My 15 Favorite HBO Seasons

15.) True Detective - Season 1

The reason for this list is based off of a discussion on a podcast I listened to asking if True Detective Season 1 is a Top-10 HBO season. The answer is no, but it isn't too far off. It's easy to mock the show given how bad the follow-up was and how disappointing the ending of the season was, undercutting all the strangeness and mysticism and brilliant acting with it stripping away the plot anchors and focusing on a fairly staid man-hunt. But before it went to hell, man were McCaughnahey and Harrelson brilliant in their respective roles. Man was the show so well written and directed. It may have been overrated by the media given it was the first real look at movie-stars doing regular TV (something that would become all too common) but let that not outshine the fact the show was really good by itself.


14.) Big Little Lies - Season 1

HBO extended the 'let's get incredible actors to do mini-series' idea further, reaching maybe a final natural resting point, with Big Little Lies. The idea that Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon (add in Laura Dern and Shailene Woodley if you want) would do an HBO show is amazing, and my word did they bring acting chops to what is a fairly rote story. Parts of the story really worked, like the brutally honest portrayal of the complications of domestic violence, and seeing Reese Witherspoon at her WASP-ey best was great. The final outcome with Kidman's husband being the man who raped Woodley's character was cute, but a little forced. It still, against all odds, set up a second season, but the first season of the show was a great use of incredible star-power packed into a well-written, brilliantly-acted show.


13.) Flight of the Conchords - Season 1

The premise of the show is silly. Take a musical comedy duo from New Zealand and give them a show playing bastardized versions of themselves with about four or five characters, with hilariously low production value. Guess what, the show was spectacularly funny, and at least in its first season roped in the Conchord's master catalogue brilliantly. Some of the songs were so well done and staged, taking their performance show and seamlessly putting it in this weird world they created. My favorite has always been the HipHopopotomous vs. the RhymeNocerous, or 'If You're Into It.' What really helped the show make a lasting memory is how good the comedy was even outside the songs. They were great at small, biting moments of awkwardness, adn things like their running jokes of New Zealand's little brother complex with Australia was a master stroke. it's a small show that is easily forgetten in HBO's sizable ouevre, but it truly shouldn't be.


12.) Show Me A Hero



11.) The Deuce - Season 1

It's a shame that Season 2 of The Deuce was a real drop-off in quality, because through its first season, The Deuce seemed to be a fairly good imitation of the tone, complexity and brilliance of The Wire. It's obviously very taboo subject matter, but was played deftly. It was a far more optimistic show than The Wire, showing more happy endings in one season (Franco's good half getting in straight with the mob, Gyllenhall's character moving to the porn production world) but still some darkness. It was a period piece for Simon, something that was still a bit new for him, and he handled it well. Looking back, there were so many tremendous moments in the show, such as everything to do with CC having to deal with him becoming more and more irrelevant, and then seeing the various prostitutes gain more independence. The Deuce could have been a classic, and while it is hard to pinpoint exactly where teh second season fell short, I would point most to the loss of the peerless Simon-esque tone that reverberated so strongly in the first season.


10.) Silicon Valley - Season 2

Overtime, Silicon Valley settled into a good but not great style that is endlessly entertaining, but early on it was slightly better than that. It was a great show in its second season, building off a nice start, but also shifting Monica into a bigger role, and adding Russ Hanneman brilliantly into the show as some weird Sean Parker type (tres commas tequila will never not be funny). Similarly, the second season is when they went heavy into Jianyang vs. Ehrlich and did some great work uncovering what was great about Gavin Belson. The show found its peak early, but to be honest I don't know if it got abny worse over time, just a bit repetitive. The 'almost crash and burn but be saved in the last second by some deus ex machina' bit was a lot more fresh the frist five times.


