NBA Playoffs offer hope

There used to be a time in sports when experience meant everything. In fact, it was true as little as a year ago. The young pre-pubescent Pittsburgh Penguins, no matter how hard they tried, couldn't grow playoff beards. Thus, they never made it out of the first round of the playoffs.

The youthful Colorado Rockies, riding a tidal wave of momentum, failed to win a game in the world series against the veteran Red Sox.

But this season's NBA playoffs seem to be bucking the trend. The athletic, completely inexperienced Atlanta Hawks nearly pulled off the upset of the century before looking childish in game 7 against the Boston Celtics. And being favored at -6000, the Celtics almost cost the author of this blog a hefty penny. In fact, I planned on fleeing the continent and heading to Canada, which is why it took me so long to post this blog. But i digress.

Chris Paul didn't seem to care that he had absolutely no playoff experience either. On his way to disposing the Mavericks and jumping out to a 2-0 lead over the reigning champion Spurs, he became the first ever player to record 30 points and 10 rebounds in three of his first seven playoff games.

Even the seasoned Pistons who have around 3,300,897 games of playoff experience limped through the first round against the Sixers.

Now parity hasn't completely affected the Association, as it has, say,the NFL. In fact, there was a great article written about parity in the NFL. If I were you I'd check it out. The writer is very talented, and sexy too. Here is the link.

Actually, parity has nothing to do with this. That was just a shameless plug.

But the current state of the NBA should offer hope to other sports. Just like in the NFL, you can go from chump to champ in one short season. Not everyone has to completely re haul the roster like the Celtics did to win.

Hopefully baseball will be the next to follow suit. Maybe someday the Royals, Rays, Pirates, Orioles and Nationals can follow the lead of the Hornets, Hawks, Magic and 76ers, and actually be meaningful again. Or in the Rays case, be meaningful for once.