It could be worse Senor, it could be Tirico and Tolbert.

What's wrong with Tirico and Tolbert? Tolbert's an exception to the rule. In fact, I think both of them are really good.

ABC, take note. I rarely watch basketball now, and when I see loud mouth idiot Tolbert on my TV, I turn it off. He can't make a point without doing his "everyone sucks and/or is an idiot" shtick. We all know scoring is down and play isn't very good, you're not being as revolutionary, blunt, or keepin' it real as you think. Take it down a notch.

And since I don't watch very often, is Bill Walton still there? Because he's horrible too. He used to treat the game like a debate meet. Someone had an opinion, he'd go the other way as if he HAD to.

Which is damned rich coming from Tom "The Human Bench Cozy" Tolbert.

I like Tolbert. I agree 100% with one of his statements from halftime of the Sixers/Spurs game: David Stern should force teams to stay out on the floor until they score 100 points.

I'm sorry to say this but the quality of play in the NBA is shit now. I grew up on the NBA. It was my first sports love. Before baseball. Long before football. The first show I ever saw on a color tv was a Sixers game when they had Wilt Chamberlain - about 1967 so I go back aways. The current NBA product is the worst I've ever seen. It's hard for me to watch now.

Other than Shaq, I don't think there's another true center in the league. Maybe Divac.

No team east of the Mississipi should *ever* be on national tv for the forseeable future. Playoffs, too until the finals.

Coaches should be fined $25,000 every time their team scores less than 90 points. Maybe that'd stop these wretched low scoring games. If I wanted to watch 83-77 games, I'd watch college basketball.

Disband perpetually bad teams. Why are the Clippers still in the league? If your team makes the lottery x times in y years, you get disbanded.

Yes, the NBA sucks, but IMO this is all just Stern playing the piper for the Star Driven League strategy he adopted during '80s. (As opposed to the NFL's Team Driven League.) It was great while it lasted with Bird, Magic and Jordan and made the league far more successful during that time, but it's had some horrible consequences on both on the game itself and way younger players learn to play the game. And yeah, the NBA is always going to be more star driven just because of the nature of the game, the fewer players and the lack of helmets, but the NBA really went over board during the Jordan era which was extremely short sighted. No one player should mean that much to a league.

Basically, I really think that with any league you should embrace your stars but push and market Teams as much as possible; their history, their backstory, their rivals, etc. because those storylines stand the test of time, players come and go. Stern just completely dumped Team marketing around the late '80s to the late '90s. Huge mistake.

Then add on top of that the fact that the NBA's "minor league" system is broken... Comparing how well the MLB's and NFL's "minor leagues" work to their prepare athletes for the next level to college basketball... Well there's just no comparison and having a minor league that isn't efficient at creating stars just hurts the NBA even more because they are so star driven.

Yao.

Or how about relegation? The Clips and the other shithouse teams should be relegated to the minor leagues a la the Premiere League set up. I would love that.

Heh. I have been advocating for promotion/relegation in U.S. sports for several years now. It works wonderfully in European soccer leagues but will never happen here, which is a shame. Watching the Bulls and Heat battle for NBA survival in April would be a pretty exciting contrast to the playoffs and keep more cities engaged.

I really like Tolbert's "first team to 100 points" idea. The only thing is that it could make for really painful television. The only other clock-less sport is baseball, and we know how long those games can drag. No need to watch two basketball teams shoot bricks for two hours, much less three or four.

Relegation won't work. There are too many owners in American sports (Pollin, Bidwell, Sterling, Selig...) who are more than happy to founder in obscurity. Relegation would just give them an excuse to invest less in fielding competetive teams.



Are you kidding? That would take three days! I refuse to watch basketball again (college or pro) until someone proves to me that they can make a shot.

No, because relegation would make it near-impossible for them to turn a profit. One reason why promotion to the top/avoidance of relegation in European soccer leagues is so essential is that most of a team's annual income is tied to money from television deals -- money you'll only get by being in the top division.

Right now, these owners know that their television money is a given, so there's no incentive for them to spend money competing. Threaten to have it taken away due to relegation, and I guarantee that they'll start singing a different tune.

I think Pat Riley destroyed the NBA with the thuggish defensive mentality of the Knicks and the Heat. He spawned Van Gundy who continued that awful trend with the Knicks and is now trying to pull the plug on Stevie Franchise. Larry Brown has sucked the life out of the Pistons. The players can't shoot anymore and the coaches preach defense first. No wonder the games are painful to watch.

Donald Sterling and the Clippers should have been voted off the island 10 years ago.

(I know the McFilthy and McNasty Pistons were thugs too but they could score over 100 points every night.)

