Chandler Parsons Hobbles Towards His Moment

For those who like their rivalries tangible, the first round series between the Dallas Mavericks and Houston Rockets should be a treat. The nascent nastiness between the two franchises is peculiar in that it's rooted not in a history of close and contentious games, but in an ongoing passive-aggressive nerd war between Dallas owner Mark Cuban and Rockets GM Daryl Morey. That it's considered a feud of any degree is a grim reflection of the Front Office Gaze, the trend of increasing preoccupation with the uncharismatic suits who run the team as opposed to the athletes who play for it. (In this story's darkest timeline, the 2034-35 NBA season is just a deck of cards, a random number generator, and 30 ashen MIT grads sitting in Dr. Strangelove's war room.)

All that's happened so far in the ballyhooed Mavs-Rockets tiff is that a smug baked potato and TechCrunch Jesus have haggled over some free agents and thrown a few mostly complimentary barbs at each other in the press. It's not a rivalry so much as it's two rich dweebs snarking over whose hilariously impractical car goes faster. But this is sports in 2015, which means that shit-talking of all sorts, no matter how dry and pedantic, is welcome. If Cuban and Morey attempting to well, actually each other to death is the tinder that facilitates a big old bonfire of real athletic hostility, then all the pointy-headed dick measuring has gone toward a good cause.

Thankfully, there are a bunch of reasons Dallas and Houston could produce a special series that have nothing to do with this pair of carping softbodies. The cities are a 240-mile stretch of highway apart. Rick Carlisle's elegant, free-flowing offense contrasts interestingly with the chrome-plated analytics-core approach the Rockets take. Dwight Howard and Tyson Chandler can wage the sort of big man battle we don't see much of anymore. James Harden might be the league's MVP, but Monta Ellis is the MVP of his own heart, as well as the MVP of driving the lane like a panther sprinting across a patch of black ice. Jason Terry is inexplicably involved, which is always nice, and he played excellently and chirpily in game one.

At the center of it all is Chandler Parsons, who defected to Dallas this past summer and has an important role to play in the series. On Saturday night, Rockets fans smothered him with boos whenever he touched the ball, which seemed cruel given that they were heckling a wounded man. Parsons missed the final six games of the regular season with a bum knee, and it's clear from his 5-for-15 game one performance that he's struggling to account for the athleticism he suddenly lacks. He made several drives on Saturday that ended anticlimactically—he didn't have the lift he needed to finish among the trees, and his lay-in attempts glanced weakly off the front rim. Had Parsons been his usual bouncy self, he likely would have given the Mavs an opportunity to steal a contest that fluctuated between a Rockets blowout and a bona fide ballgame. After the buzzer, he expressed fear that he might have slightly reaggravated his injury. Perhaps he'll be a bit more spry on Tuesday, after a couple days' rest, but the odds are long.

Parsons is such a paradigmatically chill bro that it's doubtful he's on a black hat tour. He's probably not vindictively seeking to boot the team that put him on the back burner during free agency out of the playoffs, but he has to be upset that his body is betraying him at this crucial juncture. Though the Mavs have only the most outside of an outsider's chance at a title, considering both the age of their squad and the inherent competitiveness of athletes, they must be keen on the prospect of taking four games off the quite good yet perilously thin Rockets. Every unlikely deep playoff run has to begin somewhere, anyhow. Parsons can have a sizable say in whether his team will achieve that, but he's breaking down just as he needs to be at his best.

For NBA players who aren't at the very top of their field, there are only so many chances to make a loud noise. We remember the rich totality of an all-timer like Jason Kidd's career, but we remember Kerry Kittles primarily for his occasional 20-point outbursts during the New Jersey Nets' doomed postseason excursions. Chandler Parsons, fine talent that he is, won't have books written or documentaries cut about his ability to hit corner threes and slash into the paint. Series like this one are when a player of his stature burns himself into our brains, or doesn't.

It's a shame, then, that he's so noticeably not himself. But if game one is any indication, Parsons isn't gutting it out on one leg. He can still get to the hoop, still step into a jumper. He might have just enough to get the job done. This action-hero-in-the-third-act quality makes him a fascinating figure in what has the potential to become a lively series. Whether it gets there or not—whether a rivalry that has until now been little more than dork bluster and geographic proximity can amount to a roiling basketbrawl—remains to be seen. There's a good chance Parsons will decide whether the dust-up transforms into something worth recalling years from now. This is the part where he finds the strength to deliver, or the moment escapes him.