Adam Silver might be getting a call soon. It will be a friendly call from one of the NBA team owners saying that he will be in New York soon. As soon as he suggests that the two of them play golf, the commissioner should stop his phone from ringing.
It would be from Michael Jordan. The purpose of the invitation is to get as close to the feeling of scoring 60 points on a foe as possible by destroying Silver on the golf course.
There will be new awards at the end of the conference finals. There will be conference final-roundMVPs as well as the NBA Finals one day. Magic Johnson and Larry Bird will get the naming rights to the NBA because of their individual and team success in the 1980s.
The winning teams from the East and the West will still be presented a trophy, but now they will be named after league stalwarts. The Western Conference trophy is named after Oscar Robertson, a player who spent most of his career in Cincinnati, and the Eastern Conference trophy is named after a player who spent most of his career in Cincinnati. While watching highlights of the only player on the court capable of dribbling between his legs on 16mm film, Chris is shed tears.
These people are perfect to honor. Unlike the NFL naming its conference championship trophies after team owners, the NBA is about the players, and these four were extremely important in building the league. Robertson was the first big guard with all of the ball handling, playmaking, and shooting skills, while Cousy was the first perimeter superstar. They showed that the game is more than just a game with jump hooks.
Then came Magic and Larry. The NBA was struggling, and cocaine wasn't the only problem, as they took the league from tape-delayed championship rounds to some of the most thrilling athletic contests that attracted fans from around the world. They saved a major American sports league, and it's fitting that the conference championship awards have their names on them.
Don't think for a second that Jordan isn't taking that personally. The man who made up LaBradford Smith mocking him after a game for motivation during the regular season feels left out. He is too busy with his NASCAR team and finding a new coach for the Charlotte Hornets to think about it, but when he sees that Eastern Conference Finals Most Valuable Player trophy presented to someone, he will pray for one more leap so he can catch Bird in Indiana and dunk.
Jordan played against Johnson and Bird for most of his career, so he doesn't like to listen to people who say he is the best ever. He thinks he's better than them, and while he probably doesn't care about a trophy being named after him, he was probably upset when he found out who the trophy was named after. He challenged Johnson to a game of one-on-one because he might have known during All-Star Weekend.
You can't play golf with Jordan until you decide to name the regular season Most Valuable Player after him or something, because he thinks it's better than the ones you named after Bird and Johnson. If you don't, he will treat you like it was Game 2 of the 1990 NBA first round. You can't bet on the amount of money in the world, but you can bet that he will smile when he takes your money, even if he doesn't have any.
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