Conspiracies Pushed Aside, Along With Some Fan Interest

"The teams back in the day, in Magic and Bird's time, you loved the players but you were mostly connected to the team," said John Crotty, the former NBA point guard and now an analyst with the Miami Heat. "So, while the league has gone crazy with promoting the individual, purists like myself like watching the game at a high level.

"I think the Spurs and their chemistry is a great story. And then you have Utah, the young, rising team trying to figure it out under Jerry Sloan. To me, it's exciting to watch. But for everyone else? I don't know."

The league's strongest detractors lived for the day when five players functioned as one again, when rivalries and a renewed sense of team identification supplanted "Kobe vs. Vince" or "A.I. vs. T-Mac." They wanted clear-out, isolation play that ignored ball movement to die.

With the exception of a few truly transcendent players, the marketing of individuals was blamed for driving many of the NBA's core fans away. The thinking was that the choreography of teamwork would bring them back. And in specific markets and among real hoopheads, it has. Post-Jordan, the product is again worth watching on many nights.

But the trouble is, the purists are not the demographic anymore. Stern's consumers of the new millennium want their names. When the commercialism doesn't match the success on the floor, the nouveaux NBA fan becomes exposed as just a fan of a certain player, not the game. When Kobe or Shaq or Steve Nash are eliminated, so is that fan's interest in the NBA playoffs.

And when the supernova and his team wilt from the heat of a genuine roster of well-rounded players -- which is what will happen to LeBron against the Pistons within the next 10 days -- star-power marketing becomes a dangerous strategy for the league to continue to embrace.

Kevin Garnett, after all, has been in the league 12 seasons and has gotten out of the first round of the playoffs once. McGrady has never been on a team that won a playoff series. Kobe is 0 for 2 in postseason appearances since Shaq left for Miami.

What's left is Duncan, the most reluctant superstar in the middle since Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. What's left is Rasheed Wallace, Rip Hamilton, Chauncey Billups and Tayshaun Prince to take down what's left of the NBA marquee.

Poor LeBron. In a league where run-and-gun sells but rebounding and defense ultimately win, one star has no shot.