9.) Curb Your Enthusiasm - Season 7

To me, best HBO comedy is clearly between this and Veep, and while Veep has the higher ranked best season (spoiler!), I have two Curb's seasons ranked. The first is maybe ultimately the most memorable becuase of how well its season-long arc rebuilt the long criticized Seinfeld Finale. Denise Handicap might be one of the best episodes in the history of the show in how far it went in pushing a taboo subject. The Black Swan was a great episode as well. But at the end of the day, what truly makes the season is how well the Seinfeld story arc was woven in. That easily could have gone way off the rails. Jerry was game, Jason Alexander and Julia Louis Dreyfus were both great as always. The scene with Michael Richards and Leon in the trailer is one of the funiest pieces of comedy in teh shows run. Curb will always inextricably be linked to Seinfeld, and it drove right into tthat skid in the best way possible.


8.) Game of Thrones - Season 1

It's easy to give the show shit now, but I really hope people don't try to restrospectivelly make the early seasons out to be worse than they were. The first season didn't have the budget that the later seasons did - namely the dragons show up for like a minute. But man was it great. The settings, the spectacle, the characters with their varied introductions. Game of Thrones was a groundbreaking show, taking TV as close as it has come to film in terms of largesse, and that was apparent in the first season, with the first strikingly real scene at the Wall. The storylines in Season 1 may seem quaint now given how stuffed the character list would become, but even in Season 1 we had some great stories. None better than stupid Nedd Stark's decline, with his death being a true 'holy shit' moment, as was Dany slowly winning over the Khal (with Vyserion being burned alive) to how evil Jaime was at the time, to all the rest. Game of Thrones first season is excellent on rewatch, a fully made show that would expand each year until it reached the point of no return. Even more-so than The Wire, this is the show I wish I watched live at the time.


7.) Succession - Season 1

Much like a show to come,  this may look bad if its second season isn't that great, but holy shit was the first season of Succession awesome. It took a while to really understand what was going on, but once again the tone was set early, and from the second Logan made the speech at the charity event and took back control of running the company, teh show hit overdrive and became a true classic. Succession did the incredibly hard task of making people really care about the lives of stupid rich fucks, and get so invested in corporate back-room dealing and hysteria. There were so many smaller moments of the show beyond the Logan vs. Kendall stuff. Anything to do with Tom adn Cousin Greg, or Connor's 'wife' the hooker was incredible. The last few episodes, with 'Prague' (the bachelor party in the uinderground club) and the two-parter finale with the wedding in UK were both just stunning bits of entertaining TV in years. The season ended brillaintly, and needless to say my hopes are sky fucking high for season 2.


6.) The Young Pope - Season 1

Maybe I'm overrating it, but The Young Pope was one of the singularly most iconic, individual pieces of TV I've ever seen. There are aspects of the show that I don't know have never been matched. First the soundtrack, so effortlessly enthralling. Second, the use of light and haze in the cinematography, making it all feel so dream-like. Third, just how damn good Jude Law was in this role. From almost the first moment, his incredible mix of smarm, charm and guile was incredible to watch. The show was also so smart to make Lenny so damn hilarious, and so conservative, an amazing twist in that first episode that carried through. I'm so happy they're bringing the show back sometime late 2019/early 2020 as 'The New Pope'. This was the role Jude Law was born to play (among quite a few others, admittedly). Tone is such an important aspect of great shows (or great movies) and The Young Pope set its tone in about five minutes, and it never varied one percent through its ten episode run.


5.) Game of Thrones - Season 4

To me, this was the best Game of Thrones season, and it isn't particularly close. Oddly, this season didn't have a truly memorable 9th episode, though Watchers on the Wall plays better on rewatch. What it does have is a perfect blend of political and social drama. The stuff at King's Landing was always my favorite part of the show (my biggest issue with S7-8 is how neutered that part was), and this was that at its best. The death of Joffrey, the death of Tywin, and of course the trail of Tyron, three absolutely incredible moments of political drama. The rest of the storylines were all decent as well, with us finally figuring out what the hell the reek story was about, to Daenarys having to deal with political unrest for the first time, to so much else. This was probably the apex of the show in terms of character count as well, as it introduced Dorne (a total mis-step aside from Oberyn) and starting with Joffrey's death it would start pairing back the character count. Game of Thrones was at its absolute best as a middle-ages political drama, and the politics took center stage in its best season. We can argue what the show was about, but at its best, Game of Thrones was about the Lannisters, the people who through guile, lies and precise brillaince kept that Throne for nearly the entire run, and the Lannisters were never as front and center as they were in its best season.


