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IS that
all there is?
Fortunately for the National Basketball Association
(NBA), it isn’t, even with TV ratings cratering for this
joke of a Finals … which you could see coming all season
as Western powerhouses vied for the honor of walking
over whichever 98-pound weakling made it out of the
East.
This
came after Stephen Jackson fired his gun to break up a
fight outside a club; Sebastian Telfair had a $50,000
necklace ripped from his neck and was questioned by the
NYPD in the subsequent shooting of rapper Fabolous; the
Denver-New York brawl; the suspensions of Carmelo
Anthony, Kobe Bryant, Amare Stoudemire and Joey
Crawford; the lost All-Star weekend in Las Vegas; Kobe’s
meltdown; and the battle over the basketball itself.
This
wasn’t just a bad season, this was the Mother of All Bad
Seasons.
Happily
for the NBA, its reality proceeds along two tracks,
which seem to have nothing to do with each other.
JUDGE DREDD, er, David
Stern, singlehandedly changes his players’ image and
controls their behavior.
LA Times
One is
strung-out with Judge Dredd, a.k.a. David Stern,
seemingly bent on single-handedly changing his players’
image and controlling their behavior from his New York office, where he monitors everyone via TV.
This
enforces an uneasy peace but results in never-ending
controversies that eclipse the “NBA Cares” spots
designed to enhance the players’ image. Despite all the
resources thrown into the campaign—they even ran media
buses to community events at the Finals—I don’t think
the prevailing image of an NBA player is a 6-8 guy on a
roof with a hammer.
However,
the other track is enviably prosperous with Stern, a
marketing wizard, steering his embattled league through
the storm to Fat City.
In a
little-noticed development before Game One, when only
Stern could muse, “I think it’s a great time to be a fan
of basketball and particularly the NBA at these Finals,”
he said he was close to contract extensions with ABC,
ESPN and TNT.
In an
overlooked development, the NBA isn’t in trouble at all,
but a colossus, the No. 2 property in rights fees, as
compiled by SportsBusiness Daily.
No one
approaches the National Football League’s (NFL) $3.7
billion a year, but even before the NBA extension kicks
in, presumably with the “healthy raise” Stern said he
expected his league is No. 2 at $767 million.
Supposedly hot properties such as the NCAA basketball
tournament ($565 million), Nascar ($556 million), Major
League Baseball ($553 million) and the Tiger Woods-era
PGA Tour ($492 million) all trail.
MLB and
the NBA have leapfrogged each other since the ’90s,
depending on which league signed the last contract.
Those days are over, with baseball locked in through
2013 and the $200-million gap about to get bigger.
If happy
days are here again, why doesn’t anyone know it?
Instead,
tipping off his overriding fear of another Auburn Hills,
Stern insists on absolute control with no thought to
obtaining the consent of the governed.
The
union is so much in the dark, NBA Players Association
director Billy Hunter said last week that he worries
about the economics. Stern won’t even tell him the good
news.
Now that
we know the games are going to continue, it would be
nice if they could get someone to watch.
The NBA
thought its 6.5 rating for the Spurs and Nets Finals in
2003 was a fluke, in ABC’s debut with an inexperienced
staff and a low-power sports division, since taken over
by ESPN.
They
just crashed through the floor with the Spurs-Cavaliers,
setting an all-time low at 6.2, on merit.
This set
off the usual nationwide debate on the NBA’s chances of
survival … which somehow no one got around to after the
last two World Series set all-time ratings lows.
The NBA
actually has more to offer than blowing up LeBron James
and floating him out like a hot-air balloon.
(How long do we have to endure children being compared
to Michael Jordan? At 22, Michael Jordan wasn’t Michael
Jordan either.)
Unfortunately, most of what the NBA has to offer is in
the West, making its marquee event an afterthought.
Stern has been dismissing the notion of reseeding for
five years. I know because I was the one who used to
bring it up before he beat me down.
Detroit and Miami bought him some peace, even if the
Pistons’ 2004 win over the Lakers was a stunner and the
Heat won in 2006 only after the Dallas Mavericks, who
were about to take a 3-0 lead, gagged.
This was
the year the B-52s came home to roost. Of course, if
they had been reseeding, when Dallas lost in the first
round, Phoenix and San Antonio would have gone into
opposing brackets, on track to meet in the Finals.
The West has won seven of the last nine Finals and 31 of
48 games. The entire All-NBA first team is from the
West, with stars of tomorrow Greg Oden and Kevin Durant
on their way.
Nor is there anything promising on the Eastern horizon.
In the
East, the threadbare Cavaliers are a good young team. So
are the Bulls, even if Luol Deng is their tallest
starter.
The Pistons might or might not have another run in them.
With
president Joe Dumars fuming that complacency “will not
be the calling card of our team going forward,” and
Rasheed Wallace ticketed to ride, they have work to do.
Miami was a joke, but where there’s Shaquille O’Neal and
Dwyane Wade, there’s hope if they can get help ... like
Ron Artest?
The East
isn’t just lame, it’s slow. Of the top nine offenses,
eight were in the West.
We just
saw what that means with the Cavaliers, who were not
only in over their heads but boring beyond belief.
Of
course, being David Stern means never being out of
rebuttals, but he tried it his way. You saw what
happened, at least if you were among the 6.2. |