While I did just bash Tolbert yesterday, it is true that almost no teams can score 100 pts without there being a 2OT next to it in the box score and that's pretty sad. Aaaand back to hating him.

Man, Steven Smith can be really annoying.

edited to add Yep, I left the A out on purpose. Now if they had a Steven B Smith on the panel then I might use the A.

Steven A. Smith. It makes him sound more important. He reminds me of a yippy little dog.

Man, the NBA on ABC sucks ass. Brad Nessler and Doc Rivers--most boring announcing team ever. The Sacramento-Dallas game was exciting enough by itself, thank goodness. At least they don't do the "See Up the Player's Shorts" or the "Spot the Jiggly Silicone Boobs" camera angle anymore.

The best part about NBC coverage was that they did 2 or 3 games every Sunday, sometimes more with regional coverage. You could get your hoops fix the whole day and see a variety of teams, players, and styles. ABC seems to only want one national game, and leaves the rest of the lesser matchups for cable. And they only seem to have 4 or 5 teams on the schedule -Lakers, Kings, Mavs, Spurs, and Lebron. NBC at this point in the season, would have added some Nuggets, Jazz, and Grizzlies games to their schedule, to highlight these improved, exciting, young teams. Hehe, and the Lakers are a ratings nightmare right now, with only one Hall-of-Famer (out of 4) healthy. Yes, people will really want to tune in to the "Gary Payton and 4 Scrubs Show".

No, no, no - the "Gary Payton and 4 Scrubs Getting Stuffed Show" :)
(unfortunately, however, Kobe's back).

Sorry, I love it when the Lakers suck. Similar to how I'm still amused by just how terrible the Bulls are.

Steven A. Smith. The emphasis on the "A." makes it sound like his name is Naismith, the inventor of basketball. He's somewhat pompous and he has that New York inyourface attitude but he doesn't pull too many punches when he criticizes players. I've read his columns in the Philadelphia Inquirer for a number of years.

Ostertag is solid center, a little inconsistant but it sin't too rare to see him post big board and block numbers while playing out in the west.

Also I miss Peter Vescey and Snapper Jones.

Yea!, another fan of Snapper. I loved the way he would smack Walton around after he said something stupid.

His arm must've gotten real tired.

Greg Anthony sounds like an idiot saying that just because the Knicks are in second place they are an "elite team"...mind you their current record is 22-27.

Generally have been very pleasantly surprised at Greg Anthony's perfomance on ESPN Fast Break (although after Tim Hardaway, anybody would have looked like Howard Cosell himself) but he really laid an egg when he called the Knicks an elite team. . . and I'm a Knicks fan. Although I think the point he should have made is that their overall record is not representative of how good they may be now be (after getting Penny, Marbury and a bew coach it's practically a different team).

Has someone forgot about a 7'6" Chinese center in Houston by the name of Yao Ming? Evidently the All-Star voters didn't, as he's the starting West center & not Squack.

Being from a country with a current population of over 1.2 billion people probably helped. I don't think there's too many people who'd take Yao over (an even vaguely healthy) Shaq in a straight up choice.

There are other guys, like Ratliff, Magloire, Ilgauskas, Dampier, but they're all pretty ordinary. Which is part of the reason why the NBA rule that says a back-up centre has to be voted onto each All-Star team is so ludicrous. The only reason the voting doesn't get even more ridiculous is because they count Ben Wallace as a centre every year.

I'm sure its been discussed before, but is there anything more ridiculous than "jockstrap cam"(the one placed in the court)? What are they trying to show with that angle? I'm really at a loss as to what this is supposed to add to the viewing experience.

Trying to pull in the female audience?

At least for my birthday the Sixers decided to stop sucking and blew the Lakers out. But is it just me or does Charles Barkley really hate Allen Iverson? He always says something like "I love AI, but he probably killed a family in Cleveland." He seems to give him a lot of backhanded compliments. He's probably just angry that people AI has done more and has been shown more love in Philly than he had ever done.

Yao got more paper all-star votes than shaq, so actually, he won the vote from american fans as well as chinese fans and other international fans.

Yes, Barkley HATES AI! He resents AI for many different reasons, too many to list here, but for starters--who's gonna go down as the most popular sixers baller in city history at this point? AI hands down over Barkley, of course. This kills Barkley. Also, Barkley will always resent the Sixers organization for shipping him to the Suns, and that compounds his already personal bitterness towards AI. It's also true that Barkley has great distaste for what he sees as the "new guard" (whom he sees as disrespectful, lazy and just wannabe gangsta types) of the NBA as opposed to the "old guard" (including the likes of himself and Jordan). Oh, and there's that fact that Barkley is just a downright bitter person who never won any championship rings ;) Sixers are my team, hopefully they'll now be on an upswing! Remember they went on that incredible streak right after the All-Star break last year :)

I think people are just plain tired of Shaq's crap. A few days ago, he used the f-word and the s-word in a live TV interview purely to gain nationwide attention. That is so sad. As BoxofRain noted, Yao won the paper vote too. It must KILL Shaq that he is not as popular as the new kid on the block.