4.) The Wire - Season 1

Very openly, my 'only two seasons per show' rule has kept at least one Game of Thrones season (S3) if not two (S2) off the list. I'll go with Season 1, which I already ranked as my second favorite season of The Wire, as the first entrant in the list. Again, to me the most important aspect of any tv show is tone, and The Wire sets its tone, a tone it would not lose or waver from for 60 episodes, in the first episode. The depth of characters, with cops who are more bad than good, and drug dealers who are more human than the cops. Seeing the slow fall of DeAngelo Barksdale and Wallace, the slow scheming of Avon, the alcoholic, nihilistic fury of McNulty. It takes a while to really learn how to watch the show, and maybe more than any other season I've listed, this gets better on a rewatch, when you know how 'all the pieces matter' as Freamon would say. The Wire would get better, would get more expansive and introspective, but it never got more entertaining more dynamic, than it did in its first season when it put on the best cops vs. robbers showcase ever.


3.) Curb Your Enthusiasm - Season 3

It may be hard to remember now, as this season is a good seventeen years ago (incredible, right?). This was the season where the running them was Larry teaming up with Ted, Jeff and a few others to open a restaurant. It might have had both the best season-long plot (maybe with the exception of Season 8), and some of the best independent episodes. Krazey Eyez Killa remains a Top-5 Curb episode of all time. There are a handful of other episodes that are truly Curb at its very best, such as 'The Benadryl Brownie', 'The Terrorist Attack' and 'The Corpse-Sniffing Dog'. And of course, no reminiscence of Season 3 can be complete without remembering the wonder that was the tourette's scene in teh finale, maybe the best few minutes of comedy Larry David has ever put to screen (Seinfield included). Curb never really got too far away quality wise from its best or its average, but even then Season 3 stands out as a singular achievement.


2.) Veep - Season 4

A few of these were recent enough (see: 2014 or later) to be ranked on my individual years list of best shows. Veep was one of three that made it to #1 (The Young Pope and Succession the other two). It almost immediately got worse starting in Season 5 as Armando Ianucci left and Selina was ousted as President, but my word was Veep brilliant at its best. This season saw Selina as President throughout, but also having to campaign for re-election. There are, to me, four masterpiece episodes in this season, that are probably each among the 10 best Veep episodes ever. First was Tehran, and then the three that capped the season, with B/Ill a masterstroke in combining a deft look at Washington whipping, with JLD giving a brilliant performance, then Testimony, maybe the best episode of Veep period, and finally Election Night as Selina's life slowly descends to madness. Other reasons to love the season are the true introduction of Richard Splett, everything Hugh Laurie did as Tom James, and Dan and Amy as Washington 'outsiders' as Lobbyists. It's amazing that a show named Veep grew to have its best season when Selina was never Veep. As it had something of a bounceback final season, Veep will take its place as a Pantheon of Comedy TV Show, while also cementing JLD's place on the Mt. Rushmore of comedic actresses (to me, it's her, Lucille Ball, Carol Burnett and Mary Tyler Moore). And Season 4 of Veep was the show at its best, to me the best pure comedic season of any HBO show ever.


