I don't think it's been compelling at all. The whistles have completely dictated the flow of these games. The Eastern Conference has been basically a joke since Jordan retired and watching the NBA's attempts at creating competition from the East is laughable. The NBA is so desperate to have a good finals match-up after their complete disaster of WCF and ECF that they've made it appear that these two teams are more evenly matched than they actually are and that simply isn't true. Anyone who follows basketball closely knows that Golden State is a superior team in almost every facet. They lost 15 games the entire season, had a hiccup or two while getting through the West, and now we are to believe that Lebron James and his cast of misfits are holding their own with the best team all year. Please. I'm not a fan of either team tbh but I don't think this has been a good finals at all. Please don't point to the "close scores" that shits all for show. Go back and watch the final 6 minutes of all three games. Entirely dictated by whistles and calls, as is normally the case. I'm not even complaining but I just think it's hilarious that the EC is so fucking weak that the NBA's only option for the finals was to have Lebron in them. I'm not a Lebron hater but after watching his career this far from 2003 on all I can say is I've never seen the NBA so desperately try to manufacture are superstar to Jordans level as hard as they have with Lebron. I'm not even sure Kobe got that many pushes. They went from having Jordan as a superstar from 1988-1998, then they spent 1999-2006 on trying to build up Kobe but then Kobe butt raped someone so they were like well... there's this D-Wade guy that's kind of a star so let's give the Heat and Spurs a push while Kobe deals with his rape. Then by the time Kobe returned Lebron had already blown up but people were like, dude, we're not cheering for the fucking Cavaliers... I mean, Cleveland, yeah no. So the NBA was like well fine, we'll push the Big 3 in Boston for a year or two then we're going back to the well for a couple more years with Kobe. Meanwhile the NBA was like we need a new star, people don't seem to really love Lebron like we thought they would, how about Kevin Durant. And that was actually pretty cool for a couple years but then much like Cleveland people were all, Oklahoma? Nah. So they were like fine, Lebron is the star of this league, lets make sure he gets to the next 5 finals. And basically the only good finals series over the past 5 years was when Dirk and the Mavs knocked out the Heat in 2011 and when the Spurs knocked them off last year. Isn't anyone else completely fucking bored with a totally inferior EC, especially when the NBA tries to sell us championship teams from there. Please.
This finals series is only compelling to some of you because that's the way it was drawn up. This series is much more like when the Spurs rolled the 76ers 4-1 in 2001. Iverson was a superstar but the East and his squad was no match for the West. I see it as the same this year but for some reason the NBA is desperately trying to paint this as an even series.
The Warriors played consistently amazing basketball for like 7 months, rarely losing, and now the NBA is trying to sell fans on some sucker notion that superstar Lebron and his "scrappy" teammates like Dellevadova are capable of extinguishing them. Only a fool would buy such a stupid narrative. Shows what Adam Silver thinks about the fans of the sport he commissions.