Mortality and Other Lessons from Sports by Prospero Pulma Jr.

Mortality and Other Lessons from Sports

Yesterday’s champions are today’s whipping boys or worse…doormats. That is one additional lesson that can be picked from sports and be added to the usual lessons on teamwork, sportsmanship, professionalism, etc. The current NBA Playoffs is one good classroom where the value of mortality even among sports supermen can be picked up.
In the early half of the decade, the Pistons and Spurs were feared clubs. Woe to the team that faced them early in the playoffs for they would surely be taken to school, the school of no-nonsense basketball defense that is. Back then, it was much accepted that they were some of the biggest humps that an ambitious team had to hurdle, the Mr. Everests of the world’s basketball premier league. And where are they now? The Cavaliers routed the Motown boys in four games while it took the Mavs, another fading team, five games to kick the Spurs out of the playoffs.
On examination of the rosters of Detroit and San Antonio, one thing is evident: it is populated by old warhorses like Duncan, Parker, Wallace, and Hamilton. Billups, one of the anchors of the Piston franchise that won Detroit its third title and an old man by NBA standards, was spared from spending the last years of his career in an aging team by his timely shipment to the much younger and more dynamic Denver Nuggets. Sure, they are veterans that could still a kick a cocky young player’s ass but against well-oiled machines like the Cavs, they huff and they puff and still could not blow the opposition away. Even the Boston Celtics, itself staffed by geriatric cagers, had to endure a drawn-out hardcourt brawl with the rising Chicago Bulls before winning their series and advancing only to face another young club, the Orlando Magic.
Aside from the dropping statistics and more frequent injuries, the NBA’s aging champions have to swallow the bitter truth that their feared day when another team would easily sweep them away has arrived. But looking back at their careers, maybe they will not be so saddened by their current state because when they were young and strong, they too beat their fading sports heroes. Perhaps, they could share this with the youth who worship them.


- Prospero Pulma Jr. -

The Gatekeepers of the East by Prospero Pulma Jr.

The Gatekeepers of the East

For the past five seasons, any team in the NBA Eastern Conference has to add the Detroit Pistons to their playoffs plans. Michigan's Bad Boys don't only own the record of humiliating a star-studded L.A. Lakers in the 2004 NBA Finals, they also earned the distinction of making five consecutive appearances in the Eastern Conference Finals with little changes in its lineup, with Ben Wallace's defection to Chicago as the most prominent. So, if any club is dead serious in displaying the Larry O'Brien trophy in its cabinet, it must solve the Detroit puzzle first. Okay, the Miami Heat solved that one last year but the Heat got drubbed by the Chicago Bulls in this season's first round elimination. In turn, Detroit sent the Bulls packing after six games and are now facing a resurgent Cleveland Cavaliers under King James. The Pistons are battle-scarred veterans while the Cavaliers are relatively green in the playoffs department, so the Bad Boys (a misnomer because the Pistons are mild mannered, with the exception of Rasheed Wallace, compared to other teams,) are the natural favorites.

Is Detroit destined to receive a second ring after three years? Hopefully. But upsets do happen. Just remember the 2004 NBA Finals. And oh, yes, the huge kick in the butt that the Dallas Mavericks got from the Golden State Warriors and, of course, the Bull run that gored the defending champions.

By Prospero E. Pulma Jr.