1.) The Wire - Season 4

When you get to this point, you realize just how good HBO's vault has been. And I'm not even including any seasons from the following critically or socially acclaimed HBO shows:

* Oz (seen quite a bit of it, but never relaly all the way through)
* The Larry Sanders Show (ditto)
* Six Feet Under (more ditto)
* In Treatment
* Eastbound and Down (will watch it at some point)
* Girls (will never watch it at any point)

Anyway, HBO is still the master at this. And nothing makes that point more than the masterpiece season of its masterpiece show. Season 4 of The Wire is now so acclaimed, so universally hailed that it is almost cliche to put it here, but it is for good reason. It's odd that this is the best The Wire season when it features the least McNulty and is the first season post-Barksdale (the Stanfield org was never as entertaining), but that is how well played the education system subject matter was, how deafening those moments of Randy shouting 'You going to care for me, Lt. Carver', or how sad Dukie's life was, or how bright it was to see the small moments of light in such a hopelessly dark situation, So strong was seeing Cutty's dream come to life, or the fruitless trail of murder investigations the BPD would be led on. It shone such a great light on why people inevitably end up in this cycle that the government, the economy and the world is forcing upon them. The show was never more thought-provoking, more entertaining, and more beautiful. To some degree, I feel hypocrtical ranking it #1 when I would much rather rewatch Season 1 of The Wire (if not Season 3), but I have to agree that this was a pure masterpiece of the form. The masterpiece of the form.

Is TV Too Dark

It's interesting that two of the recent most acclaimed and culturally relevant shows are similar despite so many obvious differences. Chernobyl was released around the time Game of Thrones ended and proved to be a brilliant piece of carry-over before Big Little Lies kicked off the real year for HBO.

A few weeks later 'When They See Us' was released on NETFLIX, the chilling four-part series on the Central Park Five boys, both in how they were railroaded into jail sentences for a crime they did not commit, and then struggled to deal once released nad ultimately cleared of the crime.

Yes, the subject matter is completely different, but there was one huge similarity, one that made each show great, but also makes me worried about TV in 2019. Both shows were tremendously, unendingly heavy and dark. Of course, it fits the subject matter, exposing real world tragedies, but it says something that what have arguably been the year's two best shows had such little positive energy and light moments.

Each of the last five years I've ranked my favorite shows from that television year. Putting aside Veep (#1 in 2015), all my #1 shows were on their face hour-long dramas, but all four were also surprisingly light and comedic (in order from '14-'18: Fargo, People vs. OJ Simpson, The Young Pope, Succession). All four shows mixed comedy into their dramatic moments and story-lines so expertly. Looking back at those years, a lot of the other highly ranked shows shared this as well. But in 2019, when mixing lightness into your dark is so tough to do (see: Twitter), I do fear we are approachign heaviness getting lauded just for being heavy.

It's tough because in no way is this a criticism of either show. But I contrast it to Pose, which started its second season a couple weeks back, and man is the added levity in that show (if not the added glamour) such a pleasant addition to what also could easily be a darker than dark show.

For those who don't know, Pose is about the underground LGBTQ world in New York in the late-80's/early-90's. A lot of the characters are, for all intents and purposes, homeless, taken in by 'mothers' who run houses for these wandering kids. Tons of characters have been impacted, if not outright diagnosed, with HIV and AIDS. So many kids have been thrown out of their homes. This, while fictional and not a historical portrayal, is shining a light on a very real period in our nation's history. And guess what? The show is far, far, far lighter than it needs to be.

Some of it is built in, with teh ballroom scenes being so utterly dynamic, perfectly constructed with the Ryan Murphy spectacle he can do when he is on point. Pose is the only example I've seen from a show this year that has matched really dense, heavy subject matter with a pointed lightness that can make that show shine so bright.

Maybe this is just me overreacting to how dark two shows were and how relatively light one is, but I do think the discourse on Chernobyl and When They See Us has weighed too heavily on, if anything else, just how deep they were. Yes, being true to a historical event is laudable, but at the end of the day, I watch TV to be entertained, and while Chernobyl and When They See Us are unapologetically great shows, they are also not as enjoyable as they are great.

