The NBA may not rig the lottery, but....

I generally have avoided believing too many sports conspiracy theories Even the ones that I would love to agree with, like say the Spygate tapes being way more invasive than the short littel clips we've seen - so scarring that Goodell ordered them destroyed, lest they see the light of day. Of course, I would love this to be true. It isn't. It's far more likely that Goodell is just dumb and for whatever reason thought taht to be the best course of action. Same with all the various FIFA and UEFA refereeing scandals at the highest level. Most of those are just bad referees sucking. Not some conspiracy. But oh man is the NBA really testing this with having the Mavericks win the draft lottery.

We've seen teams make big jumps before in the latest itereation of the draft lottery odds structure - namely the Hawks just last year jumped up with nearly as low odds as this. The Hawks of course did so in a year with one of the least interesting draft classes in ages. This year obviously isn't like taht, with the presence of Cooper Flagg. But more than Cooper Flagg - the real noise is the Mavericks of all teams pulling this off.

The Mavericks have been laughing stocks of the league for three months now, from the second that Nico Harrison traded Luka Doncic at midnight on a Saturday to the Lakers. It was an inexplicable trade, one that over the weeks seem to be just a trade made of out pure spite fueling a rash, hasty decision by an executive over his head. It was so braindead, it brought out a whole bunch of other conspiracy theories - such as it was a way to intentionally tank fan interest so the Adelson family could move the team to Las Vegas. Again, that isn't true, but that even somehow seemed more plausible than Nico spite trading Luka. 

It continued to make less and less sense as the Mavs had Anthony Davis get hurt, as Kyrie tore his ACL, as Nico Harrison embarrassed himself time after time every time he opened his mouth - from his repeated "defense wins championships", to his bizarre rational that this was about making a 3-4 year window better. All of his explanations were junk. The trade was a mess. Dallas was rioting. And here we are, three months later, and the Mavs get Cooper Flagg to build around and build back to relevance. And while that shouldn't make Nico Harrison's decision any less stupid, but it makes the chance he survives a lot more realistic.

It was so ridiculous that the team that became a laughinsgstock, that was ruining basketball's reputation in a major market, just gets to now reset with Flagg. It's a lot more important he makes Dallas relevant again and saves a franchise spiraling into failure, than it is Flagg make a market like Charlotte, or Utah, more relevant. And I should note here, what I definitely do not believe is that the league somehow convinced Nico to trade Luka to the Lakers. No, I think Nico made that dreadful decision all by himself. But I do think there is like a 25% the league decided to give him a get out of jail free card.

There is just too many cases of this now. The Pelicans trade Anthony Davis to the Lakers - they get the #1 pick in the Zion Williamson draft that summer. How did the Pelicans get Anthony Davis? Oh, taht's because they got the #1 pick his draft year, which happened to be after they traded Chris Paul away to the Clippers. The Ewing thing has been covered enough - but how about the Bulls jumping up in the draft teh year hometown hero Derrick Rose is the #1 pick, or the Rockets getting it the year University of Houston legend Hakeem is the presumptive #1 pick. It goes on and on a bit - the generational prospects never end up the league's weirder outposts. Other than LeBron James ending up in Cleveland... where of course he is from that area.

Well, maybe you can count the Cavs winning the lottery in Kyrie's draft year as a superstar prospect going to an outpost, and of course that was the year after the Cavs lost LeBron. It just happens way too often to make sense. There are just too many cases of generational prospects ending up in big markets, or as "make goods" for downtrodden teams (but again, fuck off Charlotte and Utah - no handouts for you ever).

In the end, I'm probably wrong, but the NBA has a bigger problem because many are thinking like me. Hell, active players were tweeting out disgust, stopping just short from calling things rigged. This isn;t good for the league. Worst case, they rig the draft lottery. Best case, they've created a lottery odds system that just flatout doesn't work. The NBA can exist because stars will keep them relevant, but at the end of the day, they have a giant problem on their hands - one that Cooper Flagg making Dallas a good market again won't paper over enough.

Re-Post: Celebration of the Spurs, Pt. 3

59-22. What does that number represent? Oddly, it is one game off (59-23) to the average record of the Spurs five title teams (when adjusting their 37-13 record in the lockout-shortened 1999 season). No, but it also represents the run the Spurs went on.

They were down 22-6 just six minutes into Game 5 last night. The Heat were hitting everything and the Spurs hit nothing, including Parker missing shots, Green missing threes, and them looking very much like the team that couldn’t close out the Mavs in the 1^st round. Then came the run, punctuated by back-to-back-to-back threes, all but one in transition, built around a block of Dwyane Wade by Tiago Splitter, and built with neither Tim Duncan nor Tony Parker on the floor. When it ended it was 65-44. The Heat got no closer than 14, and capitulated sitting LeBron with seven minutes to go in the Game down 18. 59-22 might very well be the lasting image of the Spurs dynasty. Their Mangum Opus. This whole series felt that way. This was the crowning achievement, responding from their worst defeat (blowing Game-6 in a most un-Spurs like fashion) to dominate the 2-time defending Champs. It was their crowning achievement, one 17 years in the making.

The Spurs have been on those runs before, you know. They closed out both the Mavericks in and Nets in the 2003 playoffs with giant 2^nd half runs (42-15 over the Mavs in Game 6, 22-4 in Game 6 of the Finals). They all featured the same thing, a few blocks, and a lot of threes. It was Steve Kerr and Stephen Jackson in 2003. Nothing really encapsulates the Spurs quite like that, does it? The man who played the Patty Mills role for the 2003 Spurs is a man who retired, became an analyst, then became a GM, then became an analyst again, and has now been hired as a coach. He’s had a full post-player life… and the Spurs are still winning titles.

The Spurs never got the credit they deserved mainly because when they were on the game’s biggest stage, the Finals, they and the East champ always disappointed. They beat up on the woefully overmatched ’99 Knicks, and then beat the almost as woefully overmatched ’03 Nets, with only Duncan’s ridiculous stat-lines (21-20-10-8 in the clincher) fitting as a lasting memory. The played a dramatic 7-game series against the Pistons, but when you get the two best defensive teams of the past 15 years at their peak against each other, it won’t be too pleasing on the eyes. Then they beat up on the most over-matched of all the opponents in 2007. Of course, hiding behind their boring Finals’ dominance was a team that had to play in the better Conference year in and year out and was part of some memorable series.

Let’s remember the Spurs for being involved in probably the two most famous non-Finals series of the past 10 years, the 2006 and 2007 Western Semifinals against the Mavs and Suns. They played wildly entertaining games against those run-and-gun Suns and Mavs back in the day, often outscoring them instead of slowing the game down. The best example was the 2005 Western Conference Finals, when they beat the 62-20 Suns in 5 games, scoring 100+ each time. They won the first two games of that series, in the mad-house that was Phoenix at the time, 121-114 and 111-108. That was the brilliance of the Spurs, as that same season in the Finals, they won games 84-69 and 81-74. They could play all styles.

They still can. Lost in the talk of their incredible passing and pick-and-roll times ten offense that they run to symphonic perfection, was their defense becoming a Top-5 unit in the league again. In that epic 59-22 run the Spurs went on to close out the last vestiges of hope the Big Three had, the more impressive part was the ‘22’. They held the Heat, whose offense itself had been on a ridiculous roll in these playoffs, to 22 points over 24 minutes. They held them with great team defense. Duncan was everyone, looking like he did back in 2005. Kawhi Leonard was Bruce Bowen, but bigger and stronger. Ginobili was at his pestiest. Boris Diaw played the Robert Horry roll. On one end of the floor, they were the 2005 Spurs. On the other, they were the 2014 unit, a beautiful offensive machine.

While that win takes the bad taste of 2013 out of the mouth of many Spurs fans (and Heat haters), in a way it makes it worse. They were one play away from finally winning back-to-back titles last night, for Duncan and Popovich to tie the six titles that Phil and Michael won together. For the Spurs to tie the Bulls for 3^rd place for most titles. Five titles is nice, but five titles just matches Kobe. Six is a different planet. There’s only two player-coach pairings to ever get six. One was Russell and Auerbach, in a very different NBA with far fewer teams. The other was, as mentioned, Michael and Phil. Now, admittedly they did it in 8 years while the Spurs would have taken 16, but winning is winning.

The Spurs also did an amazing thing last night, they made the Heat seem pitiable. We are used to the Spurs doing that to the Western Conference minnows. When they blew the doors of Dallas in Game 7, or Portland in Games 1, 2 and 5, it was old hat. It was the Spurs playing perfectly against a team that couldn’t keep up anyway. These last three games? This was something we have never seen. It has been a long time since a Finals was this uncompetitive. The Heat weren’t an ordinary team. Sure, signs were there all season long that this was the worst version of the Heat since ‘The Decision’. They had the worst record and worst scoring differential, and Wade and Bosh had their worst seasons, and somehow the bench got increasingly worse as the years wore on. Still, this Heat team rolled through the East playoffs. They scored on Indiana, the league’s best defense, at an inhuman rate. They were still the Heat, the two time Champs. It was almost unsettling to see them outscored 59-22.

I actually felt bad for the Heat. Champions should not go down this way. I may hate the Heat. I may still hate LeBron for choosing what I took as the easy way out back in 2010, for leaving Cleveland behind because he wanted a Championship given to him. But the Heat didn’t have it given to them. They faced many different points where they could have lost out on any titles. They were down 3-2 with a Game 6 to be played in Boston in the 2012 Eastern Conference Finals, and LeBron delivered one of the great performances in recent years. They were then down 1-0, losing late in Game 2, to the Thunder in the Finals before pulling it out and rolling a Thunder team that was the best in the Durant/Westbrook era (mainly because of the presence of that 3^rd guy, Mr. Harden). They had to play a Game 7 in the Eastern Conference Finals last year, and didn’t quit when in an almost impossible situation last year against the Spurs. And of course, they lost the Finals in 2011.

