Team Disoriented in the NBA

I hated Michael Jordan. Hated how good he was, hated how easy it all looked. Hated how he could take Pippen, a rebounder, one jump shooter, and a gaggle of rec league players to the NBA title. Hated all of the bandwagon Bulls fans that used to buy up all the Chicago games at the Meadowlands just to see Michael and the Jordanaires beat the ever-loving crap out of my hapless, pre-Jason Kidd Nets. Hated the shoes, hated the posters, hated the smell of the cologne. Hell, I don't even think I looked at Bugs Bunny the same way after "Space Jam."

But I loved to hate Jordan. I watched the Bulls in the postseason, hoping someone could challenge them and knock Michael down a notch or two. I remember putting my faith in Clyde Drexler, Patrick Ewing, and a galaxy of other stars that simply didn't shine as bright as Jordan did. But I watched, and I waited, and I hoped that someone could send him back to the Windy City with a scowl on his face and an unlit cigar on his hand.

That's what made Jordan larger than life: that for every two people who worshiped him, there was someone like me who resented him. That's how a player is elevated from stardom to mega-stardom: when love and hate collide to form a supernova. Barry Bonds is just another 'roid freak belting dingers if he wasn't the single most polarizing figure in baseball, perhaps since Jackie Robinson. Wayne Gretzky had the respect of every hockey fan, but half the league wanted someone to knock his block off just once, without Marty McSorley there for protection. The NFL? Two letters: T and O.

The best news for the NBA this postseason has been the emergence of two true megastars: Kobe Bryant and LeBron James. Both contributed mightily to the two most exciting series of the playoffs thus far. Both carried their teams at certain points during those series. And both had a hand in the emotional turning points in those series: LeBron's overtime taunting of Washington's Gilbert Arenas during his two missed free-throws, and Kobe's antagonism that led to Phoenix's Raja Bell unleashing a headlock/clothesline that earned Bell a one-game suspension and allowed Kobe to let loose with some of the most egomaniacal taunting the NBA has seen since Barkley retired. (Vince McMahon should hire all parties involved for SummerSlam, pronto.)

LeBron, even if his team is humbled by the Pistons in round two, has arrived as a player, and not just because his "We Are All Witnesses" shoe campaign has become the most often-quoted and frequently mocked since "Bo Knows." To hear the Wizards announcers bellyache about James getting all the calls and none of the traveling infractions — one announcer called him "King Teflon" after Game 6 — was laughable, considering Washington is only a few years removed from having the benefit of the Jordan Rules.

Now, like Mike, LeBron is the guy everyone bitches about the referees viewing through shoosh-colored glasses.

Kobe was already a star entering this postseason, but now he's morphed into something even more monumental: Public Enemy No. 1, the single most hated man in basketball. And that's with Ron Artest not only in the same conference, but playing in the same state.

You thought the level of hatred was high after Kobe's Rocky Mountain sex-capade and subsequent bling-filled reconciliation with the Mrs.? All of that feeds this new level of resentment, but Kobe has is now something even more polarizing. First came the Nike commercial where he identified his role as the NBA's preeminent villain: "Love me or hate me — it's one or the other. Always has been. Hate my game, my swagger. Hate my hunger. Hate that I'm a veteran, a champion. Hate that. Hate it with all your heart. And hate that I'm loved for the exact same reasons."

It's all very Jordan-esque, of course, save for the fact that Nike would have never embraced the Michael backlash like it has for Kobe. Obviously, Jordan was much more universally accepted, and that's also fed the Kobe Hate around the league — Bryant's emulating nearly everything Jordan did. Is there anyone who doesn't expect Kobe to pick up a bat and try out for the Dodgers in about 10 years?

The Kobe/Jordan thing is covered well in this column by Sam Anderson of Slate.com:

"He's plagiarized MJ's game so expertly that, in many ways, he's ahead of the master's curve — Kobe is stronger than the 27-year-old Jordan and has a deadlier outside shot. But for all his miraculous skills, Kobe is painfully bad at mythmaking. Since he's a Jordan-like talent, Kobe clearly thinks that he's entitled to the Jordan mythology, but he doesn't have any of Jordan's charisma or imagination. As melodramatic and managed as Jordan's career was, there was some authentic core — it was original and seemed to mean something. Kobe exists entirely within quotation marks."

