The 2016 NBA Finals pitting the Cleveland Cavaliers against the Golden State Warriors was poised to be one of the most memorable in recent times, not the complete dud it has been through four games.
What a missed opportunity.
If you dared to dream you could see it as an exclamation point for the millennial generation, marking the moment when their NBA was every bit as compelling and important as their father’s; where Steph and LeBron could be a worthy answer for Larry and Magic or Michael vs. Everybody.
It was the series that had everything: star power; a historically great team in the Warriors going up against a Cavaliers team led by a historically great player looking for something to cement his legacy.
It was meant to be a signature moment for a faster, smaller skill-first brand of basketball.
It was Steph battling LeBron for the league’s marquee; it was LeBron battling his own playoff past to properly preserve his future.
And then the damn games started, and they were not great. They weren’t even good.
Strip the Finals of the context we so love layering on and it was three crappy games and one OK one in Game 4. It was a non-competitive series that very much looked like it was going to end in Game 5 on Monday night with the Warriors brushing aside the Cavaliers and celebrating a dominating end to a dominating season.
Yawn.
Apart from Steph Curry’s 38-point breakout in Game 4, the stars weren’t even delivering star-powered performances. The series everyone had been waiting for was decidedly ho-hum.
LeBron? The Chosen One is on the verge of being 2-5 in NBA Finals, his teams having been swept once and tossed aside in five twice. His mission to bring Cleveland its first championship win since 1964 would be decidedly non-accomplished. He weakness as a shadow GM would be exposed (Kevin Love for Andrew Wiggins, really?) and there was more ammunition for the ‘He’s no Jordan crowd.’
But either by luck, circumstances or – as so many prefer – the work of the NBA’s giant unseen hand, the 2016 Finals got a giant, juicy reprieve with the announcement of the suspension of the Warriors’ Draymond Green for Game 5 for his not-so-loving tap to King James’ royal jewels in the waning moments of Game 4.
In one fell swoop the series’ competitive balance has been reset and – more importantly – we get a taste of bad blood in a league that has worked very hard to shy away from that kind of thing.
Suddenly you had the Warriors’ Klay Thompson basically mocking James for being too sensitive and James – confirming the parchment paper quality of his skin – clearly taking offence to being called out for taking offence.
These weren’t sticks and stones being thrown, but the words were doing a decent job. It started when James and Green tangled up at the end of Game 4 while Green was setting a screen. James threw Green to the floor – or was it a flop? – and then stepped over him rather than around him, looking very much like the alpha raising his leg to pee.
Green took umbrage and swatted James. They started jawing and then Green called James the feminine adjective for dog.
"Some of the words that came out of his mouth were a little bit overboard," sniffed James after Game 4. "And being a guy with pride, a guy with three kids and a family, things of that nature, some things just go overboard and that’s where he took it."
You could almost hear the Warriors snicker at the idea that Green calling the behemoth James – in his 13th year in the NBA – names could somehow even register, or you could just look at the tweet by Golden State forward Marreese Speights of a baby bottle emoji.
"I don’t know how the man feels," said Thompson. "But obviously people have feelings and people’s feelings get hurt even if they’re called a bad word. I guess his feelings just got hurt. I mean, we’ve all been called plenty of bad words on the basketball court before. Some guys just react to it differently."
Told that Thompson accused him of being hypersensitive, James doubled down on his sudden need for propriety in the NBA Finals.
"I’m not going to comment on what Klay said because I know where it can go," said James, who denied he was stepping over Green for any other reason than getting back into the play. "It’s so hard to take the high road. I’ve been doing it for 13 years. It’s so hard to continue to do it, and I’m going to do it again.
"At the end of the day, we’ve got to go out and show up and play better (Monday) night; and if we don’t, then they’re going to be back-to-back champions, and that’s it.
"But I’ve taken the high road again."
At which point Steph Curry’s wife Ayesha chimed in with a tweet of her own:
The whole event served to provide the occasion for proper on-court etiquette for trash talk, which was fun: "I mean, I grew up with brothers, too, so when we would play, we’d always try to put each other down," said Thompson. "I grew up with a lot of friends close in age and competitive. But you just, like I said before, don’t bring anybody’s family. That’s the only time it really crosses the line, is bringing someone’s family into it or talking about race or gender or something. But when it’s just bad words or something or some cuss words, man, that’s emotions. You let it go and you let it stay on the court."
Even Curry, who comes across as the NBA’s most easy-listening superstar, says talking trash has a place when tempers rise.
"Knowing the game of basketball and the competition, there’s going to be chatter back and forth," said Curry, who has been taking heat in his own right for his new sneaker line, which Twitter has bestowed the dreaded ‘Dad shoes’ label. "I got into it with guys at times. You obviously never get personal with it, and I don’t think from my recollection of hearing what was said, I don’t think it crossed the line in that regard.
"But trash-talking is part of the game. You’ve got to give it; you’ve got to be able to take it."
Again James would beg to differ. You could almost envision him running to tell the teacher about the mean kids at recess.
"I think we all know what’s crossing the line no matter if you’re playing basketball or if you’re playing video games or we’re playing catch or you’re double-dutching it," he said. "I mean, we know what’s crossing the line. We know what words cross the line, male or female. And ever since Draymond came into the league, I’ve been someone that he can always talk to and things of that nature. But he crossed the line last game. He felt like I crossed the line. We said what we had to say. So we’re in a competitive series right now, and I think right now friendship is the last thing we’re thinking about."
The unfortunate thing is that due to his suspension, Green – perhaps the NBA’s most notorious trash-talker – wasn’t available to comment.
But the fortunate thing? His forced absence gives a series that was endlessly anticipated, yet hugely disappointed, a second chance to be something more than a coronation.
Cleveland’s hopes remain alive. The Warriors’ road to history just got a little tougher.
Those words don’t hurt one bit.