Even in those 2011 Finals, and I rewatched the super-entertaining Game 5 of that series, the Heat seemed to at least have answers. The Mavericks won that Game and the series because LeBron was passive, and because the Mavericks outplayed them in critical moments (Game 6 was the only game in which the Heat did not have a 4^th-quarter lead). The 2014 Finals were different. The Heat were just worse. There were no late-game situations that the Heat blew. In fact, discounting Game 1 because of the Cramps/AC-Gate, the Heat were the team that made plays down the stretch of the one game that was close in the 4^th quarter. They stole Game 2 because the Spurs missed 4-straight freethrows. The Spurs made sure they were never in that position again.

It is hard to really say what the best Spurs performance was of the last three games. Was it Game 3, with their 71 first half points? Was it Game 4, with their excellent play throughout on both sides of the ball against a team that had to win it? Or was it Game 5, with a slow start but a dominant middle the likes we rarely see? Who knows, really. The Spurs give so many moments.

In a weird way, a great comparison to the Spurs is Rafael Nadal in one sense: their ability to play a starring role in some incredible games and series. Despite being hailed by their critics as boring (and I’m talking about the 1999-2010 Spurs here), both are one-half of some of the best contests in their sport. I’ve already mentioned the 2006 and 2007 Western Conference Finals, but they also played a highly entertaining 6-game series against a good Sonics team in 2005, and a great series against the New Orleans Hornets in Chris Paul’s should-have-been-MVP season. The Spurs have played in some fantastic games, with flawless execution by highly skilled players. They may never get the credit they deserve because only a few have been in the Finals, but they’ve been the team that should be most associated with this post-Jordan era of basketball in every way, not just in their ruthless excellence.

We will never see a team like the Spurs again. We may see a team that wins five titles, or more titles. We may see a team that is this dominant, that strings together a long run of 50-win seasons, that can run a team off the court in the finals like that. We may see all those things. What we won’t see is a team do that in that particular way. We won’t see one of the Greatest Players Ever stay 17 years in one city, particularly a city that isn’t known for being the most exciting. We won’t see a team be able to nail late draft pick after late draft pick. We won’t see a team be able to keep their main stars in affordable contracts forever. And we won’t see a coach like Gregg Popovich come in and stay two steps ahead for the league for an entire decade.

The Spurs did things their way. That way included no one saying anything, staying out of the media spotlight (aside from Tony Parker’s extra-marital engagements); it included a coach who became more openly prickly yet more openly respected over time. It also included getting three players to subjugate themselves for the team for years and when the top guys buy-in, the lesser guys have no real option to not do the same. The Spurs did everything pretty close to perfect for the past 15 years. They got their ‘One for the Thumb’ to finish things as well.

I don’t know what the lasting memory of the Spurs will be. I guess it depends what you really think the takeaway message is. If you think it is how great Tim Duncan is, I guess it will be his 21-20-10-8 performance in Game 6 to close out the Nets in 2003 (or the half dozen other absurd games he had that postseason). If you think it is about their unending success on defense (which it was this year as well), maybe it will be their defensive masterpiece against the Pistons in '05. If you think it was about them being the scourge of basketball in the mid-2000's, maybe you think it was Robert Horry checking Steve Nash into the boards. If you think it was about beautiful basketball, maybe it was their tic-tac-toe possession that ended in a Diaw three in Game 6 against the Thunder.

There are endless supply of memories. The Spurs have supplied the NBA with more great games and great moments and 'Oh My God, How Good Are They' plays to account for 10 teams. But honestly, what I will remember is how the Spurs reacted to losing. Arguably their three worst playoff defeats were when they were beaten by eh 2002 Lakers (a team they were better than) losing the last two games ever at the Alamodome, when they fell victim to Derek Fisher's shot with 0.4 seconds left, when Ginobili fouled Dirk up 3 in Game 7 in '06, and the million things they did wrong in last year in Game 6. How did they follow up those disappointments: title, title, title and title.

In fact, the last four years of Spurs basketball are the best evidence. They surprised everyone by going 60-22 in 2010-11, but were knocked off by Memphis in the 1st round. They responded by going 50-16 in the lockout season, and winning 20 straight games heading into Game 3 of the Conference Finals. The Thunder then proceeded to run them off the court. How did they respond? By making the Finals. Then, they blow the Finals in teh worst way possible, and respond by winning it in such dominant fashion that Miami sat LeBron with half the 4th quarter left in Game 5.

The Spurs never repeated (they might next year), but they endured. They endured the game changing, the players changing, Super Teams getting built and then falling apart. They endured so many years of playoff losses (10 times they've lost in the playoffs in 15 years), but always came back stronger. That is what I'll always remember about the Spurs. They fought, they won, in any and every way possible.

Re-Post: Celebration of the Spurs, Pt. 2

What makes the Spurs so special? Of course, like most dynastic sports team, talent plays a role. Gregg Popovich is one of the 5 best NBA coaches ever, easily the best coach of the past 15 years (in that admittedly random period he has 4 rings to Phil's 5), and his influence pervades through that entire organization. They also employ Tim Duncan, who while he's 'regressed' into being a Top-5 Power Forward at age 38, he was the best Power Forward Ever good for a 10-year period from 1998-2007. They also employ two other future Hall of Famers in Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili. Ginobili is the best South American basketball player in NBA history, and Parker is probably the 2nd best European player ever, with only Dirk outclassing what Parker has done. That all said, it is more than talent that has allowed the Spurs to stay competitive and relevant far longer than they should have. It is a system, and organization, a culture that works better than anything I have seen in sports.

A decade from now, when Popovich is retired and Duncan is retired and the Spurs are, most likely, just another ordinary small-market team trying to compete, people may finally start realizing what the Spurs did. When we know the breadth of their accomplishments, and when Popovich (and Duncan/Parker/Ginobili, but most importantly Popovich) is removed enough to open up honestly about what he accomplished and how, the Spurs will be studied in business schools around the country. The Patriots may have had a higher profile being in the NFL, and the Rays may provide a more interesting study given their success in an unfair, capitalist market, but to me no team matches the Spurs in terms of a case study. They are sports, they are business, they are where they meet.

Over the years, the Spurs have always managed to stay one step ahead. The only NBA trend they didn't see coming was the '7-Seconds or Less' era and the impact of faster pace, which they took a while to turn to, but they only didn't because they still had success, and success against it. They started shooting threes more and more before anyone else. They started going small before almost anyone else. They started focusing on eliminating layups and threes and allowing 15-20 footers before anyone else. They unlocked so many keys that the rest of the NBA copies, the only thing that comes close is the Oakland A's. In a weird way, what hurts them is the ridiculous, grinding, dominant and, sadly, boring success. They don't have a 'My Shit Doesn't Work in the Playoffs' moment like Billy Beane. The Spurs' shit did work, and work and work and work.

Now the Spurs have made their fair share of mistakes over the years. No team is perfect. I already pointed to a huge on-court mistake that cost them a likely title in 2006, with Ginobili fouling Dirk on a drive up three late in Game 7. They of course had myriad mistakes that cost them the Title last year. Change just two things (I'm less inclined to add Fisher's 0.4 second shot to this both because that was more the Lakers pro-actively making it happen, and there's less proof the '04 Spurs beat Minnesota or Detroit) and the Spurs win six titles already and they're being hailed as one of the Greatest Dynasties Ever.

The Spurs have also made some odd personnel decisions over the years, like sign Hedo Turkoglu in a miscast role, or way overpay for Rasho Nesterovic, or way overpay again for Richard Jefferson, but these are merely tiny mistrokes on a beautiful 16-year canvas. For every Torkuglo there was the signing of Stephen Jackson in 2003, or Fabricio Oberto in 2006, or swapping Hill for Leonard, or brining back Danny Green and Patty Mills from the dead. There is no NBA team that has had such a sterling record in offseason acquisitions.

Popovich created a culture more than he created a system, because the system has changed. There isn't much resemblance between the 2005 Spurs and the 2014 Spurs apart from Manu Ginobili driving to the hoop (of course, back then Ginobili had long flowing locks, not a hilarious bald spot). Those Spurs were a defensive force, these are a high-paced offensive machine. Popovich just created an atmosphere where players would by into the new way the Spurs were going to play. To seamlessly transition from a slower, defensive team to a fast one overnight and do it well without totally overhauling the roster takes a foundation that was already rock-solid, and that is all Popovich and Duncan.

Tim Duncan is a Top-10 player All Time. He is. There's really no good argument against it. He's also most likely the most humble player on those lists, and he's the one who carries himself the least like a Top-10 player. He receives coaching, he's never chased stats, he willfully takes less minutes, he's allowed Pop to bench him late in games when the situation calls for it (and even, as we saw in Game 6 last year, when the situation didn't). He's rarely demanded anything from his team. He only once even thought about leaving San Antonio. He's quietly re-upped instead of having long drawn out contract negotiations. When the best player on the team, and one of the All-Time Greats carries himself like that, it sets the tone for the entire franchise, and the rest of hte Spurs took note.

The success of the Spurs is more than just Popovich and Duncan, but it is nice to have those two constants to look on. They also both exemplify why the Spurs are slow to get the credit they deserve, as outside of NBA-nerds it took until their success became too much to avoid that they gained general acceptance. It doesn't help when Duncan rarely gives long interviews, when he shies away from teh public light. It doesn't help when Popovich's public persona is a gruff, ironically short-answering, caustic genius. Sure, most media members will tell you when the cameras are off Popovich is one of the most engaging and open NBA personalities out there, but that doesn't help him with the people who aren't there when the lights turn off. But all of that is part of the Cultural Brilliance. Everything is about the team, not the media, not the spotlight, but the team.

There have been great stories the past few years about how the Spurs treat former Spurs. It seems like anyone who passes through the Spurs organization becomes a Spur for life. Guys like Robert Horry and Bruce Bowen are legends in teh Spurs Organization. If Avery Johnson is in town he'll have dinner with teh Spurs, same with Michael Finley, or Brent Barry, or Mario Elie, or Sean Eliot. The Spurs are a family, they are an organization in teh old-school sense of the word.

The rest of the NBA should take notice, but what the Spurs have done is basically impossible. It is not easy to get an All-Time coach, win the lottery in a year when an All-Time talent like Tim Duncan is there, and then nail late pick after late pick, but the Spurs did it. They changed the way NBA teams could be constructed, but they also changed the way NBA teams are built and run. The Spurs were dominant, but they've been dominant in wildly different NBA's. They were dominant in the iso-heavy, defense era, in the run and gun era, and in today's analytically savvy era. They've been the best example of Organizational Culture in sports in the 21st Century and it is hard to see any team coming close to repeating what they have done short of putting together a Big-3 like Miami did. The Spurs made the NBA a more cultured sport but also a changed sport. 