The bottom line is that both Kobe and LeBron got people talking about the NBA playoffs in a way fans haven't talked about it since Jordan left. There was a sense of urgency to these series, something intangible that made them required viewing and mandatory conversation the following morning — the "Did You See That?" factor that just doesn't seem to exist when the Nets are playing the Pacers.

We can pretend that the NBA is better when it's a team sport and not centered around the megastars, but then we'd just be kidding ourselves. We really don't care about the Pistons or the Spurs or the Suns. We care about Shaq and Dwyane Wade. We care about Dirk Nowitzki and Mark Cuban. We care about personality. We don't care about boxing out on a rebound, or how good the seventh man off the Detroit bench is. This is a star league, it's always been a star league, and the only time it doesn't work is when the stars aren't really stars.

Dan Wetzel, the perpetually perplexing columnist for Yahoo! Sports, touched on the fact that David Stern attempted to cast several players in Jordan's vacant role after the Bulls' run ended. But he misses the point when it comes to what makes the Association a success:

"The NBA, a league which has rejuvenated itself by rejecting just that thinking and emphasizing team play over individual performances, should have known better than to allow it.

This is exactly how the NBA got off track in the late 1990s, believing not in the inherent entertainment value of the game of basketball — merely the fastest growing sport in the world — but advertising slogans dreamed up by its New York office. The marketers believed they were smarter than the consumers and overloaded the game with flash and fashion, anything for the individual.

The result was a diminished level of play as games deteriorated into a slowed-down, overly physical, one-on-one bore that only Pat Riley could love. Oblivious, the NBA kept trying to hype up the "Next Michael Jordan," fooling no one with a steady string of weak imitators.

The NBA's rep, in some quarters, has never recovered."

The rep suffered, but the Association has suffered more when teams that don't have a legitimate star have found their way to the Finals. Look at last season: a seven-game series between San Antonio and Detroit whose average rating was down 29 percent from the previous season. In 2004, the Pistons played Shaq and Kobe, and the ratings were the highest since 2001's Shaq/Kobe vs. Allen Iverson series. In 2003, the Spurs beat the Nets and drew a 6.5 average rating; one year earlier, the Lakers played the Nets and drew a 10.2

The difference? No one hates Tim Duncan as much as they hate Shaq and Kobe. And no one cares about the homogenous defensive machine of the Pistons — where's John Salley when you need him?

We feel better about ourselves as fans when we pretend we don't care about the star system and pretend all we care about is "great football/basketball/hockey/baseball." It's all nonsense, and it's proven time and time again when the ratings for the NBA Finals and World Series come rolling in. (The Stanley Cup Finals are another animal — Gary Bettman wouldn't know how to develop a star if he was handed a manual entitled "An Idiot-Proof Plan For Developing a Superstar That Even a Moron Could Carry Out" by Simon Cowell, with a forward by Jessica Simpson's father.)

Don't be ashamed to admit you pick up a magazine at the supermarket if Lindsay Lohan is on the cover. Don't be afraid to admit that you're more likely to see an Adam Sandler comedy than a Golden Globe-winning British ensemble farce. Admit you crave stardom like John Daly craves an extra value meal with a MGD chaser.

Don't be Dan Wetzel, feigning innocence while taking a shaky stand:

"Why let TV claim the individual is more important than the team?


Why let LeBron — as great, as gifted, as exciting as he is — change the way you do business? This is something the NFL would never do, understanding the game and the league are bigger than any one sensation."

Right ... that must be why the NFL has as many Green Bay Packers (4-12 in 2005) games in primetime this regular season (3) as New England Patriots (10-6, division champions, and perhaps a Super Bowl contender again) games. Because the NFL has never cared about star-power, right?

Ask the Seattle Seahawks fans about that theory...

Greg Wyshynski is the Features Editor for SportsFan Magazine in Washington, DC, and the Senior Sports Editor for The Connection Newspapers of Northern Virginia. His book "Glow Pucks and 10-Cent Beer: The 101 Worst Ideas in Sports History" will be published in spring 2006. His columns appear every Saturday on Sports Central. You can e-mail Greg at [email protected].