NBA Preview Special - October 28, 2003
Enter The Dragon
[Ed. note: Friends, we've got a new columnist to introduce you to. Our latest writer/deep thinker, SwampDragon2, will appear from time to time to give his thoughts on the NBA and all things that matter in David Stern's little universe. Sit back and enjoy, Netsfans, and he takes us on a preview that is part genius, and part madness.]

Netsfans, Dragon here.

I figured there isn’t much of a point in offering a season preview of our beloved Nets considering that those who read this are knowledgeable and all-knowing Netsfans. It would be a task no different than teaching a Harvard Summa Cum Laude the alphabet.

But to conquer one’s enemies one must know and understand the enemy. I aim to help my fellow Netsfans learn a little about our enemies and make some bold predictions that we as both Netsfans and NBA fans should know about going into the season. We must also understand our environment as we enter the field of battle. In this case, the field being the NBA. The landscape of the league changes year by year and this year will be just like every other. Somethings will be expected and other things will shock us, but it helps to be prepared regardless.

Well, we might not learn anything at all from this banter, but it will sure be fun to take a light-hearted look at what’s going on in the league heading into the season.

So I put together a series of NBA thoughts, ramblings, theories and other assorted hodgepodge that I put together to get us all ready for the start of the season and to possibly generate some thought provoking among the world that is JoeNetsfan.com. The NBA is a league that can be conquered and by god, this is the year for our beloved Nets to do so.

For starters…

A lot has happened nearing the start of the season. The NBA offseason was wacky enough even without a certain someone allegedly fornicating with a Colorado hotel employee. Then it got even wackier. The Knicks continue to make the NBA world laugh by signing Mount Old Bones Mutombo to a THREE YEAR DEAL!! The Mavs go out and trade for Antoine Walker who is going to end up being their fifth freaking option on offense. And Pat Riley, Mr. There’s-No-I-In-Team and Three-peat copyright guy himself, bails on his Miami Heat by resigning from his coaching duties just days before the start of the season. Madness Netsfans, sheer madness.

I believe the most overlooked move of this offseason is Michael Olowakandi signing for the mid-level exception in Minnesota. The guy is finally going to bring a presence to the paint that Minnesota has yet to have next to Kevin Garnett. He may just be the piece of the puzzle, not Cassell or Spree that get Minnesota out of the first round. Just how many former #1 overall picks that are in the prime of their career standing over 7 feet tall are found dirt cheap in the NBA? Bold prediction #1 alert! The T-Wolves will do just that and make it to the second round. Or Flip Saunders will lose his job.

Sticking with the West, (Bold Prediction #2 alert!) I think the Mavs will win 63 games during the regular season and take home court in the Western Conference. The team made two purely insane basketball moves by getting…ahem…stealing Antawn Jamison from the Golden State Warriors. Then they grabbed up the aforementioned Walker in a trade with Boston. Yes, they lost some size by losing Lafrentz, but their bench might be the deepest in the West by adding Danny Fortson, Travis Best, and Tony Delk. That and Nowitzki and Nash are simply so damn good its scary.

Bold prediction #3: I am expecting the Mavs in a regular season game to score 200 points in a game. And I expect them to do it on a last second shot in triple-overtime after allowing 198 points to the opponent.

The biggest offseason move that will turn out to be a bust is Brad Miller going to the Kings. I understand the logic in the move by the Kings to get deeper in the paint, but Miller played in the size deficient East and his skills may have been embellished by that fact. Miller now has to endure the pounding of the opponents in a much larger Western Conference and will have to be an offensive presence, which is not his strongest suit, in the early absence of Chris Webber.

Ladies and Gentlemen: May I present to you Celtics starting forward, Vin Baker!

When laughter has subsided please read on…

In all seriousness, Netsfans, Baker has done all he can to make a legitimate comeback in the NBA and the Dragon wishes him nothing but the best. In fact, I have had an inside source to his progress over the summer. That source would be none other than the Dragon’s brother. See Dragon’s brother had been holed up for the summer in Hartford, CT and actually befriended the big guy when seeing him at some of the local gymnasiums. So, Vin became a regular conversation topic between the two of us. For example we shared this exchange.

Dragon: What’s up man?

Dragon’s Brother: Nothing. Saw Vin at the gym today. He’s looking good man, lost a lot of weight.

Dragon: That’s cool, he couldn’t look much worse.

Dragon’s Brother: I keep telling you, I really think he can start to lead this team and make a huge difference.

Dragon: Dude, Vin couldn’t lead that team to a Burger King.

Dragon’s Brother: Nah bro, McDonald’s, he’s a Big Mac kind of guy.