Re-Post: Celebration of the Spurs, Pt. 1

When Gregg Popovich called it a career over the weekend, I wasn't surprised. It definitely seemed like his stroke, will not life threatening, was "mild" in the sense that any stroke for a 75-year old can't really be "mild." From the day that happened, and it was clear he wasn't going to mend quickly, I assumed he was done. At that point, I started thinking about what I shoudl write when it came to that day. I started this blog in 2009, and since then saw every one of my tentpole athletes and coaches retire - from Manning, to Nadal, to Brodeur, to Oswalt (hey - the people on my site wallpaper!). In the coaching ranks, saw Pat Burns lose his life to cancer (wrote a nice poist about it). Gregg Popovich held out though, long enough to draft Victor Wembanyama, impart his wisdom on him for 1.25 seasons, and now can exit. 

I could write a career retrospective, but for Popovich, he wouldn't ever want any of that. And then I thought about it - I basically did write a tome, when writing it about hte Spurs, leading up to their legacy defining 2014 romp through the playoffs - capped with three straight games that collectively, given their competition (the two time defending Champs), are the three best games of basketball played ever. That was Pop, the end result of his adjsuting to the times - teh whip-around offense that the Spurs so calmly introduced that the rest of the league woudl soon copy, with a defense that was back amongst the leagues five best. Popovich's Magnum Opus was that run, and to toast him becomign El Jefe, I figure I'll return to that. So, reprinting eleven years later (fuck, I'm old) - here is the Celebration of the Spurs

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How to best define what the Spurs just did? There are so many ways, really. It's not only that they've made NBA finals 15 years apart with the same coach and same legendary player. It's not that they repeated trips to the Finals for the first time in their franchises history even as their players got older. It's not that they became the first team since the 1998 Utah Jazz to make it back to the Finals the year after losing it. It's that they did all of that when their 3rd best player, Kawhi Leonard, was about to turn 8 when this run started.

The Spurs have defined a generation of basketball. You can count on two hands the players that were active when the Spurs first won a title in 1999 that still play today. The Spurs also defined a generation by molding to many different ones. They won NBA Titles in defense-first eras, in the start of the 'Seven Seconds or Less' era, and now are competing for them in the Super Team era. They've won titles scoring under 100 points a game but limiting the opponents to scoring under 90, and now are reaching the finals with the best, most exact offense in the NBA. And they've done it all with a bunch of low picks, cast-offs, and random players, all gelling to create a beautiful system with even more beautiful results. I doubt that we will ever see something like this ever again, especially in basketball where transendant talent generally trumps systems, so we should treasure it all the more now.

In truth, the current version of the Spurs are four years old. The true Spurs Dynasty, built off a commitment to brilliant team defense, timely shooting, and Tim Duncan being awesome, peaked from the 02-03 season through the 06-07 season, where they won three titles and came alarmingly close to possibly winning five in a row (Fisher's miracle 0.4 second shot keeping them from a 3-2 lead in the '04 Conference Semifinals, and Ginobili's idiotic foul on Dirk keeping them from beating the '06 Mavs). They hung on for three more years with aging players, role players that were old as well, and while showing flashes of brilliance, like their Game 7 win on the road in New Orleans in 2008, or their first round win over the 2nd seed Mavs in 2010, they were pretty much done. It all ended when they were swept by a team whose offense resembles a lot of what the Spurs do now, as Steve Nash's Suns finally got one back in 2010.

Those three years where the Spurs were hanging on for life with their slower, more technically exacting style, they still managed to win 56, 54 and 50 games. Of course, when you consider they won 58, 58, 60, 57, 59, 63 and 58 games in the seven years prior, this was a sign of the times ending. And it would have been a naturally timed end. Duncan was 35, Ginobili was 33, Parker reached 30. Time was not on their side. The rest of the league wasn't yet clustered the way it is now, and the Celtics and Lakers dominated those three years. LeBron joined the Heat the next season (2010-11). Durant and Westbrook hit their stride the next season. Blake Griffin started playing the next season, as did Chris Paul joining him in Los Angeles. Derrick Rose won an MVP with Tom Thibadeau's defense running the Bulls the next year. The NBA landscape was about to get harder. So, of course, the Spurs won 61, 50 (in just 66 games), 58 and 62 games in the proceeding four years. How? That's the real mystery behind the Spurs mysticism, being able to start their run all over again.

If you look at the adjusted stats for the Spurs over all these years, three things stand out. First, is that their offense was always better than people remember. We remember their absolute slog of a Finals against the Pistons in 2005, but let's remember those Pistons themselves were utterly brilliant defensively. Early in their run, in the pre-Parker and Ginobili days, they were average offensively, but even then they never dropped below 12th in Offensive Efficiency (points per 100 possessions). The nadir of their offense came, as expected in that post Title window before the Great Conversion of the 10-11 season.

Second, their defensive proficiency is ridiculous. That defensive consistency in their true dynasty is staggering. The defensive dip doesn't match up totally with the offensive dip which makes sense as even when they were losing their post-title effectiveness in that three year stretch they remained good defensively.

The most important takeaway when trying to understand how the Spurs reinvented themselves and extended their reign of awesomeness is that last column, their pace. Pace is essentially just a measure of how many possessions a team will play on average over a 48-minute game. The Spurs were consistently slow, if not plodding, back when they were defensively dominant and winning titles. In a weird coicidence, the three year malaise from 08-10 matches up with two of their slowest years. This is the only area where there is an obvious shift from the title-winning Spurs, the three year malaise Spurs and the reinvention. Right when they started being tops of the league again is when they started to play faster. From 1999 to 2010, they never ranked higher than 19th in pace. In 2010-11, they went to 14th, and were Top-10 each of the last three years. There's the conversion.

Pace is not a new technique. Teams today are still slower than in the 1980's, but isolation basketball killed pace off in the 90's and early-2000's. The Spurs capitalized on it, but they built off what their most infamous rival started. This all goes back to those Suns, the team the Spurs beat in 2005, 2007 and 2008. The Suns unleashed pace on the NBA in 2004-05, with Mike D'Antoni correctly realizing that the best times to score in a 24-second shot clock is early or very late. They chose early, and they made it work. The Spurs agreed, and while they aren't as fast as those Suns teams, they're downright sprinting compared to what they were. It hurt their defense initially as the players weren't used to having to expend that much quick energy on offense, hence their two lowest defensive efficiency years in 10-11 and 11-12, but they've seemed to correct that problem the last two years.

For the Spurs, the way they effortlessly changed from a slow team to a fast one is ridiculous. Overnight, they replaced old, defensive players with young shooters. Quite a few of the early members of the conversion are gone, like George Hill, Gary Neal and (essentially given his low minutes) Matt Bonner. They started the experiment. Kawhi Leonard, Patty Mills, Marco Belinelli and Boris Diaw are perfecting it.

The Spurs aren't the only high profile sports club to do something like this. There are too many parallels between the Spurs and the Patriots to write them all down, but one of the most interesting one is how they've reacted to when their title winning stopped. For the Patriots, this happened earlier, as their conversion you can point to won game. Oddly enough, just like it was losing to the Suns that killed the old Spurs, losing to the Colts in 2006 AFC Championship Game ended the dynastic Patriots, and they reinvented themselves as an offense-first team built on capitalizing on what the NFL didn't value at the time, underneath routes, YAC and Tight Ends. Like the Spurs, it has worked incredibly well, but while the Patriots have changed their personnel apart from Brady, the Spurs took it a step further, they changed the system, changed their mindset, but were able to keep their core personnel and still make it all work.

Gregg Popovich is still a defensive coach at heart. Just like Pat Riley won a lot with run-and-gun teams in the Lakers but showed his true colors in New York, Popovich showed his true colors from 1998-99 through 2008-09. Those 11 years the Spurs were so absurdly good at defense year in and year out, no matter who was alongside Duncan, Parker and Ginobili. And you can see Popovich's defensive inclination appearing the last two seasons. Their offense was for two years the best in the NBA. In 2010-11 and 2011-12, they had the best offense in the NBA, better than what they have now. They moved the ball just as beautifully as now, shot as many threes, and it was a joy to watch. But the defense suffered. The defense killed them in their shock 6-game loss to the Thunder in 2012.

Popovich and the Spurs sacrificed some of that offensive brilliance to recommit to defense and the results are there in full, as their offensive efficiency has dropped but the defense has returned to Top-5 levels. The Spurs results make it easy to see where it all came from and how it happened. They pushed the pace and took the league by storm offensively, and now settled and are starting to take it by storm defensively too.

The Spurs have been so good at their faster-pace, more offensively proficient, aesthetically beautifully style for enough years that it is hard to remember when they were sloggers, when they were playing 85-78 Games against the Pistons, or when people called them boring. Of course, I'm grateful for this as it has been easier for the Spurs brilliance to be nationally revered when they became more fun to watch, but it also obscures that a conversion happened. It comes down to mainly pace, but it happened. It was a concerted effort by a team wanting to stay one-step ahead of the league without having to overhault its roster (something a lot more complicated in the NBA than any other sport) and it did just that.

My 20 Favorite TV Comedies, #10 - #1

10.) I Think You Should Leave (NETFLIX)

I really struggled where to rank this. I added sketch shows to my rankings mainly for one sketch show still to come way up the list. But I Think You Should Leave (ITYSL) really is that good, and more than that, it is that original. There is no show that reaches its level of abject silliness and hilarity. There is no show that I've seen that can mine so much out of being propestorous, and awkward, and weird. There is an underlying weirdness that surrounds everything about ITYSL. It has some of the greatest sketches of all time - seriously. At its best, in can compete with that sketch show to come. I don't feel that it is heresy to say that. The Darmine Doggy Door, the 55 burgers...., the Dan Flashes. And of course Coffin Flop. It also has this incredible core of returning characters and returning actors, creating this little, mystical, stupid little world for us all to enjoy sketch after sketch for years.

