NBA: Conspiracy Theory on 2007 NBA Finals – San Antonia vs Cleveland

The 2007 NBA Finals were the championship series of the National Basketball Association’s (NBA) 2006-07 season, as well as the summation of the playoffs. The Western Conference champion San Antonio Spurs swept the Eastern Conference champion Cleveland Cavaliers 4-0 in this best-of-seven playoff series. This was Cleveland’s first appearance in the NBA Finals, and San Antonio’s fourth. Tony Parker was titled the MVP of the series. The series, which aired on ABC under the ESPN on ABC branding, had the lowest viewing figures in NBA Finals history until 2020. This was the last sweep in the NBA Finals until 2018, and it also happened to engage the Cavaliers on the losing side. This was also the last finals until 2019 in which a team made first ever appearance in the NBA Playoffs. 

The Finals were performed in a 2-3-2 format, with the very first two and the last two matches held at the home court of the team with home court advantage. After conducting experiments in the early years, the NBA returned to its original format for the Finals in 1985. The other playoff series followed a 2-2-1-1-1 format. On June 7, 2007, the Western Conference champion San Antonio Spurs took on the Eastern Conference champion Cleveland Cavaliers in a best-of-seven series. The San Antonio Spurs had home court advantage because they had a stronger regular season winning percentage.

NBA: Conspiracy theory – San Antonia vs Cleveland

The San Antonio Spurs washed the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2007 NBA Finals, resulting in the lowest viewing figures in NBA history. Many fans were expecting a rematch of the 2005 NBA Finals between the Detroit Pistons and the San Antonio Spurs. Rasheed Wallace, who later played power forward for the Pistons after the 2006-07 NBA season, asserted that the league wanted to earn extra profit by putting LeBron James in the Finals instead of the Pistons, simply to create more enthusiasm than the boring games they had two years earlier.

Even after his controversial opinion around the start of the following season, the Pistons were able to return to the 2008 NBA Playoffs as a second seed, defeating Philadelphia after rallying from a 2 game to 1 shortfall and Orlando in the subsequent round 4 games to 1, before attempting to reach the Eastern Conference Finals for the third time in a row and losing to the defending winners Boston Celtics. This would lead to the team’s demise following the start of the 2008-09 NBA season, when a few players from their 2004 championship squad either left or retired.

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