First of all: Duh. The NBA has always been this way. Look at the champion for the last 20 years:
2010: Lakers
2009: Lakers
2008: Celtics
2007: Spurs
2006: Heat
2005: Spurs
2004: Pistons
2003: Spurs
2002: Lakers
2001: Lakers
2000: Lakers
1999: Spurs
1998: Bulls
1997: Bulls
1996: Bulls
1995: Rockets
1994: Rockets
1993: Bulls
1992: Bulls
1991: Bulls
Notice anything? There hasn't been a lot of variety at the top of the NBA, and every team except that 04 Pistons squad had one of the 3 best players in the NBA at the time, and usually another top player as well. The only thing different now is that the players are more transparent in wanting to play together.
2nd of all: This doesn't mean the NBA is going to collapse. Quite the contrary, a lot of people reminisce about the good ol' days of the late 90s, when you could basically count on the same 7-8 star driven teams to meet in the playoffs each year. There were a lot of teams that were terrible all through this era, yet they didn't have to fold.
Rick Reilly doesn't know that though, since he basically only pays attention to golf anymore. It's not going to stop him from writing a poorly-informed article about it, though.
NBA no longer fan-tastic
In Denver, our hearts are as black as Johnny Cash's closet, our eyes mere lumps of coal. We are the emptiest thing fans can be: an NBA city without an NBA superstar.
What's this "our hearts" crap? Are you trying to be Bill Simmons here and represent Denver all of a sudden? (I know Reilly's from there, but I've never seen him write a first person article from a Denver perspective before.)
Don't laugh. You could be next.
Did Reilly write anything after The Decision? Stupid ESPN makes searching their archives unnecessarily hard, but I couldn't find him writing anything besides gold and world cup articles last summer. If he didn't it's interesting he's just noticing this now.
This is what the NBA has become: very tall, very rich twenty-somethings running the league from the backs of limos, colluding so that the best players gang up on the worst. To hell with the Denvers, the Clevelands, the Torontos. If you aren't a city with a direct flight to Paris, we're leaving. Go rot.
You can fly directly from Toronto to Paris.
There's no rule against it, so they do it. Ray Allen and Paul Pierce beg Kevin Garnett to please come to Boston. LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh connive to play in Miami. At his wedding in New York City this past July, Carmelo Anthony, Amare Stoudemire and Chris Paul toasted to all three playing in New York someday. Stoudemire switched this past summer. Anthony was traded there Monday. And Paul is set to enter free agency next season, bags already packed.
Kevin Garnett didn't actually trade himself to Boston. Also, since I mentioned 2004 earlier, does anyone remember Karl Malone and Gary Payton taking less money to play for the Lakers that year? How'd that work out for them?
Great for Spike Lee. Sucks for the game.
"The question is, will the fans support players whose egos are bigger than the game?" asks Denver Nuggets coach George Karl, who suddenly finds himself coaching a locker room full of nobodies. "Will the fans support all these players and agents manipulating things? Because if they don't, if the switch [by fans] is abrupt enough, the league could be at a crisis point."
Yes, we know how fickle fans are when it comes to supporting players with big egos.
Hello, David Stern? Did you leave a wake-up call for the 21st century? Your clubs need to be able to protect their great players with a franchise tag, as the NFL does. If that isn't priority No. 1 in your lockout talks, you need the Wite-Out.
I'd love to see a CBA with wite-out all over it. Also, apparently they don't talk about this around the golf clubhouse, but NFL players hate the franchise tag.
The trick to getting superstar players is to surround them with good, not overpaid role-players (unlike, say, Allen Iverson) which the Nuggets had trouble with. If the Nuggets weren't paying, say, Kenyon Martin $16 mil this year, maybe they could afford to surround Melo with talent that wasn't first-round-knockout-worthy.
Anthony stuck it to Denver because he could. Teams are powerless against it. He got the city he wanted, the teammates he wanted and the money he wanted, and he got it before the lockout. It's good to be king.
I'm not sure why you would begrudge him any of that. Melo hasn't been a huge prima donna or malcontent. He really didn't owe Denver anything, especially the way they kept forcing him to play with people like JR Smith and Chris Andersen.
The only power Denver had was to yank Melo's chain.
"Carmelo," Nuggets general manager Masai Ujiri said Monday night, "you've been traded …"
Melo held his breath on the other end of the line.
"… to the Nigerian national team."
Is this a joke without punchline? Or did this really happen? I'm confused.
Question: When all the Denvers and Memphises and Sacramentos fold because all their stars leave, whom are these SuperFriends teams going to beat? Baylor?
Providence? Iowa State? Wyoming? UNC-Wilmington?
A strong league is strong throughout, not just at the top. In other words, how will you get them to care in China, Mr. Stern, when they don't in Portland?
They always care in Portland. And every team can't be good at the same time. The NBA has done a pretty good job giving players incentives to stay with their teams (like being able to offer more money). The teams that haven't found themselves competitive in the last 20 or so years in most cases have no one to blame but themselves.
"The whole foundation of this massive thing called pro sports is the fan," Karl said. "You got to make the fan happy."
AKA, you've got to make me happy. The Denver fan will be fine. Karl might not be if they fall out of the playoffs.