9.) What We Do in the Shadows (FX)

Comedies in general have really disappeared in recent years. Every show ahead of this premiered in 2014 or earlier. None made it to 2020 (except for one grandpa show - I think you know which). What We Do in the Shadows was the one holdout keeping true to comedy. This wasn't a drama hiding behind a few laughs (cough** The Bear**cough). This was an out and out comedy, that took an amazing premise - what if Vampires existed, but they were basically just normal people that could only really live at night - and made it into something so beautiful. The characters so well acting out just amazing material (Matt Berry's line readings - "New Yorkkk Citaaaay"). Everyone playing absurd so straight. The incredible moments like the running gag of the other vampire crew, to the best use of Kirsten Schaal ever. I do worry this is about as good as comedy would get in the 2020s.

I don't know if any show in the last ten years has been funnier than the final season episode where they create teh fake Rail company to cheer up a neighbor. It was taking a normal What We Do premise to 11, and running it so straight, so earnest, that it still remained so beautiful. Also, everything about Colin Robinson being an energy vampire was played so well also. I loved that there wer no real stakes, that they would just figure out some Deus ex Machina to bring the core group all back together again - a vampire version of Seinfeld if you will. Gone is What We Do in teh Shadows. Hopefully something can take its place as a true comedy great for the back half of the 2020s.

8.) Bojack Horseman (NETFLIX)

A few years back, Alan Sepinwall ranked his top shows to come out of the Streamers - probably say at the 10-year mark of Streaming Services. His #1 was Bojack Horseman - a show he called the only true out and out classic a Streaming service created. Now this was before AppleTV really started in earnest (though I'm not really a watcher yet), but I would still argue that likely remains true (though admittedly I have a NETFLIX drama at a higher spot). Bojack was just so damn creative, so incredibly shart, smart and emotionally weighty. It took advantage of its ridiculous premise of a world where anthropromorphic animals lived with humans, and mined that for visual gag after verbal gag after outright dialogue gag for season after season. And of course, it was one of teh more emotionally weighty shows on TV as well.

Much was written about how sad, somber, introspective and, well, dramatic Bojack was at its best, but at the end of the day, it was never not a comedy. The intention was you would laugh - even as it tackled mass shootings, abortion, homelessness and depression in about ten different ways. It would keep you laughing by some pun (no show used puns better), some line, and some delivery by a truly amazing cast of voice actors. I don't know if this was Will Arnett's best role (GOB will be hard to top) but the fact that it comes close says something. Amy Sedaris is brilliant, and this is up there. Aaron Paul was amazing. Everyone was amazing dammit - maybe no one moreso that Raphael Bob-Waksberg the creator and the other writers who used every inch of background cartoon space to tell side jokes (e.g. while an Americrane Airlines flight was "delayed", a Turkish Airlines flight was "deflated"). Bojack was sad at times, but it was funny at all times. And for that, I truly love it.

7.) Nathan For You (Comedy Central)

Because of The Rehearsal, and the Curse, and the general stickiness of the best episodes, it is hard to remember that Nathan For You aired a long, long time ago - mostly in the first half of the 2010s. Probably for the best, because the internet became even more omnipresent that he probably couldn't rope unaware small business owners by 2018 or so. Hell, even by its final season it was clear he couldn't given how more episodes turned into examining the mystery of Fielder's own psyche and imperfections, than the zaniness of its central conceit. But let's not forget just how amazing that conceit was - how so many of these ideas actually kind of made sense on paper (start a moving company with 200 employees to be able to pack up a house in as little time as possible). You can basically split Nathan For You into two parts - one being the true fake zany business consultant, and the other as introspection into human psychology, and both were amazing.

They were both amazing from Day 1 by the way. On the introspection side, while that got more notoriety as the show went on (e.g. episodes like Finding Frances to end the show period), that was at the heart of the much ballyhooed Season 2 episode focused on the gas rebate voucher and the extent people would go - to revealting secrets on a midnight hike - to save a few bucks. Of course, the other sketch in that episode was him convincing a beach caricaturist to draw exceedingly offensive caricatures as a marketing campaig. There's your ying and yang in the fourth episode of the show period. Nathan Fielder has increasingly revealed himself to be a genius, but also a deeply weird individual who appears to be more and more not acting but just playing himself. The dials were optimized with Nathan For You however.

6.) Everybody Loves Raymond (CBS)

There were many great 90s sitcoms - or ones at least believed to be great at the time. One of them is higher up the list - and I think you know which one that is. Everybody Loves Raymond was fantastically popular at the time, but probably took a backseat to both Seinfield and Friends. And as we'll see, I think it still has a backseat to Senifeld, I think it's aged so well - mainly because it was a perfect hybrid show - it was absurdist, it was sharp, it was caustic, but within traditional grounds. Parading within the context of an old timey sitcom of a man, his wife, his kids, his siblings and his parents, was a show that was so much more glorious and sharp than that. They portrayed the familiar, but put a whole new slant, a whole different energy behind it.

Years later as we've seen Ray Romano really shine as an actor, it makes sense that he was super strong at this point already. But what makes the show really sing is all the other people that were just magnetic. Frank and Marie are two of the great sitcom characters ever. Debra was far funnier than just being the token wife to annoy Raymond (it is amazing how many times they made her outright more funny and more right than Ray). Of course Brad Garrett was a revalation. The side characters were great. This was a 21st Century sitcom hiding within the foundation and structure of a mid-20th Century one. The best natural progression from the Honeymooners or some shit. Just a gem of a family sitcom. The absolutely apex of that genre.

5.) Veep

What's weird about Veep is it started in Obama's first term. Granted, it was in 2012, so only a few months before his re-election, but it was at a time where for the people watching teh show, they probably were pretty happy with how politics were going, all things considered. It ended in the Trump term, where real news of the administration probably makes early seasons of Veep seem quaint. But Veep never lost its plot, never lost its drive, its focus, its causticness, even as it turned the ridiculousness up to 11, because reality turned itself to nine. But let's move away from politics, because this show wasn't really about that. It was about insulting people over and over and over again in the best ways possible.

Of course, it was also about Julia Louis Dreyfus getting a role just perfect for her skills. Granted, everyone in the cast was perfectly placed and perfectly graet at reciting biting, filthy, cutting commentary and barbs from the twisted mind of Armanda Ianucci. Also, and i'll never stop giving Veep credit for this, it somehow get better and more funny when it elevated Selina to being President in the end of Season 3 and through Season 4-5. It somehow became funnier when the actual plot beacme, in a way, more meaningful (let's remember a long running point in the first two seasons was how of little import a Vice President really well). The show get better for it. Selina got better for it. Dan and Amy having to become failing lobbyists were better for it. And of course anything with Jonah Ryan, and the dueling brilliance of Ben and Kent. Veep was truly just a masterpiece of a show, that at its best (that same S3-4 stretch) was easily one of the best things on TV, period. 

4.) It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

What can you even say about this show - I only jumped on board watching live episosdes in Season 6. For most shows that would be coming in late. For this one, it is coming in in what will liekly be its first third when it's all said and done. Yes, the show in later years is a bit more forgettable - I can't name at gunpoint what episodes were in season 13 or Season 15 vs my ironclad memory of what was in Season 5. But still, the fact there is a Season 13, a Season 15, a soon to be Season 17, and in reality there will be as many seasons as Rob, Charlie and Glenn want there to be at this point. They've solved TV in a sense - this is their world until they want to relinquish it.

There was a study a few years ago that revealed that It's Always Sunny has the smartest viewership of any sitcom, and why not? Because behind the sophomoric hijinks hides a show that has been far smarter, far more caustic, far more satiric than people think. Recent years have highlightted that more and more, as they've turned Mac into a proudly openly gay man, and Charlie finally found his dad and whatnot, but hell the second episode they ever did took a spear to the abortion debate. They were never afraid of trying to give their take on any type of situation. They skewered reality TV, gay marriage, curse words, north korea, politics, gang violence, and so much more - keeping it with these four idiotically brilliant people and a small cast of rotating geniuses.

Always Sunny in simultaneously the most underground, low budget show of all time, and the grand-daddy of sitcoms that has literally set records for its longevity. It first aired in literally 2005. It's going to release its 17th season in 2025 - a good sign that it rarely took years off. It's also far more scripted than you think - the amazing shouting, insults, yells, boisterousness, all a part of a strange brew that works in the heads of these three guys in Rob, Charlie and Dennis that will hopefulyl never really abate. It sounds morbid, but I truly hope that Always Sunny ends with Danny DeVito's death - it means they wrang every last drop of brilliance out of the folks at Paddy's before calling it a day.

3.) Chappelle's Show

Dave Chappelle is such a prolific standup, and at this point such a notorious standup, that it may be hard to remember that years ago he was the centerpiece of an all time great sketch show - a completely different medium than standup. He had help, of coruse - from co-creator Neal Brennan, to a host of recurring actors that were just brilliant (Charlie Murphy, Donell Rawlings, Paul Mooney, etc.). But Chappelle's Show was about Dave (and Neal) and it was just amazing. Very few episodes really focused on race relations - it focused on just lampooning everything - from Making the Bad, to Rick James, to the Jury Selection Process, the Reparations, to so much more. The best way to describe the shows intentions is that it was literally their first episode that the Clayton Bigsby black white supremacist sketch aired. They came out the gates swinging, and didn't stop for 2.25 seasons.

Dave ended the show at in theory the right time, when he felt the world was focusing on the wrong parts of his amazing creation. He did leave behind three or so half baked Season 3 episodes that were stitced together with Charlie Murphy and Donell Rawlings playing the Dave MC role - and even in those episodes, it was so clear that Dave was far from done. Case in point: the now oft rememberd Tupac song palys in a club sketch ("I wrote this song in '94...") was in those half baked episodes. 

But it was the amazing second season, the incomparable second season, that locked Chappelle's Show place in history. Of course, there's the two Charlie Murphy True Hollywood Stories sketches, including the Rick James one which while oft cited, is absolutely the funniest ten minutes ever filmed. But there's so much more as well, from I Know Black People, to The Racial Draft, to Making the Band, to the amazing Black Bush - the final sketch aired with Dave MC-ing. The show was great because it didn't always need to lampoon politics, or race. Some of the best sketches were just pure comedy for comedy's sake - like much of Rick James, or The Playa Hater's Ball, but as it opened with Clayton Bigsby and closed with Black Bush, it was so clear when it wanted to take about race, about politics, it could do that as well as anyone ever as well.

