Stern

With this medal, I thee wed. You may now kiss my ass.

What can you say about this man?

'His Royal Smugness,' Steve Kelley at the Times calls him, and it's not an inappropriate moniker. David Stern, the man who seemingly revels in every ounce of good publicity for his league, has once again stomped his foot and tried to belittle the efforts of those who are working to keep the Sonics in Seattle.

"There's not going to be a new arena," Stern says. "There's not going to be a public contribution, and that's everyone's right. I mean that sincerely."

Stern went on to comment that he had read "in the newspaper" that Speaker of the House Frank Chopp had offered his support to the University of Washington's plans for a new athletic facility, but that Chopp had denied such support to the Sonics, further illustrating Seattle's ambivalence about losing their NBA team.

Which would make for a great soundbite, if it contained any kernel of truth, which, like most things out of Stern's mouth, it does not.

Reading Stern's comments, it is easy to become riled up and toss out invectives like a drunken fan, but, honestly, he's not worth the effort.

Remember, Stern is the man who publicly admonished Tim Hardaway for his disrespectful comments about homosexuality last year, because, don't you know, the NBA is all about cultural inclusiveness. David Stern, it seemed, would not stand for homophobes, not in his NBA, dammit.

Well, as we all know, that level of understanding doesn't have to extend to the owners. And that should tell you everything need to know about the Commish, a man who never met an idea he couldn't spin, a city he couldn't blackmail, or an emotion he couldn't twist.

You can keep talking, David, but we're done listening.

Supersonicsoul on the Radio today

My son and I will be talking about the Supersonics with our pal John Moe today on "Weekend America", locally on KUOW 94.9 FM, from noon to 2pm. If you miss the show, you can catch us on the archives here.

They're All Stars to Me

I’ve been pondering writing this for a couple of weeks now, not because it’s a gut wrenching topic or anything, but because I’m not sure whether it’s even worth discussing.

For the past little while, I’ve heard more and more about how the best way to fix the NBA All-Star Game is to switch from an East v West concept to a US v The World concept.

In principle, it’s not a bad idea, but it blows me away that I have yet to read anywhere that the NHL tried the exact same idea and abandoned it.

It blows me away that no one brings this up. Here we have an exact same scenario – a league with a mid-season all-star game no one cares about – and the same solution – using international players versus domestic players – and it failed.

Doesn’t that tell anyone anything? Am I the only one who thinks that after two or three years of seeing Steve Nash team up with Dirk Nowitzki, we’re going to be just as bored as we are now?

So, with that in mind, here is one man’s list of ways to improve this weekend.

KEEP IT LOCAL
To me, this is almost paramount. I can’t speak to the history of New Orleans basketball, so let’s make this hypothetical and say the game was being played in Seattle.

First, abandon the idea of having the coaches with the best records lead their respective conferences, and give that honor to local coaches or players. For example, at the mythical Seattle game, the East could be coached by Lenny Wilkens and the West by Paul Silas.

Second, the host team must have at least one player on the roster. This could be accomplished in one of two ways. One, the leading vote getter for the host team would make the roster regardless of if he’s a starter, or, two, have a separate vote on the team’s web site where local fans would vote for their favorite player.

Third, abandon the Rookies vs Sophomores game, which no one cares about anyway, and replace it with a legends game, with one Legends team made up of people like Dr. J, Scottie Pippen, and Karl Malone, and the one team made up of local stars, in this case people such as Gus Williams, Fred Brown, and Detlef Schrempf. Would the ratings be through the roof? Of course not, but I can’t imagine they’d be any worse than they are now for the Rookies game.

ALL STAR SATURDAY
The dunk contest and three point contest stay. The Skills Challenge goes, replaced by HORSE, and include a couple of local celebrities in the HORSE game just to give it some more fun. No, Kenny G is not a local celebrity, so shut up. Sir Mix-A-Lot is more than welcome, though.

GAME DAY
Baseball’s idea of awarding home court to the conference which wins the all-star game has merit. At the very least, it wouldn’t hurt the “competitiveness” of the all-star game, right?

In the end, the all-star game is never going to completely satisfy everyone. If you look at all four major sports, they’re all in the same bind – nobody cares about these games anymore. This is not a unique problem for the NBA, and it’s a result of years of endless hyping of every event, and one other problem – television.

You see, when we were kids, it wasn’t easy to see Dr. J on television – perhaps in the playoffs, and once or twice a year when he played the Sonics. There were no national sports channels back then, and the NBA certainly wasn’t on every night like it is now. So the All-Star game was a solitary opportunity to see all these great players we read about in the newspaper.

Now? It’s not so unique, and it’s no wonder people don’t care about the game any more.