Looking Back on the 2011/12 NBA Season Part 1
A recap of the biggest stories from the 2011-12 season.
The Lockout
The season officially started on Christmas Day, but really it began with men in suits shouting at each other in a boardroom. Team owners and the players’ union collided, arguing over money and player freedom. To the fans, all we really cared about was: will we have a season, and, if so, how long will it be? Players left to ball abroad, while the season’s supposed start date came and went without a game in sight.
Eventually, a new Collective Bargaining Agreement was agreed upon and teams rushed to be ready for opening day. Players came and went in signings and trades. Here’s your contract—now lose those pounds, meet your new team-mates and learn these plays, quick. Training camp and preseason flew by, and finally the season arrived. Christmas Day felt like the perfect time for the season to begin. TV ratings started high and stayed that way. A shorter, 66-game season lent a greater importance to every matchup.
So why not start every season on Christmas Day instead of some arbitrary date in October? That the playoffs would run well into the summer seems to be the main reason cited, meaning the season would clash with the Olympics, the World Championships, and a number of other tournaments. The league doesn’t want this kind of competition for viewers.
Well, what about starting on Christmas Day but having a shorter season again? I preferred the 66-game schedule; every game felt important and there were fewer grind-it-out January games that even players struggle to get motivated for. But that’s asking owners to pass up 16 games’ worth of attendance money. Also, this season was brutally compacted. Back-to-back-to-back games were common. Players dealt with it as an inevitable result of the lockout, but they wouldn’t put up with such a backbreaking schedule every year. And a more forgiving 66-game schedule starting at Christmas would also stretch into the summer.
The Miami Heat as NBA champions
Redemption for Lebron James, a second title for Dwyane Wade, and a championship for a team that may as well have worn targets on their uniforms. The Heat hate—so fiery ever since Lebron promised a thousand titles when the Big Three were introduced—was somewhat doused by Miami’s win. James seemed humbled when accepting the trophy and for a brief moment the Lebron criticism-machine paused. Whether we witnessed the start of a legacy or not remains to be seen, but there was a historic feel to this title.
Linsanity
Everything that could ever be said about Jeremy Lin’s arrival has been said. But I won’t let that stop me.
Was the media attention Lin received proportional to his level of play? No, but people love stories, and Lin’s was a great one. After being released by Golden State, Lin was an afterthought in New York, there only as an understudy in case other guards got hurt. Sure enough, injuries befell New York’s backcourt and Lin got his chance. Boom. 25 and 7 on Deron Williams and the Nets, 28 and 8 the next game against the Jazz, 38 against the Lakers, a game-winning shot against the Raptors. Lin coverage went global.
Lin couldn’t continue on that level, but he still played well. Then he too went down with an injury. His season ended, now so has his time in New York—he’s a Houston Rocket now. The ‘problem’ with Lin is his spotlight burned so brightly that, even if he has a solid NBA career, it will be seen by some as a disappointment. If he goes from relative obscurity to a good starter for a playoff team, that should be enough. But some fans will remember his sensational games as a Knick and wonder why he can’t repeat that success.
Not to make a comparison between the three, but it’s worth bearing in mind that Mike D’Antoni’s system—which got so much from Lin—also got weeks of great play from both Chris Duhon and Raymond Felton, before they regressed to the mean.
Ricky Rubio
After Lin, Rubio was the backup family-friendly story of the season, a charming young Spaniard bringing fun and wins to a Minnesota franchise deprived of both. He charmed those willing to watch a Timberwolves game with his no-look passes and energy and long-limbed defence. And then his ACL ripped and his season ended horribly and Minnesota’s playoffs hope sunk. Which leads me to…
ACLs
Tearing one’s Anterior Cruciate Ligament was the fashionable injury of the year, with Derrick Rose, Ricky Rubio, Iman Shumpert and Baron Davis all notably taken down. Rose’s injury maimed his team’s championship hopes. Both he and Rubio had to miss the Olympics. Davis’ injury was more complex as he tore his MCL (Medial Cruciate Ligament) too, and there are some who think his career might be over.
Can anything positive that can be found amid this pile of torn ligaments? Yes, evidence of progress in medical treatment and injury rehabilitation.
Nowadays, players may miss a season from a torn ACL, but not so long ago it could’ve ended their careers. Even into the mid-90s, if a player fell prey to this injury, his career was likely over. At best, he might’ve returned as a shadow of his former self, his athleticism but a spirit that left his body forever on the night he hit the floor. But improved surgical procedures and rehab mean that an ACL tear is more likely now a speed bump instead of a career-ending crash.
