This was supposed to be LeBron James, Luka Doncic and the glorious return of the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA Finals. Or at least Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown going back-to-back, and the Boston Celtics adding another world championship banner to their already record haul.Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is the NBA MVP but largely unknown to casual fansGettyThe King couldn’t get out of the first round of the playoffs again, while Doncic has gone full Hollywood with his weight dominating the daily news.Tatum tore his Achilles and the Celtics will enter the offseason contemplating the meaning of life. Instead, this is what you’re getting on the biggest basketball stage in the world. An NBA MVP you potentially have never heard of.A talented young star from Indiana who hears every slight, and only plays better when ‘overrated’ is chanted inside an arena.And an NBA Finals matchup that perfectly captures where the NBA is at in 2025.Interesting … but iffy and overlooked.Worth watching … but only if you’re a serious hardball nerd and know who coached the Seattle SuperSonics when they won it all in 1979.You’re going to hear a ton about ‘small markets’ and ‘television ratings’ in the next week. That’s just another way of saying that these Finals are good for real basketball, but a TV nightmare for a league that spent the entire season constantly defending itself.GettyThis is his chance to shine on the NBA’s biggest stage[/caption]GettyOklahoma City has been waiting on a trophy since moving from Seattle in 2008[/caption]GettyBut the NBA is missing LeBron James in The Finals[/caption]“The ‘ruining the game thing’ is just a charge and a challenge,” Golden State Warriors superstar Stephen Curry said during the All-Star break. “If you wanna do that, get in the gym, get your reps in and earn it.“I don’t have any problem with guys and teams shooting a lot of 3s – obviously that’s the way that I play. … You also got to put the work in behind the scenes to take full advantage of it.”Small-market OKC vs small-market Indy won’t fix the NBA’s too-many-3s problem, and it’s hard to imagine casual fans hitting ‘Record Series’ on the TV while deciding what to watch: Dept Q, Adolescence, Sirens or a Finals that no one was buzzing for when game 1 of 82 began last October.“At the end of the day, we are a league of relatively small markets,” NBA commissioner Adam Silver said on Breakfast Ball. “The goal is to have a league where every team is in position to compete. It’s been intentional, from our standpoint, to create a system, a collective bargaining agreement, that allows more teams to compete. NBA's GreatestGreatest NBA players in the world right now – from Luka Doncic to Spurs phenom Victor WembanyamaBest players in NBA history to never win a championship – James Harden and Carmelo Anthony to Allen Iverson and Karl Malone10 richest owners in the NBA – family empires, media moguls and investment gurusMichael Jordan’s top 10 scoring games – counting down MJ’s most extraordinary totals “We’re going to have to go through a process of getting to the point where people are accustomed to tuning into the Finals because the two teams deserve to be there, and it’s the best basketball.”SGA is a brilliant athlete and four wins away from becoming one of the next faces of the league.Haliburton is one heck of a story, and there’s nothing better than watching someone prove everyone else wrong.Pascal Siakam is an even better story, and a powerful reminder that sports can bring different cultures and countries together across the globe in 2025. But we can also be honest.The NFL won over Taylor Swift and all the Swifties, and the last two Super Bowls have been absolutely must-see.GettyThe NBA can only dream of a Taylor Swift takeover[/caption]GettyJohn Mellencamp has supported the Pacers in the playoffs[/caption]The NBA currently has John Mellencamp in its corner, while Oklahoma City and Indianapolis often fall short of the ‘Best 100 cities in the world’ list. “If I asked somebody if they were going to watch the Super Bowl, they wouldn’t say ‘who’s playing?’ ” Silver said.“It’s a national holiday. That’s nirvana.”It will take seven full games for these Finals to be remembered in a few years.But OKC was easily the best team in the league this season, and one of the best fanbases in the NBA deserves to finally win a trophy.Indiana is the birthplace of basketball, and Peyton Manning will tell you how passionate the state is about sports.True NBA fans know that OKC-Pacers is a cool matchup filled with youth, and the exact opposite of watching another superteam buy its way to a predictable trophy.The problem is the rest of the world might not even know the Finals are being played, and everyone watching Netflix is going to miss some really good basketball.