The Heimlich Bombshell

I was as shocked as anyone today when the news of Luke Heimlich’s child molestation conviction from 2012 broke. When you hear someone is a convicted child molester a myriad of thoughts and emotions suddenly flood your consciousness. As a parent and the father of young daughters, I was overcome with horror as I read the details of the crime Heimlich admitted to back in 2012 when he plead guilty to one count of molestation. What Heimlich did is shocking, it is revolting, and it is indefensible. Yes, he has paid his legal “debt” to society, but what does it mean when we discover something so shocking about someone, and at times it raises more questions than answers.

College baseball is not on most people’s radar, not even most sports fans. I played college baseball and I hardly give it much notice. At my small college in NE Oklahoma our gymnasium would be packed for basketball games, but generally our baseball games drew a few dozen, if we were lucky a couple hundred fans. Oregon State is the exception to this rule. This year Goss Stadium sold out multiple games, as the Beavers roared to the best record in the nation (52-4) and a number 1 overall national ranking. Luke Heimlich was a big part of this success, raising his stock before the upcoming MLB draft and compiling perhaps the best single season of pitching in Oregon State history. With his starring role on the nation’s best college baseball team, Heimlich’s profile rose and the Oregonian newspaper from Portland sent one of their sports reporters to do a profile. During this time the reporter, Danny Moran, unearthed the sordid details of Heimlich’s past.

For a moment we should focus on the real story here, and the questions something like this raises. Sports is littered with people who have been given 2^nd, 3^rd, and 4^th chances. But where do we draw the line? Ray Lewis was put on trial for murder, Michael Vick was convicted of dog fighting, and many players have come back from various other legal and personal troubles. But we have never to my knowledge had a high profile case of a player being accused or convicted of molesting children. So we have no easy precedent to act on here, no pre-beaten path to redemption for Heimlich to follow, and again so many unanswered questions.

The first question needing an answer is what did Oregon State know and in particular what did Pat Casey, the living legend of a head coach, know about Heimlich. Was he even aware of Heimlich’s conviction? Did Heimlich disclose this to him? If so what was the logic, thought process, in deciding it was okay to bring him into the program? If Casey knew, did he consult others in the athletic department or the university brass about his decision to bring a sex offender into the program? If so, was there a plan to support Heimlich and ensure he did not reoffend while at Oregon State? Furthermore, given his conviction was public record, what plan did the athletic department and Casey have to re-assure the public if Heimlich’s past came to light?

If it turns out Heimlich did not disclose his past to Casey or the athletic department, then it will be interesting to see how Casey and the administration respond. In all honesty the effect to Heimlich will be minimal from an Oregon State perspective. Whenever the Beavers season is over his time at Oregon State will be done. He was planning on starting his professional career after next weeks Major League Baseball draft, so as soon as the Beavers are eliminated (or win) from this weekends Super Regional, or the College World Series, Heimlich’s time at Oregon State will be over. The effects for the Beavers could be pretty far reaching however. If these revelations effect Heimlich’s playing time, or performance, over  the next couple of weeks the Beavers dream season could quickly melt away into the forgotten corners of college baseball history.

This is a mess of either Casey or Heimlich’s making, we just don’t quite know yet. It is easy for fans, and likely Heimlich’s teammates to blame the media. But Moran, and the Oregonian are just reporting the facts, which are public record. It would have been irresponsible of the Oregonian not to follow these leads and report on the facts once they were discovered. I am often critical of the local and national media, yet this is an instance where I feel they did an incredible job breaking an important story.

This story raises so many questions not only about this specific incident, but also the bigger picture. What is the place and role of college athletics, is it merely about winning games, or should they stand for something more? Why do some people deserve a second chance, but not others? Where do we draw the line on who we allow to compete in intercollegiate athletics and why? Should there be some kind of national standard or should it be evaluated on a case by case basis?  Why do so many people rush to defend the perpetrator of these crimes because of some unique talent they possess instead of expressing empathy for the victim?

