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January 1st, 2012 has the potential to become an important date in this season's NBA landscape. Yesterday, fans across the world, most likely in post NYE recovery, sat in front of their televisions to start the year off right. What they were treated to were two standout games of video-game like proportions.
The Chicago Bulls and the Miami Heat showcased wins of a destructive nature, continuing the league-wide belief that the teams may once again face-off in the Eastern Conference Finals. The Bulls posted a 40 point victory over the Grizzlies, while the Heat defeated the Bobcats by 39.
You could almost hear the commentators ask, "Is it the shoes?!"
Real Life
This kind of concurrent beating in modern basketball could be a recurring event. With the Heat, it makes sense. Lobbing court wide passes to one another at will seems to be a part of the game plan. The kind of firepower they possess is tantamount to holding down the right trigger on your Xbox controller with no fatigue to show for it. It's almost as if they went back to the "pro" difficulty because "all star" was just a little too hard.
The real head scratcher belongs to the Bulls. They are a fundamentally defensive team, built around the culture of pick-and-roll, dribble penetrate game planning. The word to define this team's attitude and game play is "sound." Sound teams beat lesser opponents more often than not, but rarely do they kick them out of the stadium before the second half. This team, however, with Rose at the helm has actually done this twice before. So what's happening?
This phenomenon may not be due one team's outright superiority, but perhaps due to what is plaguing the American economy in general. Although the new CBA, especially reflective in the Chris Paul to Lakers veto, is structured to prevent more superteams, this season it will have to deal with the lack of a middle class.
The absence of a true training camp and practice regimen, combined with a compressed yet taxing game schedule could leave some teams in the dust. The situation is prime to let great squads familiar with one another blossom, while punishing the learning curve, thus cultivating a large team-talent discrepancy in 2012.
The season is still in it's very early stages, so it possible that game play could substitute for practice time, and bonding will occur between the whistles. If this is the case, a more even displacement of wins will be reflected across the standing at year's end. For the time being, however, it appears that we are the beginning of a season where more teams will hover around 42-24 and 24-42 rather than the midway mark of 33-33.
What does this mean for you? While the worse teams may provide for some boring television, the cream of the crop will usher in buzzer beating boomshakalakas, ending with claims that players are liars, as their pants will be on fire.
The promise of a unique season is a certainty. Be sure to watch it.
Tapan Jones
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