Netsfans, I believe we have just summed up the Boston Celtics chances for anything this season. Thank you for playing. Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

Bold predictions continued…

Carmelo, not BronBron will win ROY. The Chicago Bulls will be a surprise playoff team in the East and Tyson Chandler will be the NBA’s MIP. Vince Carter will not play 82 games. Zydrunas Illgauskas will, almost. Tracy McGrady will again lead the league in scoring. Ron Artest will again lead the league in momentary lapses in judgement just ahead of Rasheed Wallace. Allen Iverson and Glenn Robinson will strangle each other right around the trade deadline. Mark Cuban will do or say something stupid and someone on the Trailblazers will think, "Hey, I can top that!" The Kings will win more games than the Jazz, Clippers, and Bucks combined. The Knicks will still stink. Ben Wallace will still be a scary, scary Homo Sapien and finally, Rick Fox will get punched in the face by someone other than Doug Christie who will expose him as nothing more than the bitch that he is.

And K-Mart will get paid…you heard it here first, Netsfans.

My fantasy top 10:
1. Tim Duncan
2. Kevin Garnett
3. Dirk Nowitzki
4.Shaquille O’Neal
5. Tracy McGrady
6. Jason Kidd
7. Paul Pierce
8. Jermaine O’Neal
9.Shawn Marion
10. Ray Allen

(Notice someone missing Netsfans, it’s a theme here.)

Things we should all see…

Jason Kidd finally winning his overdue MVP trophy. At least 5 players scoring 50 in a game this season. My early vote goes to Tim Duncan, Tracy McGrady, Paul Pierce, Dirk Nowitzki, and a darkhorse, Shawn Marion to accomplish this feat. Grant Hill playing again. The Jazz or Clippers setting NBA records in consecutive losses. The Hawks getting a fan base. Extremely overrated Larry Brown failing miserably in Detroit. Lebron and Carmelo putting on 30 point performances when they square off.

Kobe Bryant and his role in the triangle offense against a zone defense, and not Kobe Bryant and his role in a team defense against the prosecution.

The Blazers jokingly re-writing their newly established "Codes of Conduct" to include the following additional commandments…
1. Thou shalt partake in the act of puff, puff, give
2. Thou shalt knowingly pass the team bong in a counterclockwise rotation
3. Thou shalt drive a vehicle only with a blood alcohol content of at least .10 and a suspended license
4. Thou shalt only prepare for on court battle against opponents by fighting amongst thyselves in practice
5. It is never thy own fault when picking up a technical foul and thou shalt always whine to the referees after every foul call.

The Toronto Raptors changing their name to the Toronto Jurassic Park. I firmly believe that if the rocket scientists and biomechanical engineers that run a professional sports franchise knowingly decide to name its team after a movie, trend, or stupid made up animal, etc. it will NEVER be taken seriously. I propose to all, to heretofore no longer refer to the Toronto team as the Raptors but as Jurassic Park after the popular dinosaur movie it was named on the heels of in the early 1990s. See also the Anaheim Mighty Ducks of the NHL, Tampa Bay Devil Rays of the MLB, and soon to be Charlotte Bobcats.

The Denver Nuggets changing their name to the Denver Cotton Candy for several reasons. The Nuggets already sounds like a name for a food product. Young kids enjoy the soft texture and sweet taste of cotton candy. Denver is chock full of young kids and will likely play soft against the rest of the league. Denver has also chosen the primary color of their new logo and uniforms to be the exact same blue pigment found in cotton candy. So I propose to all heretofore to no longer refer to the Denver team as the Nuggets, but as the Denver Cotton Candy. Fits like a glove at an OJ trial don’t it Netsfans?

And finally, the Knicks figuring out in April what player they will try to woo to the Garden with the mid-level exception if for no other reason than because we all need the Michael Doleacs of the world to play somewhere. So why not New York? Very, very, very good times ain’t it Netsfans!

On to (serious) NBA matters that must be addressed this season…

First and foremost the league must do all it can not to let the case against Kobe Bryant become the central theme of the 2003-2004 NBA season. It will be the worst PR for the league and even worse of a marketing tactic if any regular season game is featured around Kobe Bryant (i.e. a road game against the Cotton Candy). There is no positive result from the mess that has already been made. The NBA should do all it can to not let this issue spread. Furthermore, the NBA should do everything humanly possible that no one associated with the NBA on any level form his or her own opinions on the case. It is nonsensical for any NBA commentator or analyst to try and think they are legal experts and should therefore put his two cents in about Kobe Bryant on a national stage. I pray that this doesn’t happen on ESPN. The network has already dropped the ball twice with the NFL by one, employing Rush Limbaugh to air his political belly aching on a football show, and two, having to fire weekly columnist Gregg Easterbrook for making anti-Semitic remarks in a separate news article. The last thing that ESPN needs to do is to upset the NBA only in year two of a new TV rights deal. ESPN may have already ruined its relationship with the NFL for good.