Perhaps before more facts come out we should focus on some of these larger issues. Only time will tell if Heimlich pitches this weekend or if we find out more facts about who knew what when. Until then we should remember the victim in this case, and all who suffer the horrors of sexual abuse, and we should continue to ask tough questions and demand answers from our public institutions. It is us, the tax payer who employ these coaches and administrators, whether or not we are fans of the team or even care one iota about sports. And finally we should judge this situation on facts and merits, and not be blinded by our own personal biases, trauma, and team/school loyalties. 

King Felix

Almost a decade and a half later I still remember the whispers, the breathless tales of a young Venezuelan phenom, signed at 16 years old and debuting in pro-ball at Class A Everett at age 17. No one debuts at 17 at Everett, usually Everett is the first stop for top draft picks and players just selected from college in the June draft. But that is where we first saw the young man quickly dubbed “The King.” King Felix held court at short season A ball, and then finished the season in High A at Wisconsin. At age 17 he quickly dismissed the Freddy Garcia comparisons (No offense to Freddy, but even at age 17 it was obvious King Felix was on track to be a much better all around pitcher than Garcia. Garcia had the heat early in his career, but by the time he developed the off speed stuff he could barely touch 90. Early in his career I was always confounded by Garcia’s low strikeout rate (163 K’s in 238IP in 2001, the best overall season of his career.), give how hard he threw), in his first pro season The King went 7-2 with a miniscule 2.22 ERA and fanned a whopping 91 batters in only 69 innings.

From that point on Hernandez blew through the minors. At age 18 he posted stellar numbers at a couple stops in the minors, and at age 19 dominated the traditionally hitter friendly Pacific Coast League. By mid-season the Mariners were ready to bring their next ace to the show. He fared very well in his first big league action finishing his age-19 season with a 4-4 record 2.67 ERA and impressive 8.2 K’s per 9 innings. He took a bit of a step back in his first full season in the majors at age 20, but starting in 2007 he became a solid front end rotation guy, who was still figuring it out, but showed flashes of incredible brilliance at times. Everyone knew he was going to put it all together and in 2009 he did for a resurgent Mariners team that shocked the AL West by winning 87 games and hanging around in the wildcard race long after most people thought they would fade.

2009 was the Felix Hernandez year I had been waiting for since he broke into the big leagues. It sounds crazy, but before that year, his age 23 season, I was actually getting a bit impatient with Hernandez, waiting for him to piece it all together. The Mariners and their chronically abysmal offense did not help matters either. He may not have made a leap, to ace status yet, but he was pitching fairly well, if not a bit below his talent level. Then came the year we had been waiting for. Sometimes in baseball, and in sports, things just all come together at the right moment for a team and a player and often it is hard to tell if it is the player carrying the team to success or the other way around. 2009 was a wonderful thing to behold, a young pitcher harnessing his gifts and becoming an ace. It was the year he earned his first of six all-star bids and placed 2^nd in Cy Young balloting.

Felix would follow his dominant breakout season with an even more unbelievable 2010 season. Paired with Cliff Lee the Mariners were expected to contend after their surprise 2009 season, unfortunately almost every hitter in the Mariners lineup regressed, Griffey nodded off in the dugout and eventually retired in disgrace, and King Felix pitched absolutely out of his mind. Due to putrid run support his record dipped to 13-12, but the voters awarded him the Cy Young easily over David Price due to his microscopic 2.27 ERA, workhorse like 250 IP, and flashy 7.2 WAR. WAR wasn’t quite as big a deal as it is now back in 2010 (It was just coming en vogue.), but he was a full 2.5 WAR ahead of Price by the end of the season. Voters at this point had awarded the previous seasons Cy Young to Zack Grienke over Hernandez despite Grienke’s low win total and the next year they handed the hardware to Hernandez. Recognizing his overall excellence despite a mediocre W/L record cause by one of the worse offenses in major league history.

