Lynne Sladky/ASSOCIATED PRESS - LeBron James and the Miami Heat seem destined for another NBA Finals, and this time it could be against a loaded Lakers team, though Oklahoma City should not be counted out.
Chris Paul, in London this summer with the U.S. Olympic men’s basketball team, did all he could not to laugh, scoff or emote in any fashion. He was asked whether he was surprised that NBA Commissioner David Stern didn’t veto the deals that sent Steve Nash and Dwight Howard to the Lakers, who already have Pau Gasol and Kobe Bryant.
“I’m stayin’ away from that one,” said Paul, whose trade to the Lakers the summer before of course was nixed by Stern. “I’m where I’m at.”
Yes, C.P., you are where you’re at: stuck as an elite point guard on the No. 2 team in town and, at best, the seventh- or eighth-best team in the league. As a new NBA season dawns this week, the Clippers, like 27 other teams, have no bona fide shot of winning the championship, no shock-the-world prayer of unseating Kobe or Kevin Durant in their own conference, much less of dethroning LeBron and the Heat. Meantime, the rich get richer across town.
From the league that used “competitive balance” as its mantra through the lockout that shortened last season — because, we were told often, those scrappy little payrolls in Milwaukee and Sacramento should be able to hold their own against a player-collusion Death Star like Miami — comes . . . yet another uberteam.
Woo-hoo. Go World Bank!
I’m sorry. I am genuinely excited for another season of the world’s greatest athletes levitating above the rim.
I want to see LeBron take the next step and seize the torch from Kobe for good. If that happened in the NBA Finals, beautiful. It would feel a little like Michael vs. Magic 1991, when Earvin Johnson was simply too old to match Jordan entering his prime. But even the appearance of two supernovas is must-watch ball.
I want to select three unspecified front-court players on my all-star ballot for the first time in league history, because JaVale McGee should not get votes just because no one plays center any more.
I can’t wait to see the Kings rename their home the “The Sleep Train Arena,” because nothing says playoffs like a mattress company sponsor.
Hell, I want to see the Knicks implode, because nothing matches a good, old-fashioned implosion like a New York one.
I want to see pro basketball in Washington again — but, hey, you can’t have everything.
Anyhow, as the new season dawns, 90 percent of fans who live in an NBA market have just one great aspiration, one attainable goal: to see their team lose in the second round, rather than the first, to the Heat, Thunder or Lakers.
The anti-parity NBA numbers are pretty startling. In Major League Baseball, 19 franchises have won the World Series since 1980 — 31 years if you take out 1994. In the National Hockey League’s 31 years of holding a Stanley Cup playoff since 1980, 15 champions have emerged. Fourteen organizations — including the Steelers, 49ers, Redskins, Cowboys and Giants multiple times — have won Super Bowls since 1980 in the NFL.
The NBA’s ability to spread the wealth: nine teams. That’s it — just nine franchises have won NBA titles since 1980. Lockout or full season, the rich get richer and Charlotte goes to the lottery.
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