This is not a foreign concept. I find the praise of Better Call Saul to be the same in many ways - a played out more 2019 hyper-focused version of Breaking Bad: all the exacting brilliance, half the heart. Or even The Deuce in Season 2, which became a shell of a great The Wire season, which perfected adding humour and levity to a damn dark, deep show.

I hope more shows try to replicate Pose, but I don't know if that is the way TV is heading. 'Realness' seems to fully be what is carrying the critically acclaimed day at the moment. Heft and Reality is being played up, while heart is being shoved aside. Pose and shows like it remain tremendous, but I do fear to stand out, to get people to watch, we are being pounded by a never-ending series of seriousness that we are going to quickly spiral way too far into.

Updated Trips I Want to Take

9.) Hawaii

Like, i could do this tomorrow (assuming I get the leave and what not). I have the miles (flex here, I have the miles for all of these...). It's in our country for goodness sakes. Don't even need to pack a passport. Anyway, Hawaii seems amazing, one of America's truly last untouched gems. Of course, for all the obvious reasons, may as well save this for a honeymoon or couples trip spot. But the volcanoes, the lifestyle, the incredible scenery. It all looks so amazing.

8.) Namibia

I've had a few cousins go to Namibia and swear by it, both loving the extreme mix of dessert, grasslands, and everythign else in between. There are always struggles with traveling in Africa, and Windhoek is certainly not easy to get to, but the scenery again looks so amazing. After years and years of shuttling through museum and church in Western Europe, I've slowly grown to shift my travel love to the natural world. and places like Namibia are perfect to dive into that world. Namibia is also a relatively untouched pearl of Africa, somethign not destined to last long given its relative stability and breadth of sights and beauty.

7.) Brazil

This is one of my few hold-overs from the initial time I wrote this list back in the July of 2016. Since then, I have crossed off Peru, Chile, Egypt, Israel and Croatia from the original. The other five places still remain - you can't get everything in life. Anyway, Brazil remains, but in reality my desire to visit only drops. It's weird in a sense because having been to  Peru, Chile and a few days in Argentina, South America may well be my favorite continent at this point. Brazil I'm sure will be fun, but I think there is a bit to much industrialness about the place.

6.) Safari Trip (Tanzania, Kenya, etc.)

Another holdover from my initial list, the safari would be higher up if I could easily afford one. From everything I've seen, these are damn expensive luxury trips, even if 'luxury' means sleeping in some godforesaken tent in the Serengeti. Of course, I would still love to do it one day. It's just more practical dream trips have overtaken it because at the end of the day, we still ahve zoos in this world, or even mini-safaris like Johannesburg's Lion Park.

5.) New Zealand

My parents went to New Zealand earlier this year. They've actually been to six of the trips I've listed (though I've been to at least two that are probably on their list of ten). They loved it. I know I would love it, be it the incredible natural beauty, the endless amount of cuddly sheep, and the probably great lamb dishes made out of those same cuddly animals. Still, I want to say, this is another place best done in a group if not a couple, as driving around long distanes in their narrow islands is such a crucial element. Also, did I mention sheep?

4.) Mongolia

Now we're starting to get weird. Mongolia is a new entrant, and I really know very little about the country other than it being a fairly barren, almost narnia-like place of strange. Who wouldn't want to sleep in yurts or whatever. In reality, the country is alluring because it is so unknown - similar to Laos where I plan to visit this October. Mongolia has a couple large cities but is mostly pure, unworked terrain, and I can't wait to one day see it fully.

3.) China

Obviously, China has been on my list this whole time, but I really have not come close to going there. I still would like to, obviously, and I'm sure at one point I will, but China seems so formidable a vacation spot, so large that it almost necessitates two weeks to do it any justice. There's clearly a ton to see, and all I've heard is the food is a lot better in China than we would think given the profligacy of stunningly average Chinese food in teh US. I want to experience that China, along with the pandas and the Yangtze River and Terracotta soldiers and what-not. 