Sadly the theme of weak run support began to become a major feature of Hernandez career. The dynamite 2009-10 seasons had cemented his place among the top hurlers in the league and he would make the all-star team every season from 2011-15 (Ironically enough, he was not selected as an all-star during the 2010 season, the season he would win his lone Cy Young award.), he had some solid seasons during that stretch and then exploded with arguably the best season of his career in 2014. He was absolutely robbed in the Cy Young balloting that year, losing narrowly to Cleveland’s Corey Kluber, and continued to be as dominant as ever over the first half of the 2015 season before fading hard down the stretch in 2015, where a weak August/September helped balloon his ERA to 3.53, his worse since 2008. And really just like that the run was over. We have now seen a season and a half in which King Felix has struggled with injuries and when healthy has been nothing resembling the pitcher he was in his prime. His walk rate has risen since the start of 2016 and his strikeout rate has fallen. He also does not pass the eye test of a front line ace any more. He labors with counts, struggles putting hitters away, and has seen the overall effectiveness of his off speed pitches diminish as his fastball velocity has decreased.

It must be frustrating for King Felix, in the midst of his 13^th big league season to finally be part of a Mariners offense that is producing runs, but injuries and his declining skills have rendered him, at least for the moment unable to take advantage of it. At age 31 he has logged a lot of mileage on that powerful right arm, nearly 2500 innings, over 200 innings more than Freddy Garcia threw in his entire career, and over 100 more than Roy Oswalt threw in his career. That has to take some kind of toll right there. Though he has tried Felix has never been in great shape and his noticeable late season drop offs especially in 2012 and 2015 might have something to do with this. From 2008-2015 he logged a string of 8 consecutive 200+ inning seasons. Maybe he is just tired, I’ve talked to a lot of people who follow Felix and their reaction to his decline over the past 1 ½ to 2 seasons is fairly mixed. Some believe he is battling injuries and once they are put aside he will be his old self again. Most of these rosy assessments were from before the season and his current DL stint for right shoulder inflammation. Another group believes he is done as a front line starter and is on his way to being out of the big leagues in 3-4 years if not sooner. While probably the largest contingent believes he still has 5-7 years left in the tank, with 1-2 solid to good years mixed in, and being a league average starter at worst. They acknowledge he is no longer and will never again be an ace, but that he is still a valuable pitcher and that his 26 million dollar a year contract is not necessarily an albatross.

There are reasons to believe at age 31 King Felix is not done, and still has a few good seasons left in the tank. No one disputes that his best seasons are behind him, but baseball is full of examples of pitchers who had some great seasons well into their 30s. While his recent DL stint for shoulder inflammation is concerning, he has been relatively healthy throughout his career, and avoided major arm injuries. He has a “workhorse” type frame that has proven to be pretty durable and could translate that to several more solid seasons. Also he may have lost quite a bit on his fastball, but he still has good secondary pitches. He had good seasons in 2014 and 15’ when he had already experienced a pretty sharp decline in velocity. Most flamethrowers go through it, what do they do when they don’t quite have the gidddyup on the fastball anymore? Do they have the secondary stuff to adjust? So far Felix has shown he does, but for the past season and half things just haven’t looked right.

Sometimes a pitcher just loses it. For a decade Roy Halladay was in the Cy Young conversation year in and year out. And then one day things weren’t right. He was hurt, all those innings and big games caught up to him, and that was it. Try as he may there was nothing he could do to return to where he had been, there was nothing he could do to even be an effective big league pitcher again, he was done, his body was done. We are talking about a guy who was a top 10 pitcher in baseball for 10 years, who went from runner up for the Cy Young to out of baseball in less than 18 months. Halladay at his peak was better than Felix, and for a few more years, but when you look at his baseball-reference page there is one sobering fact you will notice. He hit the wall around 2500 innings. Felix is pretty much there too… Not saying that is his destiny, but it gives one pause.

The other end of the spectrum of course is Roger Clemens. He had almost exactly the same number of innings at the end of his age 31 season as Felix has now. He had a history of arm injuries and hit a major decline during his age 30-33 seasons. So much so the Red Sox essentially gave up on him. Obviously we now know he was not done, whether by chemical or other means The Rocket resurrected his career in Toronto and went on to win four more Cy Young awards and move into the discussion of greatest right handed pitchers of all-time.

