Don’t act like that can’t happen.
— Second-half predictions: Three teams will rise
— Power rankings: Guess who is on top
— SI: The biggest questions of the second half: What's next for the Knicks
Don’t laugh it off because when Dwyane Wade mugged Kobe Bryant in the second half of Sunday’s All-Star Game, broke his nose and gave him a concussion, it was in a lighthearted, fan-friendly exhibition that didn’t mean anything in the standings.
And don’t act like the Lakers can’t make it to the NBA Finals, giving Kobe a chance to inflict full retaliation on Wade’s Miami Heat crew, just because the Lakers are wheezing and geezing their way through an injury-riddled, trade-clouded, new-regime-disrupting season so far.
You know that even if Bryant does eventually exhibit concussion symptoms—it was still a blow to the head, despite the Lakers denying he’d suffered one—loss of memory will not be one of them.
All-Star games really aren’t supposed to produce this much drama, are they? For all the talk every year about how the old-timers played the games hard and for keeps, the way these kids today decidedly do not ... has a beef ever carried over from one of them?
Maybe the Great Michael Jordan Freeze-Out of 1985, but that’s got to be it.
Until now.
If we’re lucky.
Good, then, for the All-Star Game, which was reaching new depths of ferociously-enacted non-competition, and driving its last bastion of defenders over the edge, until Wade went Bad Boys on Kobe in the third quarter. Amazingly, Wade admitted what he’d done and why.
It was in total contrast to the summer-league pro-am feel of that, and most other, All-Star get-togethers. It also immediately and completely changed the tone of the game from then on.
Don’t be shocked if we later discover a fistful of wadded-up hundred-dollar bills in both Wade’s and Bryant’s possessions, with David Stern’s fingerprints all over them.
Hey, one team scored 88 in the first half, with more uncontested dunks than in the actual dunk contest. Can you blame the commish?
Whatever the motivation, it suddenly got real, and it came down to the last couple of possessions. Which brings us to the warm-up act for the Revenge Tour—LeBron James turning down a shot to tie or win the game in the final seconds in favor of passing off to Wade. And getting an earful from an opposing player about his deficiency in late-game courage.
That opposing player: Kobe Bryant. Head too foggy to speak publicly afterward, but clear enough to stick the needle in during the critical moment of the game. And to know exactly who to stick it to, and where.
Meaningless. Yeah, right.
So now we’ve got plotlines to follow the rest of the season—to our great fortune, starting this Sunday, when Miami and its league-leading record travels to L.A. to play the Lakers in the day’s marquee TV game.
The Lakers, as they currently stand, are in no position to hold up their end of the matchup. They’re a mess. They could get messier, even if deals are made to make them better. Pau Gasol or Andrew Bynum (or both) could go out; Dwight Howard and some major upgrade at point guard could come in. Rasheed Wallace, of all people, is reportedly on his way. They talked to Gilbert Arenas, for goodness’s sake.
This won’t be the all-time reality-show lineup of 2003-04, with the Kobe courtroom/locker room doubleheaders, but it will certainly be watchable.
Yet the one aspect that could take this Lakers season to the next level on every front is Bryant himself.
Kobe got serious in the middle of an All-Star Game, a rival got serious right back, and Bryant came back and upped the ante again. The best in the NBA challenged him, and he challenged them right back and won—and it was just an exhibition.
Now the games count again. He’s banged up, again, but expect the scowl to get darker, the teeth-gritting firmer, the focus tighter ... the hunger for vengeance devouring everything in sight.
Of course, none of this might transpire. But it will be fun seeing if it does. For us, at least.
For Wade and LeBron? Not so much.
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