2.) The Baltics

The Baltics were on my initial list, ranked right aside the Balkans. I crossed the Balkans off my list two years ago. Hopefully the Baltics will follow, especially since they will probably be where the Balkans are now in terms of tourism interest soon. Once again, my parents have already gone, and they loved it. The countries have underrated historical tourism along with nice natural beauty, coastline, interesting food, tons of beer and merriment. Basically, tehy are quite perfect, and relatively cheap considering their geographic location tucked next to some of the most expensive places for a tourist (the Nordics, Netherlands, etc.). 

1.) Russia

Every few months, I mentally slap myself in the face that I didn't go to Russia for the 2018 World Cup. I had a near miss in going to Russia eleven years earlier also - as my school's Orchestra did a tour of Russia in 2007, but as my family had already booked a trip to Turkey that Spring Break I had to miss it. Russia the country is amazing. Russia the geopolitical force is scary and annoying. The country has amazing history and culture, better food than people think, incredible scenery (you know, if one was able to go into the Siberian wilderness). Russia is, in a literal sense, the largest hole left on my travel resume, and I truly hope to cross that off sometime soon.

The Blues and the Benefit of just waiting, Pt. 2

Last year, the Capitals finally won teh Stanley Cup, a good decade after their first trip to the playoffs in the Ovechkin era. It was a triumph of patience, keeping the main gang together past umpteen disheartening, corrosive playoff defeats. So many game seven losses, most of them at home. Three different #1 seeds frittered away without even reaching the Conference Final.

No matter, they kept Ovi, Backy and Kuzy together, and along with Holtby (let's skip past the part that he didn't start the first two games in last year's playoffs), they won their cup.

A year later, the Blues won their cup, also after a long decade of playoff turmoil, if not as maddening as the Capitals. 10 years ago, the Blues made the playoffs and quickly got swept away by the Canucks. That team had Alex Pietrangelo and David Perron on it. That said, most of the 2008-09 Blues are long gone. The real current Blues started in 2012, when they skied to a 110-point season giving up just 165 goals. With that team, you start adding more names, like Alex Steen and Jaden Schwartz.

Those teams also had their fair share of players that have been lost by the wayside, old flotsam and jetsam of Blues runs past. Guys like TJ Oshie, David Backes, Patrick Berglund, Kevin Shattenkirk and others. The Blues have had a lot of good players over the years, have had better years, and kept losing to, simply put, better teams. There's the back-to-back losses to the Kings in '12 and '13, the losses to lower-ranked Blackhaws in '14. They finally won a first round series in 2016, beating Chicago, and then they lost in seven to Dallas. It was no better in 2017. and then last season they missed the playoffs for the first time in eight years. Somehow, someway, despite that background and then being literally the worst team in teh league in January, they end the year with that beautiful shiny trophy.

This team had a few stars that had been through a lot. Vladimir Tarasenko first came on the scene in 2013 with a ridiculous combination of pace and size. He changed the Blues, even through shedding top players like Shattenkirk and Oshie in back to back years. They added other key cogs like Colton Parayko (2016), Robert Bertuzzo (2014), Brayden Schenn (2017), and others over the years. This was not an untalented team, just a weird one taht again was literally the worst team in the league in January.

We've never seen anything like this - maybe the closest I can remember was the Astros in 2005 going from 15-30 to a World Series appearance. This team was not good, until overnight a switch clicked. You can credit rookie Jordan Binnington, but it was more than that. Having Hart candidate Ryan O'Reilly helped tremendously, a brilliant acquisition as he was reborn being rescued for Buffalo.

The Blues also were incredibly resilient in the playoffs, winning three games in Winnipeg, a place that was nigh impossible to win in during last year's playoffs. They won a thrilling double OT game to beat Dallas, dominating the last two periods. They recovered from the ludicrous missed hand-pass goal against San Jose to win three straight to take the Western Conference Finals. In the Cup Final, they won three games in Boston, including recovering from blowing game 6 at home with a chance to clinch by winning in Game 7 in Boston, dominating the game 4-1.

