Joseph D'Amico
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Scott Spreitzer
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Dave Price
Dave Price's Priceless Picks have proven to be worth their price from the first day he broke into the handicapping industry.
Ben Burns
Ben Burns burst onto the sports betting scene in the 1990s, first making his selections available to the public in 1998.
A legacy is set to be stamped by The Sports Network
Ask old time baseball guys to talk about the greatest hitter of all-time and they will almost universally shout out Ted Williams. This despite the fact that “Teddy Ballgame” never captured a World Series championship.
Ask the Baby Boomers who the greatest player is and more often than not you will hear the name Barry Bonds, warts and all. Steroids, a surly personality and the lack of a championship are just white noise in the background.
Over in the NFL when you talk about pure passers, Dan Marino will get tabbed again and again even though the Pittsburgh native possesses none of the Lombardi Trophies that have made “The Steel City” famous.
Basketball is a bit different. It’s not that observers don’t recognize the greatness of players like Elgin Baylor, Charles Barkley, Karl Malone, John Stockton and Patrick Ewing but the fact that they all lack hardware disqualifies them when people start handing out the mythical titles of greatest forward, point guard or center.
Dirk Nowitzki and LeBron James are already members of that club and one is about to be elevated in the coming days by finally securing the game’s biggest prize.
Dirk and Dallas bested Oklahoma City in five games while LeBron and his Heat did the same to Chicago. The series were almost mirror images as both the Thunder and Bulls would play well at times but falter down the stretch as Nowitzki and James would take over.
Dirk, of course, got to the NBA Finals in 2006 and he and his Mavericks won the first two games against Miami before falling apart and losing four straight. LeBron and the Cavaliers had their chance a year later but Tim Duncan and San Antonio had other ideas, unceremoniously sweeping them.
This time around, Nowitzki awaits the Heat with a more defensive-minded club behind him, a better coach and a better understanding of how to trust his teammates in big situations.
Never a top-tier on-ball defender, the German star has developed into a solid help defender and is much tougher. Offensively, Nowitzki has unquestionably been the best player in this postseason and swiped the mantle of best closer from Kobe Bryant
James has also matured after a disastrous, selfish and narcissistic final few months in Cleveland. His “Decision” to publicly spurn the Cavs on ESPN turned off the entire country and morphed him into the games’ biggest villain.
Six months since getting off to a pedestrian 9-8 start, Miami now has home- court advantage on the game’s biggest stage and James’ best basketball has come during the biggest moments.
While most will swoon over his monster shots in tight situations, James’ true progression in these playoffs came on the other end of the floor. His willingness to check Derrick Rose down the stretch is something that never happened in Cleveland. LeBron has always had the lateral movement and length to guard any perimeter player in the NBA. With a championship in sight, he finally took the plunge and became everything people thought he could be.
The brilliant Italian philosopher Galileo once said: “All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.”
The “truth” is a funny thing. You can bend it and twist it but you can’t change it. Nowitzki and James were already two of the best basketball players to ever lace them up.
Unfortunately only one is about to be “discovered.”
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