WHO CARES

awww shut up, there is next season.  the suns can train up.  Instead of learning how to shoot, block, screen, rebound, guard, play as a team and all the other fundementals of a great basketball game, they should bone up on clotheslining, cursing the officials, tripping, flagant fouling, biting, punching, and all the other things that make a great street mob.

Damn, they came on the court as a basketball club.

PS...sport is the other religion here.  I would almost swear my husband prays to Lambeau Field 5 times daily during the football season.  Right now, he is trimming the hedges, and hiding his tears in the sweat of his brow.  I swear...but not in public, and not under oath.  And, I want immunity.

There was a time when I thought basketball was a fairly played professional sport.

And then there was the year the Bulls faced the Celtics in the playoffs - circa - 1985.  This was the year that Michael Jordan actually missed most of the season with a broken ankle or foot.  He had helped the Bulls win 4 games at the start of the season before going down with an injury.  Then, when he came back, the Bulls management tried to limit his minutes - hoping for a better draft pick.

Jordan called them out - complained publically that he didn't think the Bulls were interested in winning.  He forced the owners into letting him play the full game and single-handedly got the Bulls into the playoffs as a #8 seed against the vaunted (and by now, aged) Boston Celtics.

In the first game at the Garden, Jordan nearly beat the Celts himself, scoring 49 and wearing out the old fogeys trying to guard him.  Tommy Heinsohn, the former blowhard Celtic, and at the time the CBS NBA analyst bragged about how the veteran Celts were managing Jordan, letting him play without letting others play with him and how Jordan wasn't good enough to beat such a marvelous group of players such as were to be found in Boston.

Game two, of course, was a game for the ages.  Jordan scored 63 points.  What is occasionally lost in that game is that he actually missed a shot at the buzzer - an open look from left of the circle - that would have won the game in regulation, but the shot clanged in and out.  He would never miss a shot like that in the playoffs again.  As Jordan performed magic that Lebron WISHES he could do, the Celtics were running ragged.  They couldn't stop him.  Fortunately, they didn't have to.  The Bulls were leading in overtime when Bulls forward Orlando Woolridge drove the lane for a layup.  EVERY MEMBER of the Celtics team hacked him.  DJ, Bird, McHale, Ainge, Parrish - all got a piece of him.  Walton hit him from the bench.  Havilicek suited up and smacked him over the ears, and even Heinsohn threw his coke at him from the broadcast table.  Somehow, despite being fouled by more members of the Celtics than are in the NBA Hall of Fame, the ball went into the hoop.  Bulls fans watching in Chicago went into HYSTERIA.

That's when the NBA decided this couldn't happen.  A late whistle and - CHARGING!!!  Heinsohn blessed the officials for making such a brave call, reminding everyone who was watching what solid veteran Celtic leadership meant in tough games like this.  The Celtics were aging before everyone's eyes - but were given a chance to come back.  They did.

To Chicago for game three, Jordan was hit with three fouls before the National Anthem had concluded.  It was the only way to keep him from scoring more than 20 points.  The Celtics were given a chance to advance.  The series was over in three games and the old guys were given a chance to rest before playing in the next round - and they needed it.

Fans all over America who watched the series realized what they had seen.  They pummelled the NBA and CBS with letters and phone calls.  Heinsohn was fired and told to be a homer in just Boston.  His days covering national games were, fortunately for the rest of the country, finally over.

The Jordan Rules would soon begin.

And that's when I realized that the NBA was rigged.  Maybe not necessarily from a betting standpoint, but from a game control standpoint.  David Stern realized that people didn't care about teams anymore, they cared about players.  And that's about the time when rules for different players came into existance.  You would hear announcers say, "That player has to earn that foul."  Really?  If I were a rookie, I'd have whistles blow differently than if I were a veteran - or a superstar?  Of course that's true - else Patrick Ewing would have been called for 100 more travelling calls each year.

There was a time when Rod Thorn (at least I think it was Rod Thorn) said, "What would be great is for all NBA games to be close with a couple of minutes to go."  The way to control it, of course, is through referreeing.  If one team gets a run, start calling fouls the other way.  Problems with a team playing better at home - call a few tough fouls against a key player.  It's easy for the league to defend because calls are now explained away as "players having taken an unfair advantage" rather than calling a foul for what it is.

A number of people believe in the conspiracy theory as regards the NBA.  And the NBA has done precious little to change that opinion.  It's mine - and I watched it happen.  One year, the Bulls weren't allowed to win.  The next year, Michael Jordan was given every chance to win - and had that opportunity for as long as he was in the league.  At least in Chicago, anyway.