ESPN is just a minor issue in the grand scheme of things though. The real problem surrounding the Bryant case is that the NBA has image issues that might be irreparable. Kobe only adds fuel to the fire. And let’s not forget that because Kobe did wrong this offseason that everyone else in the league is off the hook. There are dirty players on the court and players who are simply made to feel that they are above the law of common society off of it. Behold the NBA dirty laundry list, Kobe, Ron Artest, Rasheed Wallace, Damon Stoudamire, Lamar Odom, Ruben Patterson, Allen Iverson, Glenn Robinson, Qyntel Woods, Latrell Sprewell, Ricky Davis, Eddie Griffin, Anthony Mason, Shawn Kemp, Chris Mills and just for the heck of it, Jayson Williams. I’m sure I missed a few there as well. That is a solid core of players whose demeanor on the court and legal troubles off of it has placed a black cloud over the NBA. I believe that the NBA might, or should, impose stricter penalties for flagrant fouls, poor conduct and other off-court behavior detrimental to the game by adding suspensions additional to those that are listed in league rules. The NBA needs to act more as a governing body than it has in past years. Think about it, if a player in the NFL violates the drug policy of the league they get suspended for 4 games, no questions asked. That is a quarter of the NFL season and a massive chuck of a player’s non-guaranteed salary. Could you imagine the uproar if an NBA player was suspended a quarter of the league’s game or 20 just to give a round number? The Player’s Association would throw a fit, but just think about how many players would think twice about lighting up a joint at any time.

And if the league is such the marketing machine that it is, it will do more to promote the players in the league that do as much off the court as they do on. Start backing the players who serve as role models and loyal Samaritans to the league. NBA players are individually marketed better than any other major sport. But it’s done through massive show deals with the Nikes, Reeboks, and Adidas of the world and not done by the league itself. The league needs to take better care of its core players that contribute positively to things other than basketball.

And for god’s sake stop talking about expansion into Europe and start worrying about why, that in the league that features the highest level of basketball in the entire universe, that every single team and every single player in the league can’t put an orange ball into a hoop twice the ball’s diameter more than 45% of the time. That Netsfans, is the league field goal percentage! It has been the disturbing downward spiral of play as shown in that ominous 45% number and poor image that the NBA has acquired that has decimated fan base and viewing audiences.

Want proof? I give you the number 6.5. That is the average earned Nielsen rating of the NBA Finals this past year. The NBA Finals has been outdrawn in ratings by all regular season NFL games, the MLB playoffs, certain NASCAR races including the Daytona 500, and all three legs of Horse Racing’s Triple Crown. It’s bad, really bad for the NBA. In 1998, the NBA Finals did triple the 6.5 rating, just below a 19. And just as a sidebar, 1 ratings point is equal to 1.067 million households with a television set. Want to know how far the NBA has fallen in five years? If you measure it in just who is watching, then technically the NBA was three times better in 1998 then it is now. In addition, while the NBA fan base has been getting younger and more ethnically diverse, the NBA is now among the lowest of any sport in terms of average household income. What does that mean? It means that affluent businessmen and women who make important daily decisions that affect companies across our great nation are staying away from the NBA. The last people that NBA want to run away from them are sponsors and any company that may even look to share a suite or season tickets for league games.

If the NBA wants to win some fans back it needs to start by improving the product. For starters, do something about the dreaded NBDL. The NBA needs an established minor league system in the worst way possible. That way if high school players want to skip college and freshmen and sophomores want to leave school early they won’t be forced into the NBA game so quickly and water down the talent pool with their lack of basketball fundamentals.

And here is how you set it up. The NBA negotiates with the league owners to invest in a 25% stake in an NBDL team for their own franchise. Outside ownership and investment partners come in and individually own the remainder of the team. The NBA brokers contracts similar to MLB’s minor league system in which major league teams help operate minor league teams on 2 and 4 year contracts. Expand the NBA draft to 4-5 rounds to allow more international players and, more importantly, college players who earn degrees an opportunity to audition for an NBA franchise. This way NBA teams can pick from their own litter of talent who they want to develop. And when a player is not performing his best or needs time to recover from injury he can pick his skills back up in the NBDL. Sure, there are some more details that need to get worked out but the premise is simple. Each team gets its own minor league teams and develops the players themselves. And fans get to see some of the stars from the NCAA’s March Madness staying at home and playing ball in America. It can only add to the improvement of basketball and the revenue stream of the NBA.

When the product begins to improve then the league needs to move toward fixing the image and marketing of players in the league. Only then will fans of all age, race, gender, and sports in general will come back to a once proud league. It’s just a start here, but these are issues that must be addressed immediately before we enter, or try to get out of the NBA dark ages.

Netsfans, we are part of a larger environment and that environment needs to be cleaned up. NBA waste management begins now. Where’s Paulie Walnuts when you need him most.

Let the NBA 2003-2004 season begin. -SwampDragon2

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