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<div class="at-above-post-homepage addthis_tool" data-url="https://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/essays/secret-history-2017-nba-finals/"></div><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">There is a secret history of NBA basketball lurking so obviously in the corners of whatever brightly lit, overcrowded, and garbage-filled memory palaces we’ve reserved for sports as to render us dumb. It is a somewhat sad day when these hidden narratives, these fonts of wide-eyed near-conspiracies, begin to coalesce into reality, as basketball is, to me, a beautiful sport, one of vision, balance, tactility, and hearing; the arc of a jump shot or the devastation of a crossover executed at the right moment only matched by the soft sound of the net or the feel of a perfectly inflated ball bouncing through a barely humid twilight. One can imagine Pete Maravich (before he became Pistol Pete, mustachioed star of the New Orleans Jazz) dribbling outside the window of the family car as his dad drove down the block, not only as a vaguely insane way to practice, but as a way to anchor himself to reality. A very American way to anchor himself to reality.</span> <a href="https://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/essays/secret-history-2017-nba-finals/#more-4380" class="more-link">Read more</a></p>
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The Secret History of the 2017 NBA Finals

John Rossiter is a writer and retail employee living in Los Angeles.