also just put up one of the best individual seasons ever, then you’re peaking at the sun coming over the mountain.
[5] Former Knick, both an Isaiah and a Hartenstein; passing out of the elbow was his destiny, but he grew up too big, so he became good at boxing out, rebounding and quick kick-out passes. I think he’d prefer to take his time, but he knows his role (I don’t like saying that about, really, anybody because I like to be surprised, but I-Hart has been one of those dudes). He’ll step up if need be.
[6] Why not root for the Oklahoma City Thunder, home of two Isaiahs? [Isaiah 42:8]
[7] Not great by any means nor by their expectations at this point, but the Thunder were worse. Capital-W Win.
[8] Also, to extract the knife a bit: I’m glad he’s not attempting a Willis Reed and not leaving us in wonder until the walk out of the locker room.
[9] The tax is not federal and is voted on by governors, league-instituted and is not federal. Billionaires giving money to billionaires and then asking you, Joseph Q. Public, to fund their stadia. Stop pocket-watching.
[10] Something about Rick Carlisle and University of Texas centers, surely.
[11] Ten footnotes in, let me Bill Simmons myself: in my 2016 G7 recap, I suggest that LeBron will start a superteam in Los Angeles. I am the first person who ever did this; any other people who ever said LeBron James will go to the Los Angeles Lakers prior to June 2016 is a clown executing clownish behavior in their giant clown costume, slightly too big even by their David Byrne-informed clown costume-purchasing brains.
[12] Also, yeah: they know more important cops than the ones you know.
[13] Did you think one of those hyperlinks was going to be the New York Times? And when it wasn’t, you thought, “Great! At least one of them wasn’t the dreaded New York Times”? But – uh-oh! – you then might’ve wondered what a section like this is doing in a piece like this if it isn’t criticizing the hateful and hated New York Times. Criticism by omission, folks. Now: who isn’t talking about you?
[14] The Bill Russell Finals MVP? YEESH.
Tuesdays With Horry 