'Melo,
Dwyane and
LeBron are not only a big part of the 2005 All-Star Weekend in Denver but also a large part of the NBA's future.
- R. Nelly
Let’s play a little game.
Look through this list and check off what’s wrong with the NBA:
- Kobe Bryant’s rape trial
- Gigantic contracts and endorsements and super(fluous) bling
- Player-fan brawl in Detroit
- Disappointing bronze medal finish at 2004 Olympics
- Low scoring matches
- One-on-one game (no longer team oriented)
- Too little passion in players
- Games mean too little during the season
- No more rivalries
- Bulls/Pistons
- Celtics/Lakers
- Players too raw to contribute as rookies
Give yourself two points for each of the things that piss you off about the NBA. Add them up, the highest score is 20. If you get that, then obviously you completely DESPISE the current state of the League.
If Jordan, Bird and Magic could carry a league whose premiere game was played on tape delay all the way into the national spotlight, can’t LeBron, Amare and Dwyane at least recover the League from the player-fan brawl at the Palace?
Alright, so that might have been a fun game. It might have gotten you warmed up for the main event.
I want you all to think back to the “glory days” of the NBA. And by that, I mean the ‘80’s until the late ‘90’s. Picture the League when a cocky hick from Indiana was winning three-point contests. When a 6’9’’ point guard revolutionized a game. When a third overall pick won his third consecutive championship…for the second time.
Picture the Dream Team rolling over the rest of the world by an average margin of 43.8 points.
Now look at that list above. What would’ve been your score 15 years ago?
A little different, huh?
The League is obviously in an entirely different state in 2005 than it was in 1980. For one thing, the NBA Finals are no longer on tape delay anymore.
The players that once razzeled and dazzled the nation with star-studded slam dunk contests, 69-point nights and decades long of bitter playoff rivalries are gone.
The League is entering a new era. Because of the previous generation of players, the NBA is already a national sport superpower. The League is under tremendous scrutiny to see if it can keep up the excitement.
In a search to find the next big talent or franchise savior, the League has gotten younger and much less experienced.
Just today, a 19-year-old named Josh Smith (who I think will one day be an All-Star in this League) won the Sprite Rising Stars Slam Dunk Contest. Smith became the second youngest player to ever win the competition behind then 18-year-old Kobe Bryant in ’97.
Since Bryant’s breakout in All-Star weekend eight years ago, the media has tried to tout him as “next” — the one to take the excitement of NBA back to what it used to be.
Don’t get me wrong, Bryant has not been the only one to be quickly tagged with the same, presumptuous label. The media has been hyping players as the League’s saviors since MJ’s first retirement in ’93.
Shaquille O’Neal, MVP Kevin Garnett, Tim Duncan, Grant Hill and Vince Carter, among others, have had points in their career when they shared the same intense media spotlight.
Stoudemire competing in Saturday's Dunk Contest
Although they’re all excellent players, and will all undoubtedly be in Springfield shortly after they retire, none of them have been able to resurrect the quickly plunging image of the NBA.
The “Next Mike” is seemingly always who we’re looking for. Well here’s a message to the rest of the world: Get over it!
There never can nor ever will be another player with the skill of Michael Jordan. It’s like waiting for another Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. No one will ever surpass the profoundness of his impact and genius of his speech.
However, what I think we CAN hope for is another player, or players, who can revitalize the NBA just as Mike, Magic and Bird did.
Just recently, I was reading an article by David DuPree written on the front page of Thursday’s special section of USA Today on the NBA All-Star Game.
His piece focused on first time All-Stars LeBron James, Amare Stoudemire and Dwyane Wade.
In very few words, he willed himself to hail these three players as the future of the NBA — continuing the media’s decade-long game of pin the tale on the savior.
Basically, DuPree’s message was if Jordan, Bird and Magic could carry a league whose premiere game was played on tape delay all the way into the national spotlight, can’t LeBron, Amare and Dwyane at least recover the League from the player-fan brawl at the Palace?
Stoudemire obviously thinks so.
“With us three, the NBA is back,” Stoudemire said to USA Today. “That’s great for the game and for the fans.”
But what makes the 22-year-old and 2002-’03 Rookie of the Year so sure? What will the public see in James, Wade and Stoudemire that they didn’t in KG, TD and Kobe?
I’m not going to try to be like the rest and pretend that I have all the answers. Honestly, I really don’t know. I’d have to talk to Amare to get his reasoning for his bold statement.
But one thing is for sure, it’s now or never for the NBA.
Yesterday, on ESPN’s Cold Pizza, Michael Smith touched on the state of the NBA. He said that with the “NHL trying to kill itself” and baseball pumped up with steroids, basketball really has the opportunity to the number two spot in popular American spots behind the NFL.
I wholeheartedly agree.
“With us three, the NBA is back,” Stoudemire said to USA Today. “That’s great for the game and for the fans.”
What a coincidence Wade, Stoudemire and James are making their All-Star debuts tomorrow in the culmination of the NBA’s most hyped weekend.
Not only do they play hard on every possession, compete with passion, put up huge numbers and give back to the community, there’s something intangible about these players that I haven't seen in...well, about seven years.
Said Heat President Pat Riley of LeBron James, “He really understands the responsibility he has as a big-time, money basketball player to bring it every night…I think that separates him and puts him in a category with the Michaels, the Larrys and the Magics who competed every single night like that.”
May the rest of the world take witness to it tomorrow.
Next is now, folks.
Bird faced a similar situation when he and Magic Johnson entered the League in ’79.
The Pacers’ GM sounded off in this quarter’s edition of GQ.
“When I first played in the NBA, I said, ‘There’s something I don’t like about this league,’” Bird told the publication. “It was the drugs. It was the guys who didn’t want to play all the time.”
So the question quickly becomes: is the NBA on the up and up or is it plunging out of the American spotlight?
Whether the players can prove that every season, game and possession matters to them, the NBA will be mired in a negative light by the general public.
Tomorrow, the three can rekindle that old excitement, but it’s really up to the rest of the League to prove it means business.
After the Slam Dunk competition today, Magic Johnson commented on the importance of the big event. “If they come out tomorrow and play that game hard, the All-Star weekend is back,” he said.
And, in turn, so could be the NBA.
So I encourage you all to turn on TNT Sunday at 9:00 ET to watch LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Amare Stoudemire take part in their first of many All-Star Games in their young careers.
Tomorrow, the leaders of a new era will be crowned, and a League will be reborn.
