The 2010-11 NBA season, barely a fortnight old, will be a climactic paradox and carefully manipulated optical illusion. Most fans are going to be distracted by the trials of the Heat, the tribulations of the T-Wolves, the Lakers' quest for another 3-peat, and countless other compelling stories that are unfolding. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, a league that couldn't appear to have much more going for it is having, at least by David Stern's standards, a meltdown.
The last decade was far from kind to the NBA; two waves of economic crisis, rampant player misbehavior, dwindling ratings and attendance, Donaghygate, that whole dress code mishap...Things were another Damon Stoudamire drug arrest away from coming completely undone. The Sternbot, as usual, did a respectable job of protecting his product, but the owners got greedy and began overpaying mediocre-awful players of all shapes and sizes. While those ratings fell and attendance died along with the average American's disposable income, revenues hardly justified the reckless spending, but didn't stop the madness.
Jerome James. Raef Lafrentz. Brian Cardinal. Wally Szczerjiashnfk. Adonal Foyle. The Kandi Man. Beno Udrih. Erick Dampier. Eddy Curry. Rashard Lewis. Charlie Villanueva. Darko Milicic. Amir Johnson. Most recently, Mike Conley. A combination of temporary on-court brilliance and temporary front-office stupidity led to a lot of teams in small markets leaking money like blood in your typical Dexter episode...and the league's apparently losing millions, headed for a lockout, and talking about contraction. Things are about to get ugly.
The current CBA on its deathbed, its wake will be marred by bickering and litigation between players who are understandably pissed about not benefiting from this idiocy, and owners who can't afford to keep being, well, idiots. This idiocy might cost us the first few months of next season, maybe the whole thing, hell it might be even longer if the same type of logic that dug this whole is used to bury it. In the meantime, keeping this impending mess buried beneath the headlines will be easy for Stern and Co: there should be no shortage of them. But the NBA might have done too much damage to get itself there; we've got ourselves a League that's very top-heavy on talent, leaving many teams struggling to stay above water; rising salaries working against a shrinking cap. The front office is going to have to work harder than a Scott Skiles team on a 3-game losing skid to stay out of the danger zone yet again, and after the run they've just had, can ill afford another blow...
...But in the meantime...
- The New Orleans Hornets (!) have slugged it out as the last remaining unbeaten team, against the better judgement of just about everyone. Defensive cohesiveness and a balanced scoring attack have triggered an impressive run that can hardly be blamed on a soft schedule and has stolen all the wind from those Chris Paul trade rumors. Yes, it's still early, but the Hornets have stood out among a slew of impressive starts. I know I was far from alone in pegging them as a lottery team; they're making plenty of fans second-guess themselves with every passing game.
- Minnesota might finally be forced to give the best player starter's minutes after Kevin Love erupted for the hallowed 30/30 against the Knicks; something nobody's done since Moses Malone 28 years ago. Yeah, Shaq, Hakeem, The Admiral, Patrick Chewing, The Mailman, Barkley, Timmy D, KG, none of them ever did that. It's a pretty loud statement coming from a guy who's been averaging 28 minutes/game so far this year, but given the stubbornness and lack of clarity shown by the T-Wolves' suits the past few years, there's no telling if the message was heard...
- Alarms are continuing to sound in Miami after they blew a 20-point lead to the Jazz and needed an LBJ Takeover to even make things close with Boston for the second time in as many weeks. While there are obviously cohesion issues with a team assembled largely form players who've never shared uniforms, more glaring problems are showing. Lebron's complaining about minutes (and then explaining himself...seems like he's had to do that a lot lately...at least he got a Person of the Year nod from Time out of it). Dwyane looks like he misses having the ball so much and goes 1 0n 5 with little hesitation. Bosh is being regularly manhandled on a team even shorter on size than the Raptors, and he'll be the only player not to regularly benefit from Wade/James double-teams. Time (and a healthy Mike Miller) will only help, but talk of 70 wins has suddenly ceded and been replaced with more question marks than Pat Riley had ever hoped to answer to.
- Things are looking relatively better in the city LBJ deserted, where the "desolate" Cavs have been playing close to .500 ball against tough-ish opposition and actually spent a couple days ahead of the Heat in the East standings. Cleveland has a reasonably talented team (at least when you put them up against the rest of the Right Coast's bottom feeders), and now that they're not being coached by a McDonalds mascot's lost brother, are continuing their tough defending while moving the ball more effectively than they're used to and taking advantage of their many shooters. Feel-good stories are corny as hell, but this is a team that had every reason and excuse to fall apart; and one we should all be rooting for.
- A quick moment to truly appreciate what the Indiana Pacers did to the Denver Nuggets the other night: A merciless and ridiculous 54-point quarter, in which the Pacers were an ill-advised Josh McRoberts 3 attempt from going 20-20 from the field. Yup. The f***ing Pacers. The Nuggets have been known to indulge in the occasional defensive lapse, but that'd be too absurd to believe if I hadn't seen it (what up League Pass!). Of course, if only logically follows that two nights later, those same Nuggets handed the defending champs their first loss of the season.
I'm out for now; check back later this week for PED Watch, as Banter takes a look at the season's early Most Improved Player candidates.
No comments:
Post a Comment