There’s a fundamental problem when you anoint a new era in a sport before the finals is played. Your new era guy might lose out to the old era guy.
A few weeks ago, Sports Illustrated ran Kevin Durant on the cover with the big headline declaring: “The New Era.”
Then mockingly, it had a small insert of an old SI cover declaring LeBron James as “The New Era.” Hey, LeBron, you are so yesterday.
Well, now we all know the rest of the story. James and the Heat defeated Oklahoma City in five games.
As a result, SI went back to the old era with James on the cover this week. Lee Jenkins wrote a post finals piece with the now official King of basketball.
Who knows? Perhaps the Durant cover inspired James?
And who knows? Perhaps Durant was done in by yet another tale of the SI cover jinx?
Shortly before game 1 of the NBA Finals I spoke to Lee Jenkins from his hotel in Oklahoma City. We mostly talked about the finals but at the tail end of the interview I asked Lee how SI approaches the finals. He had great information about how his first article would be due after game 3. If 2-1, Lee would write something thematic, if 3-0 he would write a more focused piece on the assumed champion. He spoke of the nightmare that would occur for the magazine if it went 7. Very interesting stuff that he explained better than I could. Check it out…
http://www.garbageradio.com/podcasts/sportscasters_s02e23.mp3
The second half of the SL Price interview in the beginning of that podcast was an incredible twitter discussion.