2.) Arrested Development

Technically, I'm including the two NETFLIX seasons, the second one (fifth season overall) being really forgettable. I'll always say the 4th Season, especially when watched in the recut 22-episode version, is 

almost underrated at this point. But at the end of the day, this is about this first three seasons, to me the greatest contained stretch of comedic television ever. My one show ahead of it beats it on longevity - and that show should be patently obvious at this point. Bit in terms of peak, you could easily argue this is the best sitcom ever. Honestly, I feel that way. No show combined everything you want out of a smart comedy. Straight funny punchilnes, visual gags, incredible physical work, incredible wordplay, all-time level of callbacks and references taht paid you off for watching week to week. It was a master of the form in every way, and it starts with two things it did better than basically any other show: it's tone, and it's long list of characters.

The characters are the more obvious areas - you had one of the all time great straight men in Michael Bluth. You had two of the better goofball characters in Tobias and GOB (and add Buster to that too). You had maybe the funniest single sitcom character of all time in Lucille Bluth. You had so many more as well. There was no weak link in that main cast (basically the people introduced in the intro), and the recurring characters go 20 deep of excellent performances, excellently written without blinking - you can just rattle them off, from Maggie Lizer, to Barry Zuckerkorn, the Warden Gentiles, to Marta, to J. Walter Weatherman, to Kitty Sanchez, to Rita Leeds, to so many more. Only maybe the show at #1 wrote guest / recurring characters better.

And then there's the tone - the weird quasi-mockumentary of it all. The never ending narration from Ron Howard. The incredibly straight way the zaniness was played out. I normally don't like the fact that sitcoms put a lot of clear punchlines in the script but the characters don't realize they're being funny. For whatever reason, it works in Arrested Development, especially since the few times they almost break the 4th wall and laugh at themselves, it becomes teh most effective laugh track ever. Just like my top dramas, my top comedies set a specific tone and point of view basically 20 seconds into any given episode, and Arrested Development is no difference at all. It is the greatest modern comedy, to which all should be compared.

1.) Seinfeld

At the end of the day, Seinfield keeping up that insane level of quality, consistency over 22-24 episodes a year, for nine years, is just too overwhelming to pass up. Combined that with the show's insane legacy, insane reach, insane level of influence across the next few decades of comedic television, it is rightfully revered. But you know why it keeps its spot at #1, and probably will always have it is because it is also so damn funny. Yeah, at the end of the day, how much a comedy show makes you laugh is ultimatley the #1 criteria. There are others, but lose me with shows that are so pointed, or so of its time, but aren't at the end of the day all that funny - the Fleabags, and Community's of the world. Seinfled isn't any of that. It is a comedy show. The actors know it is. They were given the funniest of material by Larry David, Jerry Seinfeld, and the other writers, for nine seasons and delivered episode after episode.

I say that I think the peak of Arrested Development is higher, but in all honesty even that may not be true. If we look at Seinfield's say third through fifth season, it is right up there. Just take this stretch of 15 episodes in its 3rd season - starting with The Library (5th episode), ending with The Limo (19th) - in that stretch you have The Parking Garage, The Tape, The Nose Job, The Stranded, The Red Dot, Teh Subway, The Pez Dispenser, and The Boyfriend. Hell, the three or so episodes I skipped that stretch are all world beaters in their own right. No show perfected the 22-minute sitcom format better than this one - inventing a whole style of having 3-4 interconnected storylines that somehow always coalesced in the final segment. It seems quaint now with how wide the format has been stretched, but the underlying ethos of Seinfield is still unparalleled.

Seinfeld gets some criticism for becoming a bit broader once Larry David left - if anything that is an overstatement, but it did become slightly more plot driven. It was never a show about nothing, but it was closer to that than in the years after Larry left. That said, the show was still just as funny, just as zany, and even if the plots got more contrived - well lucky for them the characters were already cartoons in teh best way in George, Kramer and Elaine. In the end it is that - you have the best female character ever (other than maybe Lucille Bluth), the best phyiscal comedy character ever, and maybe the single funniest character ever period. That was so good, even Jerry's clearly average at best acting chops couldn't really dent it. Seinfeld was the best show when it was on. And it remains the best show all these years later. Likely nothing in my lifetime of ingesting TV will really unseat it.

My 20 Favorite TV Comedies, #20 - #11

20.) Silicon Valley (HBO)

At its highs, Silivcon Valley was amazing. The characters it created through the acting of TJ Miller, Martin Starr, and most notably the guy playing Gavin Belson ("Consider the giraffe....") were just amazing. What ultimately made it great is what probably cost it from being even higher - in teh startup world, you either grow to hyperscale (where problems because frankly not very relatable) or die. Well, they went for the die, but get reborn, option all the time. It kept the storeis fresh, but the plot a bit stale. In teh end, it wasn't about plot though - it was about moments like their discovery of the middle-out option, or so much else over the years. It's probably one of the funniest shows with probably the equally least sized lasting power.

19.) The Righteous Gemstones (HBO)

I'm probably going too low - call it the opposite of recency bias here. The Righteous Gemstones had many elements that were fantastic - featuring maybe one of the gerat characters of all time in Uncle Baby Billy, to some amazing wordplay and hijinks. Even the few moments they deigned to look at religion with a serious bent, were well played. Most of those happened early in the run, where as we went on, the show turned more and more into comedy. Granted, that is what it is - it never really tried to convince anyone otherwise. These were designed to be outlandish characters, and they were played well. Even in later years, there was some great earnestness - for instance the latter years being more open with Kelvin being gay and what that means in teh church. God bless Danny McBride for getting this on air, and keeping it so.

18.) Only Murders in the Building (Hulu)

If the final few years of the show rebound towards its Season 1-2 glory, this could be a bit of an underrank when all said and done. But there have been some diminishing returns in years 3-4 - maybe it was focusing on the death of the stunt double was just not as interesting as everythign with those first two seasons. What I really liked about early yaers was how good of a whodonit it was at its best. Steve Martin's character also has become a bit strained over time. What isn't strained is everything Martin Short, who has remained just incredible throughout. As has Selena Gomez the more and more her storylines have taken her away from Martin and Short. In the end, this is a fantastic show, but there may just be a bit too much repetition in storylines to go any higher.

17.) Party Down (Starz)

This does include the revival season a few years back, which had they been able to include Lizzie Kaplan it may rank higher. For the limited output, my word did Party Down pack a punch, with some of the most memorable characters ever. It probably ended at the right time too - with first Jane Lynch getting Glee and then Adam Scott getting Parks and Rec. Still, I could've watched these cater waiters for a while longer. The small moments rather than pure jokes is what made it special. Rob Thomas is just a master of tone - be it noir from Veronica Mars, to depressed hilarity here. He could really get the interplay of these characters so well down. The best workplace comedies (or any sort of workplace show) makes you want to take up that career. It is amazing that this show could make me want to be a cater waiter, but here we are.

16.) Letterkenny (Hulu)

I'm honestly curious how Canadians feel about this show that overtime got way more popular in the US. At the end of the day thought it was created by Canadians and acted by Canadians, so they're lampooning themselves. But really this is about the town, and the interplay of these various groups. The other lasting aspect of the show was how sharp the writing was - the wordplay, the running gags, the timing. Yeah, it wasn't the most deep, or laugh out loud, but man could they turn a twist of phrase. I actually like the fact that while it was comical how hot every female character was - they always played it straight and gave most of them perfect agency (see how many choose to break up relationships with main characters). Some have compared Letterkenny to being the Canadian It's Always Sunny, and I can see it - the small but incredible list of recurring characters, the one amazing emale lead surrounded by male lunatics. The fact it is way smarter than any outsider would give it credit for. Yeah, there was probably more fat here over its 13-season run (they went 2x a year, so realistically more like 6.5 seasons), but still it deserves its plaudits.

15.) How I Met Your Mother (CBS)

How I Met Your Mother (HIMYM) lasted nine seasons. It never should've gone that long. The creators pretty clearly ran out of ideas about four years in, and otehr than a few moments of genius (the storyline where Marshall's father dies in Season 6), it was a rough watch the last five years, finishing with one of the most despised finales ever. But though all of that... man those first four seasons, end especially those first two seasons, this was a gem of a show. By far the most creative network sitcom of its time (it aired before Parks & Rec, or 30 Rock). It was smart, it was funny - Barney, the S1-3 version, is an all time character. It could play dramatic moments as well as incredible comedy. It played with the structure of time and unreliable narrators in such a good way. There's a great what-if where this show came very close to being cancelled after S2 (despite ratings that would be seen as amazing by the end of its run). That season ended with Ted adn Robin breaking up, Barney mid-word, and the show batting nearly 1.000 in terms of quality. If it ends then, it easily is in my Top-10. If it ends after S4 (though by that point it wasn't in danger of doing so), it probably ranks 3-4 spots up. Instead, it languished way past anyone's wildest imagination, and suffered for it. But don't forget how good it was at its best.

14.) Happy Endings (ABC)

I almost had to rank these two back to back, because Happy Endings is very much what my hypothetical on HIMYM was. It was cancelled after three seasons, after nearly being killed after two. I don't know if it lasted for nine of the creators would've run out of steam - I mean probably. But man did they go all out. The funniest part is the first season was for a lot of it a disaster - a weird Friends knockoff that thougth we cared about the fact Dave left Alex at the alter. Soon enough it realized no one did. We wanted comedy, we wanted turns of phrase, we wanted it all. And they pivoted and delivered. Season 2 was a masterpiece. Season 3 was nearly as good. It showcased a host of hilarious people who have never been given better characters. I honestly can't think who my favorite was between Adam Pally, Damon Wayans Jr., Eliza Coupe or Casey Wilson. All four are hilarious people, and have never come clsoe to being as funny as they were here. From little moments, like Casey Wilson saying "Max, hold your horses" before we cut to Max suddenly picking up two plush horses under his arms, to the more slapstick moment like Max's back-nog bag being cut open. Happy Endings knew exactly what it was - a show that needed little to no plot to make it sing. It's early cancellation keeps it as a popular list of shows people would love to revive - I would say the 2010s version of Freaks and Geeks. It won't happen, but then again, if it did, or if it didn't get cancelled and run out of steam much like HIMYM did, I wonder where this ranks.