No one would dream that Felix can do what Clemens did. Clemens in his 20s was as good as any right handed pitcher who ever lived. His late career success can at least in some part be contributed to performance enhancers. However, if you want to point to a pitcher who hit a slump around age 30 and then rebounded for another solid decade Clemens is a good example. There have been other pitchers who were much better in their 30s than the previous decade, such as Randy Johnson, but aside from being a physical freak, the Big Unit only had about half the career innings as King Felix entering his age 31 season. Many of the other examples of pitchers blossoming or maintaining through their 30s are pitchers who relied less on their fastball, even at the beginning of their careers and thus probably had less strain on their arms.

The most statistically similar pitcher to King Felix through his age 30 season is Don Sutton, according to Baseball Reference.  This was an interesting comparable. At his zenith, Sutton was never as good as peak Felix. He was not a dominating pitcher once he hit his mid-30s, but he was still a league average pitcher and was a solid rotation guy into his early 40s, and pieced together a complete body of work which put him in the Hall of Fame and deservedly so. He won over 300 games, won an ERA title and made 4 All-Star appearances. If Felix can put together a similar career arc he will be headed for Cooperstown too, though I would say his best years are behind him in this scenario. Felix is under contract through the 2019 seasons so by then the Mariners should have a pretty good, or at least much better idea as to where on this possible career arc The King is.

So what is most likely in terms of where Felix is? Is he done, or will he soon return to dominant form. Of course it is hard to know for sure, but it is important to remember that with most athletes we sometimes miss the first signs of their decline. I would argue that the first signs of Felix decline have been apparent for at least two years, He is still a good pitcher, when healthy, and pitches with quite a bit of confidence. However, he has not had Cy Young quality “stuff” since sometime during the middle of the 2015 season. As fans one of the hardest things we face is the realization one of our heroes is on the decline. This afflicts organizations too, its why teams give over the hill veterans 7 year contracts, or why an aging veteran still plays SS or CF even though their wheels have slowed.

I would love to believe that King Felix has a lot more left in the tank. That he will throw 2000-2500 more innings and become an inner circle hall of famer. If you had asked me in 2014 if I thought that was possible I would have said yes. Now, it seems a very unlikely wish. King Felix has seen his fastball velocity decline to about 89-91 on average. He still has a great changeup, but the velocity difference with the fastball is very small now, making it a bit less effective. He also lacks the command he enjoyed in his prime, as evidenced by his career high walk rate last year. That is not to say he cannot be a solid member of a contending rotation, but he will not be able to anchor it.

If we were to look at best case type scenarios for King Felix, I think something like Don Sutton or David Cone would be best case scenarios. David Cone was a flame throwing star in his 20s who hit a rough patch in his early 30s. He then had some very good years in his mid-30s with some great Yankee teams. Do I think Felix could do this? Yes, it is possible. Is it likely? Probably not. Felix is at just about 2500 innings now, there is a laundry list of good to very good pitchers who hit a wall once they get into the 2200-2500 innings range. I have mentioned Roy Halladay, but CC Sabathia is another, Jake Peavy, Bret Saberhagen, even the great Pedro Martinez. It also seems that innings logged in a pitchers 20s are harder than pitchers who log major innings starting later on and going through their 30s. There aren’t a lot of great examples of pitchers who logged over 2000 innings before age 30 who were able to continue that kind of workload over the next decade. Randy Johnson threw only about 1250 innings before his age 30 season, Jamie Moyer entered his 30s with only about 850 innings, Warren Spahn only threw about 1300 innings in his 20s. Sure there are guys like Sutton and Clemens who were workhorses in their 20s and continued it through their 30s, but those kind of pitchers are pretty rare.

