CAN’T WAIT !!!

Just shoot me now…

As one example: one of Silver’s big talking points was contrasting the Lakers’ payroll with Sacramento’s. Funny that he didn’t talk much about Orlando’s payroll as contrasted with the Clippers.’

And that is just one example. Anyone who understands the game and the history of the league is aware of the holes in this narrative.

OKC and Memphis are the next places for the league to hang this narrative. OKC has built a contender the traditional way, but of course they did it under the old CBA. Memphis currently has the best shot to win a 2004 Pistons-style title, or at least to come close, like the 92 Blazers and 02 Kings did–by putting together a team that is strong at every position but has no Top-10 superstar. It will be kind of funny if the new CBA makes it too hard for them to keep Marc Gasol and perhaps Shane Battier.

There, are, however, five clouds on Stern’s competitive balance narrative horizon. He can explain away any titles won by Dallas, Miami, the Lakers, Boston, or Chicago (although the Bulls are draft-built, most people will ignore that fact) as being products of the old CBA. But the clouds are:

Chris Paul
Dwight Howard
Deron Williams
Blake Griffin
Mikhail Prokhorov

If Paul actually lands in New York, I think we could see Howard and Williams teaming up in Brooklyn. ISTM that Prokhorov didn’t buy into the NBA to play .500 ball and be low-profile. TWO star-driven teams in the NY area under the new CBA would not look good for Stern.

No one knows what Griffin will do, but it certainly seems possible that he will not want his NBA fate tied to Donald Sterling. If he leaves, he might try to go home to Oklahoma and team up with Durant, creating a SMALL-MARKET “superteam.” It is also conceivable that he might move “across the hall” to a cap-friendly re-booting post-Kobe Laker team if Griffin decides he like Los Angeles. Or if Griffin wants to be back in the southwest, Mark Cuban will probably have some cap space by then as well.

All or any of these outcomes would be hard to explain for Stern and Silver.

In the meantime, it will be good to have the game back.