What I want to know is, who are the dumbasses who voted Steve Francis as the starter in the All-Star game? He sucks and he's a total loser! It can't be the Chinese, because he never passes the ball to Yao. Not many people realize this, but he has never been to the playoffs in his 5 year career. The most notable thing about him is that his former girlfriend was Beyonce and his current girlfriend is Cuttino Mobley (oh no I di'int!)

that seriously is some funny sheeit. I've always thought that it would be comedy gold to see a reality-type show with yao, cuttino & steve. Like, Cuttino would get all catty and bitchy if he thought Yao was getting too much of Steve's attention, and steve would play cuttino and yao against each other. LOL.

On the subject of all-star voting, I would like to know about the personality profile of the crazies that voted in Vince Carter?

I'd have to add in his cousin McGrady too, who's having a pretty bad year (for him) on an awful Magic team. I think a lot of people vote for who they want to see, rather than who they think the best five guys have been this year. Steve Francis is barely 6' but provides some highlights when he lets loose, hence his votes. On merit I don't think he even would make the bench, let alone the starting five. Also, from the whispers coming out of Houston, Stevie may not be around there too much longer (especially after he skipped a flight to see the Superbowl).

At least the ASG's not like baseball, having to have a guy from each team on the roster. And it's probably not too many years away from a switch to US vs. International, like the NHL tried a few years back.

Barkley has always disliked Iverson because of his and his entourage's thuggish demeanor. Iverson has matured a lot in the last few years but Barkley's opinion was probably formed during A.I.'s first couple of years. Julius Erving wasn't exactly on the Allen Iverson bandwagon early in his career either. As a side note, and this is a dated story, I used to know a lot of people in the bar/club/restaurant industry. The seven or eight women that I know who personally dealt with A.I. and his entourage back then as bartenders, hostesses, waitresses or dancers all despised him and his posse.

The NBA all star game is who the fans want to see. Vince doesn't belong but he has mega star power. I can see Yao or Shaq, too. Shaq's always injured. I can't rationalize Stevie Franchise, though. Although I think Van Gundy is soooo the wrong coach for Houston, I still can't wrap my head around the fact that Francis and Mobley *still* think they should shoot the ball twice as much as Yao. I think Francis has to be traded if he can't figure out that Yao is more important than he is basketball-wise.

I may be looking at this from an almost old fart's point of view but I don't think A.I. will surpass Doc as the most popular Sixer. We win so few championships here that they're like get out of jail free cards. I'd say: Doc, Iverson, then Barkley.

I actually have to agree with you on the most beloved sixers of all time listcheesesteak . A world title in Philly is so rare that anyone who can get it will be considered a god forever. I mean if Doc didn't win one, his sex tape would have been the biggest thing in Philly. Instead it became a blip on the radar here. Win a title here and you could be a serial killer and the fans would probably just call you a crazy nut. And my brother had a not so good experience with AI. Made me a fan of The Answer for life.

Cheesteak, was Allen extremely flirty/disrespectful with the waitresses or something? I've always been curious if there's been any stories about him cheating on his wife.

Ellegado, what was the bad experience? Do tell!

Anybody catch Byron Scott's work on ESPN the other night? He was pretty damn good for somebody so green.

B Scott has a pretty smart basketball mind. It just didn't translate into being a good headcoach.

Hard to be a good coach with the daggers sticking out of his back. He got them into the finals two times in a row. You can argue that it was mostly E. Jordan or Kidd but you got to give Scott some credit (once his players quit on him he didn't stand a chance).

And that wonderful Wizards team is really casting a great light on Eddie Jordan's coaching skills. Kind of suggests Byron was doing something right for a while. Of course, the most extraordinarily piss-poor excuse for an Eastern Conference helped them reach the Finals two years in a row too.

Whoa, since when has Bill Raftery been with ESPN? Did his contract with CBS run out after the tournament, or was he let go? Glad to see him back together with Musberger, in any case.

"...with the KISS!"

That was weird to hear Raftery. I hope it's just some freelancing that he is allowed to do because I really prefer to have him doing the college game.

God, I am so tired to hear how wonderful a life the billionaire Malouf brothers live. ABC-ESPN-TNT why don't you just STFU and stop telling us about their wonderfulness.

1)When did Pam Oliver start doing sideline reporting for basketball games?

2)I can't believe, true to form, that Dough Christie's wife was on the court and held on to his arm as Oliver was interviewing him on live TV immediately after the game. Lady, get...a...grip.