Perhaps that is part of what separates the mortals from the immortals. There are a lot of really good pitchers who ended their careers with about 2500-3000 innings in the big leagues. Few of them are in the hall of fame. In baseball part of immortality is longevity. It may not be fair, but unless at your peak you are an absolutely transcendent talent than your chances of making the hall of fame are not great. There are a lot of really good players who are not in the Hall of Fame and who may never be. It’s premature to say Felix will not make it to Cooperstown, but he probably needs at least 3-5 more solid years, or 10 more serviceable years to be in the conversation. At this point he is a pitcher who had a 7 year peak as one of the top pitchers in the game, but that will not be enough. Tim Lincecum won 2 Cy Young’s as did Bret Saberhagen, neither of the did or will sniff enshrinement.

So what do I think is the most likely end to the story that is King Felix career? If you look at the history of similar players you cannot be optimistic. There is always the chance he will find another gear and keep plugging away through the next decade, but given the evidence of the past couple of years along with looking at historical comps, I fell that is doubtful. The most likely scenario is that he has 1-2 more decent to good seasons, but I think it is almost a foregone conclusion that his days as a front line starter ended in 2015. Do I think he will still be in a big league rotation in 5 years at age 36? Probably not.

The Mariners are going to have to make some decisions about Felix and sooner than most fans would probably want to admit. Right now they are paying him 27 million a year and he is under contract for 2 ½ more seasons. At what point do the Mariners try to shop him and see what value they can get for him? We are talking a pitcher who has been performing at about replacement level for almost two years and is eating up a tremendous amount of payroll. Will anyone be willing to take on any of that salary? And who could they get for him anyway at this point? That is all conjuncture right now and probably depends on his health, but for Mariner fans and the organization the sooner they realize that the new Felix will never be the old one, the sooner they can move on to the next ace to build their franchise around.

Felix will always have a special place in the hearts of Mariner fans. He came along at a time when the fans needed a new hero, and he has given us everything we could have asked for. But we need to realize that in life, when you blink, it is over. Time goes by faster than you think. It is a bit sobering to think about the fact that someone who is younger than me, is past their professional and physical prime. Most would consider me a young man still, but I am made aware daily that I am not as young as I once was. It is an odd thing as a life long sports fan. You grow up watching college sports and the athletes seem so old and mature, professional athletes practically seem like wizened old men. Then you get a bit older and they could be your older brother, then you are the same age, and finally athletes who you remember getting drafted are announcing their retirement after hall of fame careers. It is one of the way we as sports fans mark our lives. With the passing of the careers of those we revere, and from time to time we are filled with emotion as we remember what they were, how they captivated us, how each fastball was a possibility, and each new season full of limitless potential. Then we realize as with our lives, and as it is with all things, that it all must end and blossom into a new season, whatever that may be.  

Western Conference Finals Game One: Predictably and Disappointingly Predictable.

First off let me start with this. I am a little confused by the NBA playoff schedule. How do the Western Conference Finals begin before the Eastern Conference semis have ended? Wouldn’t it have made more sense for game seven between Boston and Washington to be held today and then to start the WCF on Monday? How long did Adam Silver want the Cavs to rest before they had to play again? I hope the Cavs get back from their exotic vacation locales in time for the ECF to start. At this rate they may forget there is still basketball to play, or at least get confused and think they get to go straight to the finals.

For the first 30 minutes of the Western Finals game one I thought perhaps we were not destined to see a 3^rd straight Warriors vs. Cavs final. Or at least it looked as if there was a chance of some “new blood” making it there. Of course a lot of that would depend on what you qualify as “new blood,” as the Spurs are certainly not that. However, this is now unquestioningly Kawai’s team, and for just a moment, or a bit more than a moment, it appeared as if the Spurs might have something to say. Then of course Kawai landed on Pachulia’s foot, headed to the locker room and things went sideways before Greg Popovich even knew what was going on.

Poetry in motion. When the Spurs are rolling, that is the analogy I use to describe watching them. It is cliché, and it is meant to be. The Spurs are a bit cliché and have been for the better part of two decades now. What is that line in “Walk the Line,” where June Carter says to a young Johnny Cash that his sound is “steady like a train, and sharp like a razor.” At their zenith, the Spurs are this. They do not have the razzle and dazzle of the Warriors, or the star power of the Cavs, but they are the maximum sum of their parts, and when it is all working together it is something to behold. We all know what the Spurs are, they are the same every year, they are never the most exciting or sexiest team, but they are always there. Our one true constant, the rock of the NBA. 