We are not happy in Denver. Here's why:
1. What we're left with: We gave up a surefire Hall of Famer, who is only 26, for four New York Knicks starters. This is like acquiring the four best mountain climbers in Nebraska. Among Wilson Chandler, Raymond Felton, Danilo Gallinari and Timofey Mozgov (who, I believe, doesn't even exist), not one is in the top 35 in scoring or rebounding.
So you're admitting you're judging the trade without even seeing one of the key players? The Knicks were balking at including Mozgov, since promising young big men don't grow on trees. But no, I'm sure you're fine with Martin and Birdman up front.
Another thing clearly not mentioned in your golf clubhouse: the Knicks are halfway decent this year, and the 4 guys you got are all 26 years old and under, and making reasonable salaries. Know who else isn't in the top 35 in scoring? Ray Allen, Steve Nash, your precious Chauncey Billups, Chris Paul, Al Horford...
Know who's in the top 50 in scoring? Raymond Felton (38th), Wilson Chandler (44th), and Danilo Gallinari (49th)
2. The utter, sickening irony of it: Anthony insisted the most important thing to him was not (A) getting his starlet wife, LaLa Vasquez, to Broadway, nor (B) dunking with his friends, nor (C) cranking up his Q rating on Madison Avenue. No, he said his main priority was (D) "playing for a champion."
Why New York, then?
Stoudemire and Anthony will go together like peanut butter and microscopes. Stoudemire is a pick-and-roller. Anthony never picks and rolls. Stoudemire likes the ball in the same spots Anthony likes it. Knicks coach Mike D'Antoni lives to run. Anthony likes to set up on the wing, freeze it, look it over, freeze it some more and then unleash some weapon from his incredible one-on-one offensive arsenal. It works plenty, but Stoudemire is not going to enjoy standing there and watching it.
Remind me: How did it go with Anthony and Allen Iverson sharing one ball?
I agree with some of this. I don't think the Knicks have a very good chance to win the championship without adding at least one more major piece (Paul, maybe) and finding someone to play defense in the middle. Even then that just makes them competitive with the top teams in the East, by no means a favorite. However, he has a heck of a better chance then he does with the collection of albatross contracts he was playing with in Denver.
"If [Anthony would] have stayed with us, he'd have had a much better chance of winning a championship," Nuggets president Josh Kroenke said. He's right.
Not even remotely.
If Anthony had really wanted to play for a champion, he should've stayed put. The Nuggets had two big contracts expiring (kneeless Kenyon Martin's and brainless J.R. Smith's), which would have allowed them to sign the fresh-legged big man and the shooter they needed.
Any ideas who those players were going to be? Also you're probably not finding cheaper fresh-legged big man than Mozgov or shooter than Gallinari.
Prediction: Anthony will never get closer to winning an NBA title than he did in Denver.
That may be true since they went to the Western Conference Finals two years ago, but that doesn't mean he was going to get back there any time soon with the Nuggets. I think it was pretty obvious Denver was going in the other direction.
3. The lousy thing all this does to Chauncey Billups -- our native son: Billups was sucked into the vortex of a trade he wanted no part of. He deserved to end his basketball career in Denver, where it began. Instead, at age 34, he's being fitted for a Knicks jersey and wondering how he tells his three little girls.
Thanks for the ride, Karl texted him when news of the megatrade hit. You're one of the best winners I ever coached.
He didn't mention texting Anthony.
Billups is a class act, but Melo shouldn't be held accountable for him being traded. Basketball is a business. If Melo didn't exist, the Nuggets still would have traded Billups if it meant they got prospects and cap space in return.
The grinding unfairness of it all: The NBA used to work on a turn system. You will lose, but if you hang in there, you'll be rewarded with a very high draft pick like an Anthony, and your turn at glory will arrive.
Not anymore. The superstars are in charge now. Now, you lose and you get a pick, and that pick immediately starts texting his pals to see where they'll all wind up in three years. Pretty soon, you're back losing again.
Melo was in Denver for 7 and a half years. He is not in the least bit obligated to spend his entire career in Denver, especially since they were clearly sliding in the wrong direction. And teams that are halfway competent at drafting and handing out contracts (San Antonio, for example) don't even go into those downslides.
Get ready, Oklahoma City.
KD has stated he wants to play in Oklahoma City, and most importantly, they have an intelligent GM that has the cap space to keep him and the other young talented players around him. Somehow I don't think OKC needs to be worried.
You wonder why the NFL continues to pull away from the NBA in this country?
NBA ratings are the highest they've been in years.
Three words: Green Bay Packers. Two more: Indianapolis Colts. The NFL finds a way to let cities that don't happen to have a Versace store hang on to their great players like, oh, say, Peyton Manning.
"Melo was a big part of our team, but he wasn't irreplaceable," Karl said. "I think we're still going to make the playoffs, and I think we're going to be good when we get there."
Now why on Earth would he think that?
"Because I believe in my guys," Karl said.
I'm sure he does.
And soon he'll meet them.
Except George Karl actually, ya know, follows basketball in addition to coaching it, and is aware that the players he got in exchange for Melo exist, and are good at basketball.At least Reilly has met his NBA quota for the year and can get back to writing about golf.
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