The Blues should be decent next year, but if Binnington turns into a pumpkin, or their depth doesn't match its 2019 heights, or if Berube's message starts losing its impact, they could easily be a one-year wonder. Even if that happens, they've done something truly exciting, winning a first Cup in a truly dramatic series. Sometimes, going through a decade of playoff struggles does in fact make you stronger, and if anything I'm sure makes the final reaching of the summit more rewarding than you could imagine.

The Rise and Fall

Say what you will about the Golden State Warriors in the Kevin Durant era, but their last (at least for another year) act was about as good as anyone could have hoped. Simultaneously, we saw just how great basketball can be in June when the final outcome isn't a fait accompli as it was the prior two seasons, and we also saw how great the Warriors heart and special talents are, and finally how great you have to be to beat them.

For all the people that are still upset that Kevin Durant's totally reasonable decision to join Golden State turned the competitive axis of the sport off kilter (I'm one of those people) we all had our various visions of how amazing it will be when that team finally loses. And in the end, when it happened, it didn't feel gleeful to watch them lose, it felt honorable.

We are about to enter a post-Warriors world. They'll still be decent, but assuming Durant is out all of next season, and Klay at most plays a month or two, they will be like any normal team that will fight for playoff seeding. The NBA will return to normalcy next year. But maybe when it does, we may start looking more fondly on what we had these last few years.

It feels bad to focus so much on the Warriors side of the finals. But unlike other times when we do that, focus more on the losers, here we are focusing on what fight they showed, what unfortunate circumstances they were repeatedly put in, instead of focusing on what mistakes they made.

The Raptors are a great team. Kawhi Leonard is a hall of fame player that has made the case when healthy he is the best 2-way player in the NBA - let's remember in his last healthy season prior to this, he was leading a 61-win Spurs team to a 25-point lead against the Warriors before Zaza slid under him setting off a ridiculous chain of events.

The Raptors are also worthy champions because of how well they are built, a foundation that was lifted by the addition of a truly magical player like Kawhi. In so many ways, this team resembled the last solo-superstar team to beat a juggernaut: the 2011 Mavericks, with Kawhi in the Dirk role. That team had a series of older veteran players that all shared the lasting hardening experience of postseason failure, be it Jason Kidd, Jason Terry, Shawn Marion, Peja Stojakovic, and others.

Here you had Kyle Lowry, a man beaten down time and time again for the Raptor's repeated inability to beat LeBron James. Lowry has so often been targeted with the burden of a playoff failure, a man who's game doesn't play in May or June. He had his moments of instability, but now he's a champion who rolled up big early in Game 6.

You had Marc Gasol and Serge Ibaka, two men who have seen their fair share of these Warriors, first with Gasol's Grizzlies losing a 2-1 lead in 2015 back when we didn't truly realize what a supernova the Warriors were already becoming, and then Ibaka a year later with the Thunder losing a 3-1 lead and then their best player. Both came up huge throughout these playoffs, with Gasol probably rounding off a Hall of Fame career himself now.

You had Fred VanVleet playing the JJ Barea role of a sparkplug off the bench that become a more and more constant part of the team's rotation. His five threes in Game 6 were all needed, and the last one putting them up for good, and more than even Curry's miss probably the symbol of the final dagger to the Warriors dynasty.

This Raptors team played team defense at a level that was far above what any other team has been able to manage against the Warriors, even when you remove KD from the equation. These Raptors never lost their focus even after letting Game 5 slip away. These Raptors are champions because they deserved it, no matter what injuries beset their opponent.

I watched Game 6 from a bar named Mr. Purple in New York City, at first attending a work even and then staying there with a group of about 5-6 after the event ended. The bar put the game on at halftime. This is not a sports bar. But slowly but surely, as the game drew into the fourth quarter, it may have well been one. That's the power of a close finals game, of seeing such a lasting presence in our lives - these Warriors - trying to not let the last moments of their brilliance slip away.

