No, i am talking about 2008 in America with the multi-billion dollar, multi-national operation we like to call the National Basketball Association, and of course, the man who continues to sit at the helm is David Stern...
It has been sometime since Magic, Bird, Hakeem, the Bad Boys, Jordan, and ESPN coverage combined to make the NBA what it is today, and this all happened on Stern's watch; i mean whether it was pure coincidental timing or not is open for debate, but regardless, the guy deserves some credit as all managers who preside over unprecedented growth in an operation do, whether their management had any discernible impact or not...giving carte blanche to his power, and to provide sign-off on the continuation of all of his policies and precedents, and allowing him to hand-pick Adam Silver (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Silver) to run a sports league, presumably based on his qualifications as an 'entertainment lawyer' are an entirely other matter...
I promised in at least one of my initial posts to provide a little context for why i was not eager to embrace the 2008-09 season, and so the remainder of my post will not lay-out a case against Silver, mainly because he has not done anything, so what would we talk about...it will not second-guess Stern's run, or try to make a case that had he not been so regressive, that the NBA would actually have a better image than it does today...rather, i would like to provide the casual NBA observer with some perspective on what has transpired in the past year that threatens everything that Stern has sought to build and maintain through Silver...
to me, it all started way back in 2002...
There are many euphoric references in sports to things like underdogs, curses, and superstitions, but it is completely plausible to assert that from time-to-time, a team, a player, or a circumstance arises to make a sporting situation appear to be bigger than just the game or the business that it is, and go beyond to transcend culture, or history, or even change the basic perspective of humanity...i mean, you get in shaky territory even talking about it, but i guarantee you that if you were working or living in Jamaica the second week of the Olympics this summer, you will have no choice but to agree, that occasionally sports just actually do live up to even the most audacious hype...
To even mention other examples, i think sometimes discredits them, because it is tough to replicate what that atmosphere was like to engender the perspective...in my lifetime, i have had a few such memories related to sports: i remember when i was 10 years old in 1984, and my parents ordering Little Caesars pizza to celebrate and support the night that the Detroit Tigers won the World Series; i remember watching a 16 year-old around 1990 completely dominate a high school basketball game at the Grand Rapids Junior College gym in a Holiday tournament by snagging rebounds and dribbling the length of the floor, and dunking, repeatedly; i remember Andre Agassi beating Lleyton Hewitt in the 2002 U.S. Open semi-finals to set-up the finals match with Sampras, and to deny Hewitt's publicly stated objective to "become the Tiger Woods of tennis"...
and then, i will always remember the Sacramento Kings in the NBA...
You can look at the standings today, and ask yourself: is this a case that Doug was talking about in the previous post about how good teams, occasionally have to be bad for a time period following their run?...yes, yes indeed, this is but one example of that near-rule, but it has an added dimension to it, because for the Kings, they actually never fulfilled their promise of ultimate conquest, Horry actually did make that 3-point buzzer-beater in Game 4, David Stern and the NBA referees did actually rig that Game 6 second-half in Los Angeles, and the Lakers actually did beat the Kings in Game 7 of the 2002 Western Conference Finals, and so a franchise that was a singular-focus for the greater Sacramento area for at least 3 years was denied its place in history, because of clutch-shooting, free throws, and league-sponsored cheating...
The funny thing about conspiracy theories is how close to the truth they are while concomitantly perhaps ever so slightly missing the complete truth, so as to allow the protagonists of said conspiracy get away with publicly deriding the antagonists of being delusional, unpatriotic, or even criminals...it is, of course, unclear to me and to probably everyone being honest about how NBA games are refereed if the truth will ever come out, or at least will ever be accepted following Donaghey's summer-time claims...i don't know if i care about that...i mean people spend a lot of energy on JFK, RFK, and MLK assassinations to no avail, and yet slowly but surely, the cause that actually led to those murders is slowly but surely losing, even if it is never shown to be credible that more than a single-shooter acted in those crimes...the impact is slower, for sure, but not necessarily less meaningful...
I don't know what exactly will be the history book's recording of David Stern, i got to believe that in some darker moments for him, he thinks about the scenario were a crescendo of evidence finally bursts through to prove what Kings fans have long known: the better team and even the actual winning team did not prevail in the 2002 WCF...i try to live without stress, even as posts like this bring me a little anxiety as i know how it is read by those who think the Stern as manipulator theory is maybe just too inflammatory...so, i will stop now, there are plenty of on-line records of the issues i have raised in this post, and i encourage your feedback even if you feel the need to label me as one of those crazies...
like i have said for as long as i can think of, or at least as long as the evening following that Game 6 in 2002, that until the NBA actually becomes a player-run league, and not an attorney-run league, it will be grossly under-valuing its potential to make more of those life-affirming sporting moments...
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