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In his aphoristic 2001 book about leadership, Bill Russell defined the foundation of his 11 NBA championships.

“The most important part of winning is joy,” Russell wrote. “You can win without joy, but winning that’s joyless is like eating in a four-star restaurant when you’re not hungry.”

On the Russell Bar for Winning – a scale of performance bliss from 1 to 10 – this year’s NBA postseason has been a 2.

Open this photo in gallery:

Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry gestures to his teammates during the second half of Game 6 of the NBA Western Conference finals against the Houston Rockets on May 26, 2018, in Oakland, Calif.Marcio Jose Sanchez/The Associated Press

This is not to say there’s been nothing in it worth talking about.

There is something compelling about watching LeBron James playing Sisyphus, rolling eight other guys up a mountain.

And there is likewise something satisfying about watching the Golden State Warriors give up on court ballet to begin slam-dancing with opponents who refuse to lose with dignity.

But the product has been joyless at best, and difficult to watch at worst. (The Toronto Raptors, minor actors in this drama, chewed up more than their fair share of scenery on that score.)

This is what happens when a league gets stuck between two eras – the old guard no longer bulletproof; the new one not yet good enough to overcome; the competition Groundhog Day-ing its way toward a predetermined result. People get bored and cranky.

Even the ones who should wake up each morning with their arms raised over their heads in celebration – the people who cash the cheques – are having trouble faking interest.

After advancing to the team’s fourth straight final against the Cavs, Golden State owner Joe Lacob told a beat writer, “Sort of tired of Cleveland, to be honest.”

When Lacob bought the team, it was the MSN Messenger of professional sports franchises. Now it’s Google and Apple combined.

It’s nice to see he’s been able to maintain his childlike joy in the game – “Oh jeez, playing catch with Billy from next door? Again?! Doesn’t Billy have to go to overnight camp or something?”

None of Lacob’s employees could find anything interesting to say about slipping past the Houston Rockets. It was the usual “one more important step” patter that good players on great teams spend the off-season committing to memory.

The Warriors are no longer just one leap from greatness. They’re also a stumble from disappointment. Three championships in four years sounds fine. Two in four seems more like the bar brawly Pistons than the showtime Lakers.

As such, the Warriors don’t want to win. They have to.

Meanwhile, the world outside San Francisco has gotten over their Super Friends shtick. That’s the point at which being seen as the best team in history starts to feel like work.

On the other side, no one looks like they’re having less fun winning than LeBron James.

These playoffs have become a Rorschach test on the only important question remaining in James’s career – is he the greatest player in history, or just one of them? Odds are, you see in it the thing you want to be true.

It’s an unfair ask. Michael Jordan had Scottie Pippen. Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had each other. James has … I don’t know, who’s Cleveland’s massage therapist? Because he or she is probably the team’s second most-valuable player right now.

But there is no overcoming the simple truth that the only fair way to evaluate an elite player’s ultimate competence is victories. If you’re going to argue that this guy was better than that guy because he had more assists per game or a higher PER, then you might as well claim he was better because he got paid more. Everything aside from rings is sophistry.

No one appears to understand this better than James. He has become the NBA’s most overextended single parent – doing all the work because if he doesn’t, it won’t get done.

After tracking back to block Terry Rozier in Game 7 against the Celtics, James remained standing under his own basket, staring up the court as play carried on.

This moment was portrayed afterward as seminal in James’s career – an iconic image of his imperiousness.

It’s just as likely that James was sick and tired right then, and had “Why don’t the rest of you dummies do something useful” floating through his mind. They didn’t. So he kept going.

After that win, James briefly left team owner Dan Gilbert hanging on a high five.

The snub was done with such theatrical precision – Gilbert extending his hand, James first walking past while looking directly at Gilbert to show he’d seen it, then reaching back and slapping it limply, already having turned his head – it was worthy of Olivier.

In the past, Gilbert was cruel to James, and the player has neither forgotten nor, apparently, forgiven. If someone such as Russell were driven by joy, a player like James is currently fuelled by resentment.

The rest of Cleveland’s roster chum has one job in all this – stay out of James’s way and look grateful.

When someone asked coach Tyronn Lue about a Saturday Night Live skit spoofing the “other Cavaliers” – (sample line: “Our point guard is a Roomba”) – Lue had to work very hard not to start tossing papers off the podium.

“I haven’t seen it,” he said, lying.

No, by the looks of it, no one here is having much fun. And though everyone had a big breakfast, they’re all off to the final to eat again.

We could hope for some better entertainment in this round. We could hope for more idealistic basketball. We could hope for Golden State to cement its legacy, or James to do likewise for his own. We could hope a lot of things for the next week (because it won’t be two).

But mostly, let’s just hope the same thing the people involved are hoping – that this is the last time we see these two teams together for a while.

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