In the first quarter this afternoon, everything was coming together for the Spurs. They started with lock down defense and the Warriors were missing everything. The Spurs were exerting their will on the boards and LaMarcus was creating mismatches and hitting those mid-range fall away jumpers and long 2’s that the analytics crowd hates so much. The Warriors looked like they were trying to shake off the rust, while the Spurs looked like they were carrying the momentum from game 6 against the Rockets straight into Oracle Arena. And then of course Kawai! Oh Kawai! After missing game 6 on Thursday many wondered if he would be 100% for game one. He was, and then some. After driving from the top of the key, taking off just past the free throw line and tomahawking down a one handed dunk late in the first quarter, you could almost hear the air go out of Oracle Arena.

The Warriors looked small, their shots weren’t falling and the Spurs roared to a 46-21 advantage. My buddy Yev, started messaging me “The Spurs have got this!,” “I think the Spurs have a real chance!”

Well yes, I suppose they had a chance. Even up 25 though I knew that the 3^rd quarter still had to be played, and for those who don’t know. The 3^rd quarter is when the Warriors roll. As soon as Yev texted me, the Warriors went on an 11-0 run, I go cold feet and messaged back something like “Not so fast, the Dubs are getting hott.”

The Spurs were having none of it though, and rebounded to take a 20 point lead at the half. The ABC halftime show sounded like a Spurs love fest and a Warriors funeral. I think I counted the phrase “Warriors look rusty” a good 5-6 times. Things were setting up for a shake up of the Cavs/Warriors playoffs domination narrative. And thank God. All the good storylines of this playoffs have gone up in smoke so far it seems, save for Isaiah Thomas putting the Celtics on his back in the wake of tragedy. Westbrook/Harden turned into a colossal dud, and even the Spurs/Rockets series went out with a whimper. Hopes that Lob City, could make one last splash in the post season melted away in the first round and the Jazz ended up being nothing more than a sacrificial lamb to the Dubs in round two. The biggest personal disappointment to me was the Baby Bucks blowing the series lead to the Raptors and nixing a potentially great 2^nd round matchup with the Cavs.

So where does that leave us? With the hope the Wizards can wrest game 7 from the Celtics and then give the Cavs a series (Because we know the Celtics cannot.), and the prayer the Spurs can push the Warriors to at least 6 games. Aside from that we have what we have seen so far, the worst playoffs in recent memory, and it really has not been close.

But for 2 ½ quarters on Sunday afternoon it looked as if perhaps the playoffs were about to get interesting. LaMarcus was exploiting mismatches, Kawai was Kawai, Patty Mills was relatively effective, and Manu was not absolutely terrible (Even though he looked like a 55 year old man on the court, Tony Romo would probably look less out of place in an NBA game at this point.). The Warriors made a few mini runs, but every time the Spurs would answer, the lead they had built early on just looked to insurmountable. Even when Curry started to get going, Kawai had an answer, either with an offensive rebound, a no look pass to a streaking Aldridge, or a corner 3. It looked like the Spurs were going to control the game and steal one at Oracle.

Then a scare! After draining a 3 from the corner Kawai stepped back and landed on a teammates foot on the landing, he winced in pain and continued down court. A few minutes later, he shot from the corner, veteran piece of shit Zaza Puchulia slid his food under and down Kawai came on it. Game, set, match, up by 20, but done for, just like that.

The NBA is a funny league. In most sports the equivalent of a 20 point lead would have been safe at that late stage (Unless you are the Atlanta Falcons in the Super Bowl.). A football team would have run out the clock, a baseball team would have brought in a reliever and shut it down. But as soon as Kawai went out the ABC broadcast team immediately proclaimed “This is a dangerous time for the Spurs!”