13.) Parks and Recreation (NBC)

My final network TV sitcom is the one that probably deserves that honor more than any. It's weird that this the only Michael Schur show I have on this list (spoiler I guess for my Top-12). But it is the one that matters more than others - the perfect blend of his razor sharp comedic mind, and the fact that he is a fundamentally just good, normal person that likes to imbue his series with heart and warmth. He doesn't always get that ratio right - Brooklyn 99 was too much the former for me, and The Good Place too much the latter. But in Parks he had something that was just perfect. Of coruse, it didn't start that way - but he had the smarts to stop making it an Office knockoff after the first season, than the good fortune of the actor playing Mark Brendanawicz to choose to leave (opposite of a loss) and replace him with Adam Scott and Rob Lowe, and we were off. The characters were brilliant. Their interplay was brilliant. More than anything, he knew how to play each one for the best laughs and moments. They were all cartoons to some degree, but we never got too much of Ron, or Tom, or Andy or April. The only gag that never really worked was them being continuously mean to Jerry. But at the end of the day, Parks and Rec was ust a great, great show - if one whose politics look way too quaint and simplistic for a 2020s world. This is probably why it doesn't have the rewatchability of many of the other shows on this list, but I'm not grading for that.

12.) The Great (Hulu)

There is a chance this is laughably high. It's also one of those shows that may have gotten a blessing in disguise with its sad cancellation after its third season - they finally killed Czar Peter (way after he would've died if they tried to stay at all true to actual history...), and despite some ingenius ideas of how to keep the brilliant Nicholas Hoult around, it was shaping to be a very different show. Instead, we'll never get to really see that show. What we got though is the great version of drunk history anyone could've asked for. It was absolutely a comedy, even if they showed palace intrigue and politics in a very true to art way. Call it the Russian Czarist era version of Veep if you will - the interplay at Court being every bit as good as the politicking on Veep. It probably didn't have the staying power to justify ranking any higher (even I already this might be sillily high), but some of the performances were just that good. Elle Fanning was brilliant playing Catherine - captivatingly awesome in her slow takeover of Russian politics. But to me it was Hoult who stole the show. That was a really tight rope to draw. They could've easily made him into a Joffrey type moster, but a combination of way Peter was written, and Hoult's just, well, earnestness, made it just amazing. You couldn't help somehow but not love Peter. And ironically I think that was the intention, which is part of the reason why I don't know how the show would've worked longer term - even when they tried to re-imagine Hoult into a fake-Peter. That was inspired, but the whole show was, really.

11.) Curb Your Enthusiasm (HBO)

Ok, I talked about how in the HIMYM section that shows can overstay their welcome. Certinaly HIMYM did. Arguably, Curb did as well - there is no denying it's later seasons, let's call it Season 9 onwards, were diminsihing returns comapred to its season 3-7 peak. But for some reason, I can't get the same energy here just because how this was more a situation where Larry was going to make that show until he felt no longer interested in doing so. There's a certain Philadelphia-based show that is very similar that is still to come. Getting back to Curb - the conceit was brillaint. The performances were brilliant. Yes, it didn't always work, and when stories turned too far into the fact Larry is absurdly wealthy, it seemed to lose the plot a bit, but just for the amount of amazing arguments, amazing social nuances, and amazing turns of phrase, it deserves a spot. I cringe hard at anyone who tries to state taht it is a better show than Seinfeld - though I admit this is already a fairly minority opinion. Curb was great at what it was. It's been oft copied, with its semi-improvised appraoch. It's never been really replicated, and it shouldn't be. No show can so earnestly blend real and fake (it was always great to see who got to play a version of themselves, vs who played a character), can so earnestly higloght the problems of the rich, and the perverted way to look at the world.

My 20 Favorite TV Dramas, #10 - #1

10.) Shogun* (FX)

My asterisk is obviously it can go either up or down in subsequent seasons. This may look silly years from now - like me ranking Goa as my like #5 city the first time I did my top cities list - granted, that was back in 2013 when it was a list of 25 (instead of now being a list of 70). But until then, let's just judge Shogun by what it was - a fearless show that was the most engrossing, expansive show on basic cable maybe ever. How that show, with that level of production, set piece work, exacting detail, was not on an HBO is beyond me. But somehow it wasn't. It was FX, and it was such an honest, fearless, unique portroyal of the rise of the Tokugawa Shogunate. Combine the best of Game of Thrones in terms of both set piece action (the earthquake scene) and palace intrigue, and the best of The Wire in its dialogue and acting, and you get somethign magical. 

I so love it just had it be all in Japanese (except for of course, our Anjin) I so love that it was fearless in making the "Western" character into a fool who slowly grew to realize how advanced this civilization he assumed to be barbaric was. (Though I'll always find it funny it still stayed true to the Westerners being Portuguese, despite their dialogue being in English). The performacnes were amazing. Anna Sawai rightly winning an Emmy. Hiruyoki Sanada as rightfully winning his, a longtime actor even in Western movies, but both revealing such range and emotions in Japanese. I'm usually loathe to see a show that was intended to be a 1-shot miniseries decide to continue on - like Big Little Lies which lost so much of its luster by continuing. But I have utmost faith in the creative team here, especially since the history they're basing this on has such a rich set of centuries to still play from.

9.) Buffy the Vampire Slayer (WB)

I alluded to Buffy a lot during my Veronica Mars write-up, and there easy to compare - a high-school turned college drama centered around a spunky, beautiful blonde girl as our hero, and her cavalcade of friends, enemies and singular parent relationship. Arguably, through its high school years you could argue that Veronica Mars was slightly better. But Buffy transitioned better to college (granted, Veronica Mars was axed after Freshman year), and Buffy just hit higher highs. I don;t know if SMG's performance was better than Kristen Bell's, but the other scoobies, from Xander, to Cordelia, to Willow, to Giles, were just so strong and compelling. As were the villains - from the ones we grew to love like Angel adn Spike, to those we didn't, like The Professor. Buffy was just an incredibly compelling set of characters and stories.

Of course, then layer on top two things that set it apart from Veronica Mars, or any other high school / college show. First, the fact that it had generally believable special effects and stunts despite no budget and late-90's to early-00's CGI. It was mostly practical effects, and you know what, with few exceptions it worked. Second, you have of course Joss Whedon's dialogue. This is no comment at all about Joss the person, who seems to be a monster to those who were on his bad side (e.g. the actress playing Cordelia). His dialogue was singular, and from Alyson Hannigan and Tony Head, he collected a group of people tailor made to reciting that dialogue. Much like I said with Veronica Mars, I hold zero embarrassment to say how much I like Buffy. It's just with Buffy I feel like that isn't all that unique a position.

8.) Justified (FX)

I feel embarrassed to admit that I never watched Justified when it was on its original run. It became a Covid show - the first one I really binged back in April, May, June of 2020. I don't know how I missed it. It was write up my alley. Amazing acting, graet storylines, great caustic writing all based off of a genius in Elmore Leonard. And of course it was on FX, a network which even at that time I implicitly trusted. Well, in the end I binged it, and loved every second. For Raylan Givens alone as a character (and a performance of a lifetime by Timothy Olyphant), it would deserve a spot in the Top-20. Add in Boyd and Ava Crowder, Art, Winona, and so many incredible single-saeson performances (Margo Martindale!) and you get something truly incredible. 

What Justified did so well was lean into portraying the South with no real bias, but just with an unflinching honesty. What I mean by that is the show didn't shy away from showing both the positives and negatives of religion (and I mean it with the positives). It didn't shy away from life in the mountains, life in the coal mines, life in a world that America has left behind. Modern television is, for better or worse, left-leaning, urban-leaning, etc. - and while I don't think Justified was in any way a Conservative leaning show, it also didn't try to make any real judgements there. It just portrayed life in that part of the country. Oh, and it also stretched the truth to an almost comical degree as to what a US Marshal actually does. Legend has it that arguably 50% of the missions Raylan took on in the "case in a week" style of the show were defintiely not in any way in the purview of a US Marshal, but who cares. It was all fire in the hole baby.

7.) Babylon Berlin (NETFLIX / Sky1)

So, barely anyone in the US saw this show. I mean some did in its first two saesons (released all at once) on NETFLIX, and maybe the third. But then I guess it got poor enough viewership NETFLIX cancelled their rights to air it in the US. Some random 5th tier streamer picked it up. But I'm taking a Euro-centric view when ranking it. This is by all accounts the most expensive show in German television history, and it's worth every single penny. It's taken a spotlight to one of the most interesting times in 20th Century European history - the end of the Weimar Republic that ruled Germany after World War I, and the failings, competing factions, infighting, corruption and social unrest that drove that country towards Naziism (which becomes increasingly a part of the show as the series wear on). Between all that macro-level haughtiness history, lies a show that is incredibly captivating in the micro - in the fight for women's rights in the flapper movement (expertly played by Lisa Liv Fries). In the attempt for Communism to take hold. Into the wide socio-economic divide in Weimar era Germany (which helped give Naziism some favor). In the never-ending link between Capitalist tycoons and government. It's America. It's The Wire - but instead of Baltimore in teh 2000s, it's Berlin in the 1930s.

Esteemed TV writer Alan Sepinwall wrote about that first installment on NETFLIX, calling it one of the great TV shows of that yaer (2017). The moment he really singeld out to say how amazing the show was, was the song and dance sequence to end its third episode - which is truly mesmerizing. The song haunts you, but it's also a blink and you miss it expose of teh entire situation of 1920s Berlin. Later seasons tried to recapture that magic (the 4th season has a memorable song track at its heart). But also the show gets graet when it goes weird - liek the running plot of Nyssen trying in vain to convince anyone in monied Berlin that the world economy was a house of cards, right before the 1929 Stock Market crash. It blends real world events, and small world moments so well. Now, if this same show was in English and set in 1920s Chicago, maybe it doesnt' rank as high - the foreigness helps it, but it is truly a masterpiece.