You gotta be kidding me? WTF is up with this chick. I read somewhere that all the hand jestures that he makes during the games are actually directed at his wife. Boy, this man is so whipped. I read they had a cartoon before the game making fun Kings in the Dallas arena. One of the skits was of Doug Christie on a leash being tugged by his wife.

And another part of it was apparently U of Michigan showering Chris Webber with cash. Sounds hilarious, but reportedly some of the Kings weren't particularly amused. Cuban can probably afford the inevitable fine though.

The NBA is FAAAAAAN-tastic! Gotta love the Nets failing to score 60 points in their game last night. That's some great basketball. Frankly, some of these games would be better off not being shown at all, and a Lebron-Carmelo one-on-one match should be put on instead.

Can ABC and ESPN suck anymore than they already do? They have dragged out the playoffs to 3 months by this weird scheduling designed to showcase the Lakers every Sunday. Lakers, Lakers, Lakers. You'd think ABC wants to marry the Lakers, they love them so much. Did you know the average person doesn't know who Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett are? How could they, because ABC never shows their games!

NBC never pulled this shit. They loved the Lakers too, but they did try to showcase as many teams as possible. I remember we got 3 or 4 games a day, and they used to schedule conference final games on weekday primetime. I never thought I'd say this, but I miss Bill Walton.

Yeah, it's only year 2 and we're hearing suggestions that Round 1 of the playoffs should go back to best-of-5. But they shouldn't. They should just play more than two games a week in each series. It's absurd. I mean, that New Orleans-Miami series started in February didn't it?

And I absolutely, positively agree with the All Lakers, All the Fucking Time complaint. Over here we get one live game a week on satellite TV and the last two were LA-Houston and LA-San Antonio. And next week they're surprising us with... LA-San Antonio again. It's. Just. Dull.

Does it annoy anyone else that the score is put in the bottom corner of the screen rather than the top corner? Watching in bars (which is where I see all the basketball I get to watch) it's usually the bottom part of the screen that's cut off by people in front of me. I understand that it's presumably there because it could obscure the basket if it was at the top, but that shouldn't happen if the camerawork is done properly.

I miss Bill Walton, too.


Yeah, that's just ridiculous. The "two games a week" pattern makes no sense at all. The shorter the series, the more likely it is that the best teams won't make the finals. The crazy thing is, as recently as the early 80s, round 1 was best-of-THREE.

I really, really don't. I can't even stand his writing on ESPN.com, let alone his commentary.

If the Final Four is sports' greatest event then the first round of the NBA playoffs is the worst. 25% of the teams shouldn't even *be* in the playoffs. It lasts for fucking ever because David Stern sold his soul to the tv networks. Now it lasts longer than forever because Stern made it a seven game series. They shouldn't even play the first round anymore. Give the underdogs some lovely parting gifts and start with the second round.

Somebody should just put the NBA out of it's misery. This shit is unwatchable.

I don't think the NBA is solely to blame. Every major sports league (MLB, NHL, and most recently the NFL) is guilty too of extending playoffs to make more television money.

One of the things I hate most about U.S. professional sports is the overinclusiveness of the playoffs. So many teams make it to the post-season that the regular season is essentially turned into a glorified exhibition where teams more or less go through the motions.

That's why I'm starting to come around on the idea that playoffs in college football are a bad idea. There's something appealing about a system where one screw-up (or two) can ruin your season. It gives each and every game a sense of legitimacy. In pro basketball and hockey, I don't feel any desire to watch a regular season game anymore, because there's really not much (if anything) at stake.

I think this is a good idea, actually. I enjoy the increased chance for an upset ala Denver over Seattle in 1997(?). And in the case of an overwhelming favorite over a weakling, does it really matter whether a team wins a series 4-0 rather than 3-0?


Are you Dick Vitale? I strongly disagree. The NBA is a collection of the best athletes in the world. The players, on average, are stronger, faster, and better prepared than ever before. Unfortunately, this translates into great defense, which often translates into low scoring. The rules could be changed to increase offense, but I think it will take an influx of players who are good shooters (probably from the furrin lands of Europe and Asia) to correct this. There will be much bitching and moaning from xenophobes Kenny Smith and Charles Barkley, as well as Vitale, but this must happen in order for the American kids to "get it," that you just can't practice dunking like MJ, you need a jumpshot as well.

I hate the frigging hype that the Lakers get. By watching ESPN and TNT, you would think the Lakers are the favorites and have the best winning percentage of the teams left. Surprise,it isn't the Lakers. The Pacers and Pistons get no love because they aren't the Lakers and aren't from the Western Conference. The Spurs only begrudgingly get respect because they are the defending champs.