Are you fucking kidding me! Up 20 late in the 3^rd quarter and this is a dangerous time?! This is a team that just beat the Rockets on the road in a close out game by 39 WITHOUT Kawai. But as soon as he exited game one it was for some reason a death knell. And you knew it within about a minute. The Warriors immediately went on a 16-0 run to cut the lead to single digits and the rest at that point was a given. Sure the final score was a respectably close 113-111, but the final score does not belie the fact. The Spurs blew a massive lead once their top player exited the game. Suddenly Aldridge couldn’t do shit, and all the parts looked out of sorts. No more poetry, this was Johnny drunk/high and kicking out the headlights at the Opry.

I guess I could focus on the comeback, on Steph Curry’s second half explosion. How for the final 18 minutes the Warriors looked like the unstoppable Warrior juggernaut we have gotten used to. But that was not the real story of this game, it was more about the Spurs melting down the stretch, about that steady train jumping the tracks, that sharp razor as dull as a butter knife after Kawai’s injury. Losing any game in which you held a 25 point lead is tough to recover from, but how do you recover from blowing a game like that in the Western Conference Finals on the road? If there is any way the Spurs recover from this they forget about it, move on, and pray to God that Kawai is healthy. 

After the 2013 NBA Finals I thought we had seen the last of the Spurs. I couldn’t imagine any team could lose a title in that kind of heartbreaking fashion with a cast of characters so far past their prime, and rebound. Perhaps I underestimated Pop and Duncan, the system, the heart of a champion, maybe I was wrong in thinking the Big 3 were unstoppable (No one is, besides Jordan in his prime.), or it could have been I never saw Kawai coming (Who did? At least like this? The late first round pick out of San Diego State, a guy who looked like a solid rotation guy, not an MVP candidate.). But there they were one year later for revenge, not just revenge, but they absolutely ran the Heat off the court and indirectly ended the big 3.

So if any team can come back from this kind of disaster it would be the Spurs. But of course this is much different incarnation of the team. Duncan has ridden off into the sunset, Parker is injured, and Manu is a corpse on the basketball court. Really the whole series, or whether or not they can steal a game or two rests on the health of Kawai and whether or not LaMarcus plays like an all-star or a guy with a heart problem. For a moment today we got a glimpse of what a competitive series might look like, but in the end Kawai’s bum ankle may have put that to bed halfway through game one.

It is sad how predictable the NBA can be. There really are no Cinderella stories at this level and in a way it is the fans who lose. We came into this season knowing it was going to end up with the Cavs and the Warriors and halfway through the NBA playoffs nothing has shown us otherwise. It is almost as if Adam Silver had a little wire attached to Kawai’s ankle, whoa there big fella! Getting a little close to throwing off the plot!

I have some friends who claim the NBA is rigged. Today would have been exhibit A I suppose. Kawai goes down, the announcers proclaim “the Spurs are in trouble,” and suddenly all hell breaks loose. I guess the only thing keeping it from turning into the WWE is the fact that Pachulia just did the old, step under the shooter trick instead of whacking Kawai with a steel chair. I think everyone else was in on it except for me, the idiot Spurs fan watching at home. The announcers knew, the Warriors knew, the fans definitely knew. Within two minutes it was as if a tsunami had engulfed the Spurs. Suddenly Aldridge was throwing up his usual bricks from mid-range, Mills couldn’t stop dribbling off his foot, and Steph Curry couldn’t miss. Go figure, the team that rolled Houston by 39 without Kawai, couldn’t help but get steamrolled without him today.

Perhaps, it was the way he went down that rendered the Spurs unable to recover. Perhaps, the game was rigged. More likely the Warriors are just that much better than anyone else. The Spurs were hitting on all cylinders and then, there was that brief flicker of opportunity for the Dubs, and there they went. Kicked that finely tuned machine into high gear and they were gone. I couldn’t help, but think back to game one of the playoffs against the Blazers, it seems like half a lifetime ago, but that is just how the NBA playoffs go. It was actually just under a month ago, the Blazers were hanging tough, McCollum and Lillard were having monster games, and then whoosh, it was over. Just like that. There were only two questions remaining after the game today.

How bad would the Warriors have lit up the Rockets?

And.

Can the Spurs and Kawai recover enough to make game two interesting.