6.) Succession (HBO)

Do you know what's annoying - I was a Succession guy from Day 1. I dutifully watched that first season, before anyone knew who any of the actors were save for one being the Home Alone kid's brother. I watched that first episode, watched Logan Roy yell out "I'm trying to turn a tanker aroumd" and watched maybe the best four-episode stretch of dramatic TV of the 2010s to close seaosn 1. I ranked it my #1 show of 2018. This was all before it became the critical and popular darling of the world. I don't decry it of any of this, by the way/ If anything, I'm eternally grateful taht there is one show I can truly say I was an OG fan from day 1. I was one of the few that decided to watch this weird drama with a bunch of unknowns about succession in a Corporate Media empire. I still think the show peaked in that first season, but admit it didn't really get any worse as it went on.

Later seasons would have the Silicon Valley problem of repeating teh same fear over and over again (basically some vote-of-no-confidence type threat to Logan's dominance that he ultimately squashes), and while that is true, it underlined also how caustic, how sharp the show was at its best as well. The best dramas are also damn funny (all of my shows higehr up share this to some degree), and Succession was right up there, from any interaction wtih Tom and Cousin Greg, to the memorable, "Children you are not serious people" speech. If there's any criticism of later season Succession it is that it made it super clear these are Murdoch-type arch conservatives. Many didn't watch Season 1 at the time - but go back and watch it and they took painstaking effort to not make it clear where the Roys lie politically. Anyway, the show remained something truly incredible, down to taking the really smart risk of killing off Logan randomly in the middle of its last season. It spurred new life into the show and let it close with a stretch that was up there with its Season 1 peak. In the end, this is the highest ranking show that I watched from its inception, which is meaningful to me at least.

5.) Narcos (NETFLIX)

First, I should not that this combines both OG Narcos and Narcos: Mexico. While I realize they're technically two different shows... I mean... they're not. Same creator. Some crossover characters. Same basic plot - telling in painstaking detail the rise and fall of various cartels. Yes, the first season was a bit choppy - they didn't know what they were doing yet. Too much voiceover and documentary-style moments. Moved far too fast, covering like what was 15 years of the Escobar rise. But from Season 2 onwards, where they turned it almost insularly inward aroudn Pablo's slow demise, down to the Cali season, and the story of Mexico's killing itself by breaking up the admittedly awful Guadalajara Cartel, this was a story worth telling. I'll never understand why it wasn't given more critical praise.

From what I can tell, people didn't like some of the dialogue, but even that was a first season problem - and probably a translation problem. From what I understand, native Spanish speakers found the dialogue far more realistic and agreeable. But forget that, what I don't undersatnd is the show had so much else amazing going for it. First, the acting. Wagner Moura was amazing (admittedly his accent was awful). All four Cali Godfathers were cast so perfectly. The various Mexican drug lords were amazing, from Diego Luna as such a quiet, pensive killer in Miguel Angel, to Jose Maria Yazpik playing Amado so deftly. And then the realism of the way it was shot. Rare have I seen a drama shoot action scenes - shootouts mainly - so tense. You can say they went to the "DEA gets one step away, but the Cartel boss gets away" well too many times, but every time it was a 10 out of 10.

I'll also give the show credit for portraying government agents really well. Sure, you can say it was a bit heavy handed at times of how corrupt various people within the Colombian adn Mexican governments were, but it was equally open about bashing how complicit the CIA was, and how complicit the American drug user was as well. The small stories it tried to tell - like the La Voz newspaper storyline in the final season, or Los Pepes in various Colombia seasons, always landed. I'll never understand why people couldm't overlook the show going through growing pains in its first season, learning from them and turning out a masterpiece of a show as somethign to rally around. In the end, I'm glad I kept on with it. This remains to me the best streaming drama ever made.

4.) Game of Thrones (HBO)

If the show ends at Season 6, with the R+L=J mystery finally confirmed, Jon being crowned King of the North, and Dany crossing the Narrow Sea with the Dothraki, the Unsullied and various combinations of Martells and what not, this honestly might rank #3. Yes, those last two seasons hurt its standing - and really so that final season. That was an abomination, that will always leave a sore taste in your mouth. I'm quite comfortable in saying both that the fact that last season was so garbage will probably have me never rewatch it, but also say that those first six seasons were so good, so transformational, that it shouldn't matter in terms of giving Game of Thrones its proper plaudits.

Action has never been better on the small screen. Political drama has probably never been better. The hit rate on amazing actors in such a large cast had never been higher either. Truly, with few exceptions, they knocked it out of the park - doubly hard when quite a few characters were literal kids when it started and grew into adults that needed to act adult (e.g. Sansa, Arya) by the end. And of course, the trappings of it all - the music, the grandness, the dragons, the magic. Yes, there was a rich text for it to work off of - and of course notably the second the show went past the books it struggled - but I'll go to my grave believing that should be a critique of GRRM way more than Benioff & Weiss - they started the show in 2011 having to truly believe GRRM would at least write his sixth book.

In the end, great shows so often are about how they make you feel. Tone is to me the most improtant single factor of a show's success. The three shows above this have that in spades - put an episode on, any episode, and within 10 seconds you know what you are watching. Game of Thrones really was no different. There was just a grandeur, a scale about it that was unparalleled. Even in its heyday years, it's not like I agreed with every plot decision, every move - but there was a grander game at play. And sure, the game ended with the cripple winning (Tyrion's words), but let's try to memory whole that last season away from existence and remember that this show at its peak was deservedly show the biggest thing on TV in the 2010s period.

3.) The Sopranos (HBO)

I debated a while between my #3 and my #2, and ultimately went this route because of consistency. At its best, The Sopranos was maybe the best thing ever to grace a television. The rawness, the realness, the truly once-in-a-lifetime performance by James Gandolfini. The incredible human moments taht had nothing to do with mob-life - like any Tony and Liv scene in the early years, or the always strained but darkly beautiful arcs between Tony and Meadow. The Sopranos was at its best when it just showed life - in an unvarnished way we never really saw on TV before. There were "raw" shows before this - such as Hill Street Blues, but most of them were various cop shows. This was the first "robbers" show that dared to humanize, to empathize, with teh bad guy. To put one at the center. And it was incredible.

Why isn't it higher? It just wasn't as consistent over its seveon seasons than my #2 and #1 were over their five. You could say that's diging The Sopranos for airing for a longer period, but if anything the struggling part of the Sopranos were the middle seasons, rather than the last couple. The struggles may actually because they didn't really raise the stakes all taht much. While Tony did ammass more power as it went, that was fairly marginal. He didn't become the Pablo Escobar, or the Kingpin of Albuquerque (spoiler alert). It kept the show grounded, but probably made it fall slightly behind Breaking Bad in terms of drama and tension. 

That all said, credit should be given for The Sopranos fro truly changing the drama forever. For crystallizing what an anti-hero is in the best way. For James Gandolfini breaking through and being the poster child for the true actor - not the pretty boy cast to look good on TV. For changing the way drama needed to be told. For really kicking off prestige tv. Many would argue this is the greatest show of all time. I wouldn't vehemently argue against it. It certainly is the most important.

2.) Breaking Bad (AMC)

It pained me anytime anyone tried to claim that Better Call Saul was a better show than Breaking Bad. Like stop. Like please. Like put respect on the greatest character study ever put on television. Would argue the numner on film better than this are pretty slow. The tagline in Vince Gilligan's mind was turning Mr Chips into Mr. Scarface. And my word did it do that, but then also tore him down in such great detail. The fact that the critical consensus best episode - Ozymandias - is purely seeing Walt have to come to terms with all the pain he caused once and for all, syas so much. We cheered for Walt when he rose up and blew up Tuco's office, and outsmarted Gus, but we also cheered the world on when we watched Walt reach his comeuppance. And of course cheered so much in between.

There are a few things Breaking Bad did better than maybe any drama I've ever seen - including the one show I have above it. First was its cinematography, both in sheer beauty and also in sheer audacity and inventiveness. No show has ever looked better. The way it took that beautiful canvas that was New Mexico and painted Mona Lisa after Mona Lisa was incredible. No show also showed the small moments better - from an all time bottle episode in Fly, to of course the various times showing step-by-step of a plan comgin together - from Walt figuring out the broken plate in the shows third episode, to all the times showcasing the cook, to so much more. Lastyl no show was more, simply put, dramatic than this one.

I don't think any show made your heart race more. The climax of "One Minute" was one of the greatest moments ever put on TV, but so were the shootouts, Walt running over the people that were going to kill Jesse with his car, to of course moments preceding the death of Gus. It may have been because so often the story was told in third gear, that when Vince decided to ratchet it up to first gear it was so incredibly poignant. This also probably overlooks the amount of indelible characters it etched even aside from Walt. Of course there was Jesse, Hank, Skylar and Marie - but Gus, Mike, Tuco, Badger and Skinny Pete, and so many more. Breaking Bad in the end was a great character story and a great ensemble, it was something out of time, but for anytime. It was the second best thing I've seen on TV (drama variety).

1.) The Wire (HBO)

I wrote that amazing soliloquy abuot Breaking Bad, and honestly this isn't close. Maybe someday a show will match up to The Wire, but to be honest I doubt it. It will be hard to top this. The sprawling plot. The expose of a city, of the world at large. The amazing cavalcade of characters, with them being portrayed by truly great actors. The way the novel - and yes, it was a novel in all the best ways - unfolded was so smart, peeling back layer after layer of rot, of decay, of small moments of beauty. The Wire is televisions masterpiece. And it all starts with Snot Boogie.

Of course, the show memorably started with Snot Boogie, a scene where McNulty sits on a stoop with an onlooker who witnessed Snot Boogie get murdered.. In that one scene - shot dark on the street, with tons of slang, ending with "This America, Man", and the tone was set in those two minutes for 60 episodes of masterpiece television. The list of incredible characters, the number of them that dealth with death, incarceration, and so much else - but the show, like America, just kept going. The show really knew how to tell every single type of story - to talk about politics, the way it talked about the street, the way it talked about children, the way it talekd about the port. Yes, the newspaper story didn't work as well as the others, but if you ever do rewatch the 5th season again, you realize it is still amazing. The Wire truly is beyond reproach.

