The Heat Got Beat

So, Miami couldn't handle the Celtics in their first game of the season. A lot of people were probably surprised about that, but as you have seen me write before, I didn't have my heart set on this team. I think that this kind of phenomenon has happened before. I know that there are teams that have several stars. If you remember back to the Bulls in the 90s, Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, and Dennis Rodman were all pretty heavy stars on those teams. However, there was a definite role for each of them to play. I believe that they all had talents complemented each other. I think that Lebron, Dwayne, and Chris will figure this out because they are great players with different abilities, but I think it will take time. For all three of them, they were the definite stars on their franchises last year so there will be a learning curve to learn how to use other stars as teammates. It probably will happen, and with all of the talent that they possess, they will eventually be very good or even great. But it won't be an instant takeover; I believe that they need time to bond before they will dominate.
Photo by RMTip21 on Flickr

MJ Shows Why He Was Great

Hooray for Michael Jordan! I was so happy to hear him say that he would never have wanted to sign up with Larry Bird and Magic Johnson to create a super team. That is what made him great. He went to a bad team, and eventually once the pieces joined him, he became one of the greatest sports heroes of all time. I think that a lot of this comment comes from the fact that he is such a competitor, he did not want to admit that he needed help from Larry Bird or Magic Johnson; he wanted to prove that he could lead his own team to a championship. Of course he needed the great players around him such as Scottie Pippen, but I know that there was no doubt who the star of that team was. Now, is LeBron, Bosh, or Wade the star? Honestly, if the Heat win the NBA championship, I think that there will be treated like the Yankees, another team who bought a championship. Although I don't necessarily believe that you can buy a championship as I noted earlier in my George Steinbrenner post, I think that the public does generally believe in the idea of buying championships. Therefore, this might not be the glorious triumphant that the Heat were looking for.
Photo by Marcin Wichary on Flickr

LeBron-Fest 2010

The soap opera will end tonight. Finally, we will know where LeBron James will call home next season. I like LeBron as much as the average fan who can realize how talented he is, but I think that this has been much too big a deal. I know that people argue with me when I say that James is the most talented player in the NBA today mainly because he hasn't been able to bring in a ring. However, even though I believe he is the best player in the NBA right now, who on earth deserves a one-hour TV special on ESPN to announce who they will sign with? No one. Ridiculous if you ask me.

Now that I've vented about the whole situation, I will now weigh in with my own two cents. I think that LeBron should stay home in Cleveland. If he goes to Miami, so what if they win a ton of games? Who wouldn't be able to win with that team? Having three of the best players in the NBA all on the floor together is quite a bit of talent all bought and not developed in-house except for Wade. Whatever happens tonight, remember that all of this hoopla is ridiculous from the beginning.
Photo by  Keith Allison on Flickr

LeBron James is Going Where?

I was wondering what to write today to bring you something new and maybe kind of weird. Well, I've got that for you now. Last night I had a dream that I knew where LeBron James would sign. I was sitting in a press conference, and the moderator introduced James. Everyone started cheering as he came onto the stage carrying flags of all the teams that have potentially been in the running for his services. I am not really sure if this has ever happened in the history of the press conference. As most of you know, the Cavaliers and Bulls are the favorites to land him while the Knicks, Nets, Clippers, and the Heat have all been mentioned as outside chances. However, in my dream, all of these flags were passed on until only one remained. For some reason, my mind projected the Sacramento Kings. Don't ask me why or how I came up with this, but I do know that when it does happen, I will be one of the few who thought about this ahead of time. It's not like I'm even a Sacramento fan and this was wishful thinking; I'm a Mavericks fan. Whatever, all I know is that I barely ever dream, so this kind of surprised me.
Photo by Ed Yourdon on Flickr

Michael Jordan's Legacy Etched in Stone

I am a little bit behind in reading my newspapers. However, this morning I opened up the Parade magazine from Sunday's paper and read an article about how to save the NBA. To be honest, I think that the NBA has been slipping downhill since Michael Jordan retired in 1998. I know he made a comeback after that, but he was not the legend that he was before that first retirement. During his career, the league essentially became Michael Jordan and a bunch of other players. Don't get me wrong, there are several other players of his era who were amazing as well such as David Robinson or John Stockton. However, I do not know the figures off the top of my head, but I would bet that the amount of endorsements that Michael Jordan received was several times that of any other player of that time. He was the face of several national brands, most notably Gatorade and Nike, he played on the original Dream Team which also received quite a bit of international media exposure, and he became a legend in college basketball first thereby gaining a fan base that Lebron James could never get because he never went to college. We are always looking for the next Jordan for a reason; his personality, obvious talent, and championship success all became major selling points for the NBA. Even people who didn't know basketball understood that he was the best. I don't really see that happening right now because there are so many different players who might be the best, Lebron, Kobe, Wade, or a few years ago Steve Nash. All of this talent is awesome, and I'm glad that all of these players are stars, but it also takes more of an in depth understanding of the game to know all of these players and realize who is the best. At least in the 90s, there was no question.

So, how would I save the NBA? I think mainly I would need a player who'd come in from college with a national championship, be very flashy on the court but have a good reputation off of it, and he would need to go to a bad franchise and turn them around into a champion. Lebron James came in heralded as the next Jordan, but until he can win that championship, he's not on the same level of stardom.
Photo by Esparta on Flickr

Price Floor

You know, if all of the NBA owners got together to try to fix player salaries and determine who would play where next year, I bet that the union would be all over that case. However, when Lebron James, Dwayne Wade, Chris Bosh, and Joe Johnson want to meet to discuss plans for next year, nobody seems to have a problem with it. Maybe this is not their intent whatsoever, but they could totally play the owners by raising the price of each other. For example, say they all wanted $100,000,000. If they all agreed to remain at that price, they all would get it. Without this agreement in place, one of them could get a smaller contract and therefore eliminate the higher priced options from other teams. Again, maybe they are just meeting to talk, but it seems a bit unfair that these guys, even though they are some of the best players in the NBA, could get together and set a price floor. It may work out well for them financially, but as I learned in economics, whenever you fix the prices, you get inefficiency. In this case, this inefficiency is the added money that these guys could receive above what they are worth that could've been spent on bringing in other parts to build a championship team. Basketball is more than a one-man game.
Photo by AndyRob on Flickr