The End's Not Near, It's Here

In a world where sports are covered with the ferocity, there is no savoring a victory. A win comes, and immediately the talk switches from what the team/player did now to what they will do next week, or next year, or whatever. Predictions that failed miserably for the pundits don't deter them at all from telling us what will happen next year, and why. This system is most at fault with baseball, mostly because once the World Series ends everyone comes out to make the bold prediction that the Yankees and the Red Sox will be good, Skip Bayless thinks of a new nickname that demeans someone, and the cycle of life continues.

What bothers me most about this system is not the fact that it exists, for the sports world can only take so much time digesting the past. The real issue is the use of these seemingly reflection-based periods to lash out at the team that just became victorious, especially if that team is small market. The San Antonio Spurs are a great example, as most pundits can barely catch their breath after "congratulating" them on their victory before decrying the notion that they're a dynasty. No one believes that they are a dynasty, even though they've been the dominant team for the better part of this decade. Everyone's quick to call them boring, even though no one ever seems to back this claim with any real defense, especially when the team features two reckless slashers like Parker and Ginobli, and the most dominant big man of our time. Sadly, this is old hat for most of the sports media.

However, the funny part of this general injustice is how most of these folks choose to define dynasty. A fellow on Jim Rome's television show this afternoon said that, for a team to become a dynasty, it would need to win at least three in a row. Now, I wanted to confirm this, so I went to my composition notebook looking for a dynasty conversion chart, which would certainly help to prove mathematically whether or not this team was great. And you know what? There was no chart! How could Mead be so behind the times! Everyone knows the defined meanings for dynasties, superstars, big-game quarterbacks, character guys, and every other sports qualifier known to man. It's simple physics, really.

There is no way to qualify this as a dynasty, and anyone who says otherwise is wistfully trying to explain the unexplainable. Things like dynasties come into focus after time of reflection and the sweet, hazy glow of history have been glazed onto the team. My gut tells me that most people who argue against the Spurs being a dynasty do so because the team doesn't feel like a dynasty. That's because we haven't had years of Top 50 shows, masturbatory articles and books, and massive punditry to canonize it yet. Instant historians will always learn that turning to the present to get their fix will never do, because nothing will ever look as good as what came before it. Glory days don't happen, they're made.

The same people will argue that they remember what the Bulls/Celtics/Lakers dynasties felt like, and this doesn't feel the same. I can only speak to the Bulls, but they felt exactly like Spurs do right now: they scare the hell out of me when they play the Wolves, and you understand that when they come to town or are on TV they will more than likely win and handily. What team isn't scared when they see the Spurs coming up? If anything should define dynasties, it should be the amount of fear that one is struck with when possibly facing that opponent.

Those who say that the Spurs had no true opponent during their great run? Please. The Mavs, Suns, Rockets, Lakers, and Kings have all been very good during this time, and they are all in the same division. Two of them are in the same state. Also, in a league that has so many teams, for a single entity to remain dominant for so long is something that sounds fairly dynastic to me.

So, can we drop the semantics, and focus on baseball? Thanks.