That tone that it sets from the very beginning can be summed up to me in one word: realism. This is real life. This is real life in America, from the street to the statehouse. This is the way the world works, or doesn't work. This is the way real people speak, learn, love, fight. I once did a list of my 50 favorite Wire characters. There's probably no show on this Top-20 list that has 50 characters worth ranking, let alone needing to keep some off the list and feel bad about it (I'm sorry, Poot). The Wire challenged you to keep track of everyone, to remember the interconnecting stories - but even if you can't, like say my Dad who had trouble doing so at times - the tone will keep you engaged, enrapt and enjoying anyway. The Wire is simply put the best thing put on TV - drama or not.

My 20 Favorite TV Dramas, #20 - #11

20.) iZombie (The CW)

I'm a huge fan of Rob Thomas, the TV Writer/Creator. One of his other dramas is further up the list, and one of his comedies made my list there. Here, we get a show that had so much of the heart of Veronica Mars (spoiler!), but with such an inane presence - basically zombie-ism is real, but can be controlled as long as you eat brains, but eating brains gives you temporary personality traits and memories of the deceased - so of course the local Seattle coroner uses their role to eat brains, but also help solve crimes. Yes, this is absurd, but it worked - mostly because of the heart of the show, and great performances from Rose McIver, Rav Kuhle, and a great "Spike from Buffy" impression by David Anders. The show took a big leap at the end of Season 3 by exposing Zombie-ism to the world. It was a necessary turn to avoid being stale, but if anything the show wasn't able to do as well touching on larger issues that it tried to at the end. Still a show that deserves credit for taking a crazy premise, delivering it with heart, and making it work.

19.) Men of a Certain Age (TNT)

Arguably you could say this was a comedy, and there's a few other picks on the drama list that you can argue fall into that category (and vice-versa), but what made Men of a Certain Age good is the dramatic heart and moments that centered the show. Well that and the great, dramatic acting by Scott Bakula, Andre Braugher and (yes) Ray Romano himself. Romano's dramatic chops were a revelation - amplified by the fact he gave his character the least comedic storylines to work with. It was a small show, and it only lasted two years, but it was a beautiful show nonetheless. 

18.) The Gilded Age (HBO)

While I wish this show was even better, because it goes under the hood of such an interesting time in America, I can't deny that it is still nearly great. The acting of Carrie Coon, Morgan Specter, Cynthia Nixon, and so many others, is just so on point. The great interplay of new money vs. old is as fun here as it is on any of the great British shows showcasing similar eras. While I do wish the dramatic plots were a bit more meaningful than the sow social politicking that makes up much of the show, there's many other shows for which I can say the same thing about not being dramatic enough. The show is beautiful shot and the sets are truly great - it makes that old era of New York look so fascinating, so stark to what it looks like today - even if the show goes to great lengths to say that the problems facing society are all quite similar.

17.) Orange is the New Black (NETFLIX)

Putting House of Cards aside (and boy do I wish we could), this was NETFLIX's OG original content show, and it remains maybe one of their best, or at least biggest swings. Let's showcase something truly underground - the plight of female prisoners. We've had Oz, we've had shows featuring male criminals - but so few that showed the other side of things. And it told that story really well. Yes, it probably did way too much to make Piper a lead when her story wasn't all that interesting relative to so many others, but overtime it realized this and did well to turn it into more a true ensemble show, along with a great storyline highlighting the dangers of privatizing policing. It told a story normally untold, and while there were a few too many dalliances with soap drama, it remained a compelling show to the end.

16.) The Deuce (HBO)

Here's another show about a very untold part of America - the rise of pornography in parallel wth the changing nature of the sex work industry. I think if anything I underrated it at the time, because it wasn't The Wire. No show will be - even if the creator is the same. But it did have some of the right elements - from establishing a tone to itself in about thirty seconds of opening with Thunder Thighs, to of course all the returning actors. But more than anything, it had David Simon's amaizng attention to detail, to showing small moments as carefully as big dramatic ones. If anything, the biggest gap between this and The Wire is those big dramatic moments - it might fall on that the dueling James Franco characters at the center (the McNulty of The Deuce universe) just wasn't as effective, even if I do think he generally is a compelling actor. Maggie Gyllenhall's character, or Emily Meade's characters were the real stars of the show, even if they both ended with depressing conclusions. But depressing is kind of the point at the end of the day.

15.) Stranger Things (NETFLIX)

It's weird I don't have this higher, because I've admitted I still find the show very satisfying. Yes, they take way too long between seasons. Yes, some of the child actors have grown into, well, simply not all that great adult actors. But then again, at its best - be it nearly the entirety of its groundbreaking first seasons, the concluding run in its second season, and the mythology and escapes to the underground in its fourth season - few shows are better at their best. I don't think any show in my drama rankings is as highly variable in quality as Stranger Things. But again, what it does do well it does really well. The way its crafted enough realistic horror and mythology around the underground is great - while yeah it's a bit of the same well over and over again, there was a plan and a logical expansion in it season to season (much like say John Wick peeling back layers of its fake underworld). The more adult characters, or older teen (e.g. Natalia Dyer's, Joe Keery's and Maya Hawke's characters), ahve all been crafted in compelling, badass ways. It portrayed the best of Winona Ryder. Even if the final season is a dud - and it this point the children are hilariously not children in age - I'll remember the incredible moments, and Running Down That Hill, and DemeDogs, adn all of it.

14.) Pose (FX)

I always liked the symmetry of Pose and The Deuce running more or less in parallel, both exploring seedy, untold times in America. While The Deuce focused on the heterosexual sex explosion, Pose went towards the LGBTQ community in the 1980s to early 1990s. This is not a happy time for that community, with HIV/AIDS starting to spread and wreak havoc, to still the incredible stigma anyone in that community had to face (and yes, far worse than compared to now). But Pose didn't back down from the darkness, but also celebrated the beauty. Those amazing scenes at Balls, filled with resplendent costumes, and names, and dances, and vibes. The incredible performances of all the leads - Billy Porter got the most headlines, but the actresses playing Blanca and Elektra, competing house leaders, were jsut as good. So was really every character. There were a few hiccups - like the weird Season 1 storyline following the white couple with the husband questioning his sexuality, but generally it focused on that community, the heart and soul at the center of it, and didn't shy away from the pain and loss within it too. Yes, after a while the final season of death after death and goodbye after goodbye was as draining as it was impactful, but this community deserved that level of affection. Other than maybe People v OJ - this is Ryan Murphy's masterpiece to me.

13.) The Bear (FX)

Yeah, I'm calling it a drama/ I don't care if it won Best Comedy at the Emmys twice. I don't care that it is definitely a funny show. This show is only great (and it definitely is great) because of how dramatic, crazy, anxious, heart pounding it is at its best. No show maybe ever has showcased yelling better than this one. Any interaction between Carmy and Cousin. Any time Oliver Platt's Uncle gets into the mix, or Abby Elliott. The entirety of that Christmas flashback episode. The Bear is unparalleled at what it does well. It also showcased a love of cooking, a care of ingredients, at an almost Chef's Table level. Yes - it's third seasoin was way too up its own ass (if I wrote this a year ago - The Bear is probably a few spots higher)- losing a bit of it sense of self on what made ig reat. I'm hopeful that that was a off season and it returns to its roots - the interplay of teh characters, not the parade of famous chef's and celebrities moonlighting as various roles. In other words, I want my guest stars to be the Gillian Jacobs and Jon Bernthal's, not the Daniel Bolouds. Anyway, enough complaining. The Bear at its best is magical - see me giving it my #1 show of 2023 nod for its second season, something I believe it whole heartedly desrves, and hopefully something it can reach again.

12.) Better Call Saul (AMC)

May seem low, but recognize that there a whole lot of amazing dramas to hit the air over the years. I don't see this as a shot at Better Call Saul, though I imagine many people who did watch it will be surprised how far ahead of it I have Breaking Bad. Anyway, Better Call Saul to me was 95% the technical marvel that Breaking Bad was, with about 80% the heart. This is not meant to discredit Better Call Saul, but more continue to say let's put some respect on Breaking Bad's name. Anyway, back to this - it is a testament to the show that it could bring back a whole lot of Breaking Bad characters even outside of Saul & Mike, but keep it that its most memorable characters are all pretty much new creations, from Nacho to Chuck to Lalo to Howard to of course Kim. It created new characters that were as complex, as brilliantly written and acted as so many of those in the main show. The series was also still shot so inventively, so creatively, so beautifully. The only thing keeping it from being slightly higher is that it lacked the furios drama of Breaking Bad. It lacked those Holy Shit moments aside from a couple (the raid on Salamanca mansion, the deaths of Lalo and Howard). Also I still question it keeping the last four episodes to gray Gene Takovic world. But in the end, it is stunning taht Better Call Saul worked so well, and I'm so grateful that Vince Gilligan didn't let it be a 30-minute comedy like he initially designed. It worked better as an extension of Vince's genius.

11.) Veronica Mars (WB)

Here's a hot take - of maybe any show I've ever watched that featured a season-long "whodunit", I don't know if any show was ever better than Veronica Mars's first season story-arc of who killed Lily Kane. Few shows were so crafty, so smart, so exacting at giving small detail after small detail in such a patient, impressive way. Veronica Mars balanced "case of the week" and "season-long arc" better than most. Oh and it also happened to be one of the best exposes of high school ever. What Veronica Mars did - combining high school politics and romance, and neo-noir in such flawless fashion, is just an amazing feat. It had some great actors at the heart of it, with the incredible performance by Kirsten Bell at the center of it. She was able to combine being lovable, spunky, smart, bitchy, popular and switch it up even within episodes. Some of the other characters were also so expertly drawn and performed. This also featured one of the best parent-child teen age relationships ever, as nothing was more earnest and hoenst than the relationship between Keith and Veronica. Had this show gone on for a couple more seasons, it probably swaps places with the other high-school girl drama show to come. I'm never at all embarrassed to extoll the brilliance of this show. It was a masterpiece - probably the best high school show I've ever seen.