Occupy John Wall Street: A 2012 NBA Season Preview

It should have been the dumbest tattoo ever inked. Or at least since Mike Tyson went tribal on his left eye. Seasoned shooting guard Jason Terry got carried away during a Mavericks team powwow at DeShawn Stevenson’s pad last October. The whole team was there, Stevenson’s personal tattoo artist as well.

Terry wanted to pump up the boys. But the usual Us Vs. The World rah-rah wasn’t cutting it this time. Not with Kobe, Phil and the Lakers gunning for another three-peat. Not with the Thunder a year older. And not with the Big Two & A Half already shopping ring insets down in South Beach.

So Jason Terry had the Larry O’Brien trophy emblazoned to his right bicep. Right then and there. He would have the tattoo removed if the Mavericks fell short. He would have to, the league smirked. Because this was the Dallas Mavericks. The Buffalo Bills of the NBA. The proverbial one-and-done team that always followed the same script: Dirk put up his 24 points a night, they’d win 50-something games, lock up a four or five seed in the West, and bow out early to some young upstart like the Blazers or the Grizzlies.

It should have been the dumbest guarantee ever uttered. Or at least since Mike Tyson called himself a “semi-good husband”. Jason Terry vowed LeBron James could not guard him for seven games.

LeBron James was en fuego. He lumbered into the NBA Finals a conquering hero. He clubbed Philly, slayed his nemesis Boston, and sliced and diced the top-seeded Chicago. All in five games. And it wasn’t simply the brevity. It was the rim-rocking ferocity. Three playoff rounds so bludgeoning that Scottie Pippen tweeted LeBron could be the “greatest player to ever play the game.” Better even than a certain teammate of his.

At long last LeBron James had come into his own. A little longer than we expected, perhaps. And not in the uniform we wanted, certainly. But, at age 26, King James was ready for the throne: a fearsome blend of athleticism, savant hoop vision, and, now, the Jordanian killer instinct.

Then there was Jason Terry. A sidekick. A grizzled veteran on a hodgepodge Dallas Mavericks team full of them. The superstitious sort, he wears five pairs of socks a game. Terry had had a solid postseason to date. He even drained nine threes against the Lakers once, but, at the end of the day, he was still… Jason Terry. The most playoff pain Jason Terry inflicted was when he once punched a San Antonio Spur in the groin.

But Jason Terry was right. LeBron James did not last seven games. He fizzled out in six.