Friday, October 31, 2003
LEBRON JAMES 24/7! (Ignore the following if you don't care about the NBA).
It is finally that time of year. Baseball is, thankfully, over until spring. College football winds down towards its inexorable ending with the only drama remaining surrounding the question of whether the BCS system will be faced with four teams with only one loss and a valid claim to be worthy of playing in the championship. But now is when things start to get exciting because of the start of the NBA season. And what a season it promises to be. Can veterans Malone and Payton finally earn their rings with the Lakers? Will Dallas regret signing Antoine Walker? Will the Kings finally make it over the hump or will the fragile CWebb let them down again? This is not to mention the formidable defending champion San Antonio Spurs, the probably significantly improved Minnesota Timberwolves, and Yao Ming and the Rockets. Even the Utah Jazz, thought by everyone to be destined for a 20-win season present the drama of making an improbable run for the playoffs and earning Jerry Sloan much deserved coach-of-the-year honors. Oh, and I forgot to mention that there is an Eastern Conference in the league too. But given that a team from the East not named the Chicago Bulls with a certain number 23 hasn't won the NBA championship in a couple of decades, most assume that the East will continue its pathetic, losing ways.
And there's the rub. Many of the franchises in the East are in big market towns (New York, Chicago, and to a lesser extent Philadelphia, Boston, Washington DC etc.) and when the East stinks, the ratings stink. So, what do the brilliant minds in the NBA (along with shoe companies and tv networks) decide to do: place all their bets on a kid named LeBron James. Coming straight out of high school, James has been christened the next Michael Jordan. The media followed is every move throughout his last year of high school and hasn't let up since. LeBron has double-double is the lead NBA story on espn.com. "LeBron has looked cool and collected in his first two games" reads the subheading. Breathless comparisons to number 23 spill forth from sportscaster's lips right and left. "Marketing executives are ecstatic with the debut of Cleveland's engaging 18-year-old rookie LeBron James on Wednesday" reads a Washington Post article on James. I don't grudge this obviously talented kid his fame or his shoe contracts. Who wouldn't take the money and adulation in his place. I just wonder, though, why it doesn't seem to matter to anyone that Cleveland lost both games. Will the love last if the Cavs continue to stink? Of course Michael Jordan's Bulls took several years before they began to be a dominant power. I remember one game when the Boston Celtics essentially said: "we'll let MJ score all he wants but we'll shut down the rest of his pathetic team" and it worked: Jordan scored 63 and the Bulls lost. But MJ didn't start with the hype that James has enjoyed/suffered. LeBron James may end up being the next great player. Or, he may end up being the next Shareef Abdur-Rahim: a 20 points 9 rebounds a game player who never makes it to the big leagues in part because of the terrible teams he has been saddled with. Or he may end up being a Shawn Bradley: a dud who never lived up to the hype. Basketball is still, despite the best efforts of the NBA and Nike to ruin the game, a team sport.
UPDATE: This says it all:
It is finally that time of year. Baseball is, thankfully, over until spring. College football winds down towards its inexorable ending with the only drama remaining surrounding the question of whether the BCS system will be faced with four teams with only one loss and a valid claim to be worthy of playing in the championship. But now is when things start to get exciting because of the start of the NBA season. And what a season it promises to be. Can veterans Malone and Payton finally earn their rings with the Lakers? Will Dallas regret signing Antoine Walker? Will the Kings finally make it over the hump or will the fragile CWebb let them down again? This is not to mention the formidable defending champion San Antonio Spurs, the probably significantly improved Minnesota Timberwolves, and Yao Ming and the Rockets. Even the Utah Jazz, thought by everyone to be destined for a 20-win season present the drama of making an improbable run for the playoffs and earning Jerry Sloan much deserved coach-of-the-year honors. Oh, and I forgot to mention that there is an Eastern Conference in the league too. But given that a team from the East not named the Chicago Bulls with a certain number 23 hasn't won the NBA championship in a couple of decades, most assume that the East will continue its pathetic, losing ways.
And there's the rub. Many of the franchises in the East are in big market towns (New York, Chicago, and to a lesser extent Philadelphia, Boston, Washington DC etc.) and when the East stinks, the ratings stink. So, what do the brilliant minds in the NBA (along with shoe companies and tv networks) decide to do: place all their bets on a kid named LeBron James. Coming straight out of high school, James has been christened the next Michael Jordan. The media followed is every move throughout his last year of high school and hasn't let up since. LeBron has double-double is the lead NBA story on espn.com. "LeBron has looked cool and collected in his first two games" reads the subheading. Breathless comparisons to number 23 spill forth from sportscaster's lips right and left. "Marketing executives are ecstatic with the debut of Cleveland's engaging 18-year-old rookie LeBron James on Wednesday" reads a Washington Post article on James. I don't grudge this obviously talented kid his fame or his shoe contracts. Who wouldn't take the money and adulation in his place. I just wonder, though, why it doesn't seem to matter to anyone that Cleveland lost both games. Will the love last if the Cavs continue to stink? Of course Michael Jordan's Bulls took several years before they began to be a dominant power. I remember one game when the Boston Celtics essentially said: "we'll let MJ score all he wants but we'll shut down the rest of his pathetic team" and it worked: Jordan scored 63 and the Bulls lost. But MJ didn't start with the hype that James has enjoyed/suffered. LeBron James may end up being the next great player. Or, he may end up being the next Shareef Abdur-Rahim: a 20 points 9 rebounds a game player who never makes it to the big leagues in part because of the terrible teams he has been saddled with. Or he may end up being a Shawn Bradley: a dud who never lived up to the hype. Basketball is still, despite the best efforts of the NBA and Nike to ruin the game, a team sport.
UPDATE: This says it all:
ESPN cut away from overtime of the New York-Orlando game it had been broadcasting to show the Cleveland tip-off.Pathetic!