It's hard to not talk about the injuries, and not in their impact to the series (especially with KD, who reportedly was never going to come back but then suddenly did), but in the impact to these two brilliant players, both of whom were cruelly free agents. The Durant injury has a potentially staggering impact on the league, even if one of the most immediate impacts is the saddest, that we won't get to see the slim reaper's brilliant game.

For Klay, he probably was coming back to Golden State anyway, but even for him having to rehab and miss most of the next season is so sad. We're going straight from a world where the Warriors, for better or worse, dominated the NBA news cycle for nearly five years - especially the last four with the 73-win season followed by three years of KD on them. That is over now.

The rise of the Raptors may be fleeting too, if Kawhi leaves, but it leaves us with this incredible moment in time. The Warriors dynasty is over. Canada won the finals. Kawhi missed a season, left in infamy and somehow made his legacy greater. Up is Down. Left is Right. And if this is truly the end of the Warriors-era of the NBA, it ended in a way that will truly never be forgotten.

Rafa's Dozen

I don't know when it became apparent that there's no end in sight for how ridiculous a run Rafael Nadal was going to put at the French Open. I remember when he won his fourth title in 2008, after hammering Federer 6-1 6-3 6-0, we thought maybe he could win 10. The next year, he lost for the first time there, he was seriously injured for the first time, and we thought ten may be way too optimistic.

Instead, he wins twelve, and there doesn't seem to be anything stopping him from piling up more.

I remember writing about Nadal's dominance at this event in 2014, when he won his fifth straight title and ninth overall (that was after winning four in a row previously). I wrote about it again in 2017 after he won it for a ludicrous 10th time, a win where the French Open pulled out all the stops in celebrating him. Well? He won it the next two years just for sport.

If anything, his dominance is just growing. Dominic Thiem challenged him to a degree no one has done in the surface aside from Djokovic maybe ever. There truly was a moment after the second set where it was reasonable to think if Thiem would win.

Then Nadal decided to revert to 2008 Federer Thrashing form, winning twelve of the last fourteen games, barely losing a point, dominating the world's second best player in a way he's so thoroughly dominated all the other world's second (or third or fourth) best clay court players. It was harrowing if it weren't beautiful.

Rafael Nadal is a clay court specialist. Of course, he's won six other majors, made eight other finals outside Roland Garros, and would have a Top-20 career had he never decided to play a clay court match. But when you are so bonkers good on a surface, maybe we should define a new term than 'clay court specialist.'

What's the most interesting aspect to Nadal's endless dominance is how it hasn't slowed down has he's become a very different player. Pull up the highlights of his 2007 French Open win and he's a staggeringly different player. He jackrabbits around the court, playing defense until Federer made a mistake or he could pass Fed when he tried to come in. He spun his serve in just to start a point. He had ludicrous anticipation and speed. None of that is true today. He developed the rest of his game to compete at those other slams. Somehow he stayed just as good on clay.

We will never see anything like this again. In any sport. On any surface or event. The numbers are ludicrous. Forget the 93-2 record, it's the bonkers amount of times he's won matches without dropping a set.

Put it this way, in this tournament he lost two sets. That would rank as just his SEVENTH BEST FRENCH OPEN PERFORMANCE. He didn't lose a set in 2008, 2010 and 2017, and he lost just one set in 2007, 2012 and 2018. Again, this tournament in which he lost two sets, humiliated a Top-10 player in Kei Nishikori, easily swept aside Roger Federer, and won the last two sets 6-1 6-1, was a bottom half French Open performance.

Saying he's the best clay court player ever barely describes it. There are no words to describe it. We are living through it, and more often than not giving it a tremendous amount of attention, plaudits and praise, and we are all so underreporting his greatness on the surface. I hope we realize just how amazing this all is.

Rafael Nadal on Clay is thre greatest sporting achievement maybe ever. Twelve, thirteen, fourteen. God only knows how many more incredible fortnights he has on Court Philippe Chatrier and on that beautiful red clay.