I know you are a smart guy, OD, but you are either being rather obtuse here or you aren't near as smart as I thought you were.
To wit: if you believe that whoever wins the NBA championship each year is far and away the greatest team that season and that no other team was even close, I pity you. I flat pity you, because you will live the rest of your life with a dire misunderstanding of how things work in the real world.
An exercise for you:
On a sliding 100-point scale, something like 75/25, how do you rate:
The Spurs against the Pistons last year?
The Lakers against Portland in 2000?
The Lakers against the Kings in 2002?
The Spurs against Dallas in 2003?
You come across as though those were absolute certainties--else why would you trumpet that Nash was holding the Mavs back all these years?--but the truth is that if the Blazers don't break down at the foul line in the fourth quarter, not to mention fall prey to some very susceptible calls, they beat the Lakers in 2000. The truth is that if a ball doesn't miraculously bounce to Robert Horry the Lakers face a huge uphill battle against the Kings in 2002 and probably do not win the series, and then the championship. The truth is that the Spurs were at best--AT BEST--70% favorites to win the game against Detroit last year. Just as they were to win it all in 2003. If you don't think a 30% or more chance represents something more than terribly overmatched, the kind of overmatched where you blow up your team, then I just don't know how we are ever going to see eye to eye here. Would you also recommend that Chauncey Billups, or Rip Hamilton, or Ben Wallace, or Rasheed Wallace, or Tayshaun Prince demonstrably needs to go because the Pistons clearly could not beat the Pistons with that player on the roster? News for you, OD: the Mavs were as close, for all intents, as the Pistons were last year. The Pistons didn't blow it up, and look where they are this year.
You said that with the exception of 2001 Dirk's numbers improved in the playoffs. (Not sure why you would except one of the years, but that's neither here nor there.) Well, last year and without Nash, his numbers declined dramatically, didn't they? In fact, I remember reading a study that had Dirk near the bottom of the bunch in terms of players whose stats declined in the regular season as compared to the regular season. What say you? I mean, this is when he is supposed to be getting better, right? This is when Nash is finding an entirely new level. For Dirk to tank while Nash excels is rather embarrassing for the Mavs, and rather damaging to your argument.
And finally, if you think a 33% chance means you should definitely win once in four tries, then you show absolutely no understanding of statistics--despite your otherwise more than competent intelligence, I will grant you that--and you should go ahead and back out of this debate now. We are operating on entirely different planes, and you have some work to do.
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