Goodnight, NBA

Could there have been a worse couple of weeks for the NBA than what we just "witnessed"?
It sounds strange because, for the first time since Shaquille O'Neill decided to abandon Orlando for the Lakers, we were talking about The Association in the beginning of summer.
Usually, around this time of year, the NBA would be mentioned only as an afterthought, with the occassional trade news or extension announcement. Instead, from the end of the playoffs till now, it has been all NBA, and all free agency, all the time.
But, despite pithy cliched sayings to the contrary, not all publicity is good publicity.
In America today, it is fairly easy to single out the NFL as the most popular sport in the land. It is the nation's passion. It is an every-Sunday event in the fall and winter, and no other sport comes close to matching its interest at the national level.
Coming in a strong second is the nation's passtime. Baseball, despite the much talked about "competitive imbalance" generates interest at an astounding rate, especially in the nation's biggest markets and cities. Despite a lagging economy, ratings remain high, attendance has not bottomed out, and people still follow their teams every move.
The NBA has been wallowing in third place, a distant third, in terms of interest, for a long time.
The nation's overall apathy has been linked to several different factors over the years. Some claim that the departure of Michael Jordan, who took the baton of excellence from Larry Bird and Magic Johnson and kept the NBA interesting and provocative, set the league back and a lack of another "successor" to that excellence has made the sport less interesting. Others point to a more insidious reason, believeing that white America remains turned off to a sport that is dominated by African American players.
Whatever the reason, the NBA has remained a strong presence in American sports, and its top players have continued to be marketable and recognizable, but the sports overall popularity has trailed the other two leagues.
There has been great hope at the end of the tunnel, however.
The Lakers have remained a dominate force, employing, first, the charismatic big man Shaq and, now, the controversial yet splendidly talented Kobe Bryant. The Celtics pulled off one of the great double moves of all time, and paired Ray Allen, Kevin Garnett, and Paul Pierce together to form an incredible threesome that brought the stories Celtics team back to prominence. Oh,  by the way, the Lakers and Celtics, by far the best rivalry in the NBA, have played against each other in two of the last three finals.
And then you had the new face of the NBA.
Lebron James was the basketball playing version of The Natural. His talents are off the charts. He is a 6'9" freight train with shooting touch and one of the great finishing moves the game has ever seen. There is both a grace and a brutality to his talent that makes him unique.
He also has been relatively free from controversy in his seven years in the league. Unlike Kobe Bryant, who appeared surly and selfish on the court, and had a dark allegation thrown at him off the court, James appeared to be the epitome of unselfish, team-first play on the court, a good teammate and model citizen off it. Add to that his "home town boy makes good" story and his supposed allegiance to Cleveland, a city that has known nothing but sports heartbreak, and it was easy to root for Lebron.
Though Kobe has proven time and time again that he, not Lebron, is the guy you want taking the last shot and playing in the big game, Lebron remained the most popular and well-liked, and ultimately marketable, player in the sport, and one of the most recognizable celebrity faces in the world.
That was yesterday.
Today, in the NBA, is very different. Lebron is no longer the face of the NBA so much as he is the villian. His decision, and more consequentially the process by which he came to his decision, has cast him as everything wrong with sports while, for so long, he was depicted as everything right with them. His playful attitude now, suddenly, seems self indulgent and borderline unprofessional.
Perhaps it was inevitable that, after choosing Miami over Cleveland, the negative stories would emerge. The Cavs painted Lebron as the "savior" and their near divine worship of his talents were punctuated by the semi-insulting "We Are All Witnesses" billboards that lined their city's skyline. So, when we hear that Lebron was a "quitter" or that his actions were always selfish and narcissistic, one has to wonder how much of the information is true and how much is sour grapes.
Yet, after the display of the last few weeks, it is difficult to give Lebron the benefit of the doubt. The stories of Lebron's influence on the Cavs decisions, and his insistence on special treatment for he and his friends, seem to fit nicely in the story we have watched unfold before us.
Whatever the case, no one is truly in a position to WANT to believe the best about Lebron now, anyway. So, the face of the NBA, the needed successor to Michael Jordan, both in wins and popularity has been more than stained: he has been utterly dismantled.
If you add to that the shaky performance of Dwayne Wade, who made the same comical tour of franchises, though it appears likely now that he had no intention of leaving Miami, introduced his family as an element in his decision making process, then seemed to forget all about that factor when resigning with Miami, and hired a documentary crew to follow he and Chris Bosh around as they made their "decision," and argueably the NBA's two most likeable stars presented themselves as the most egotistical of athletes the nation has ever seen.
There are obviously practical problems for the NBA latent in Lebron's decision.
The lack of James in Cleveland all but devastates the Cavaliers and basketball in that city, and nearly does the same in New York, the NBA's biggest and argueably most important market. It puts two of the top three or four players in the league on the same team. And, in a sport so completely dominated by stars, it pitches the balance of power substantially in one direction, and onto a team and a city that has little basketball tradition and a notoriously apathetic fanbase.
Some will say that this move is little different than the Yankees and their "all star at every position" philosophy in baseball, but the difference is pronounced. In baseball, the playoffs are a crapshoot every season. Being the best team guarantees nothing. Despite their talent, the Yankees or Red Sox or Rays or Phillies could easily be picked off by a "lesser" team, especially if they have top starting pitching and reliable bullpen guys.
In basketball, the better, more talented team almost always wins. That's why, in a league that has designed, both in terms of the draft and salary cap structure, to help small markets compete with big ones, there is little parity in terms of competition. While it is rare teams win back-to-back titles in baseball, and almost unheard of in football, basketball produces back-to-back champs on a fairly consistent basis. In the last 30 years, there have been 13 separate occassions where one team has one two or more straight titles, and, even more startling, in those 30 years only seven different teams have won titles.
Compare that to baseball where, in the past 30 years, 20 different teams have won, and it becomes clear that the best team, with the most talent, rarely loses in the NBA.
It will be interesting to see how this all plays out, and if the Heat can turn a fantasy league lineup of three guys into an actual "team," but there is a good chance this group could dominate, and do so for a long time.
Considering the tarnish that is now on Wade and Lebron, how many people are going to care that the Heat are the beasts of the NBA in two years? No one outside of Miami, and that isn't exactly exciting news for David Stern.
Perhaps this lights a fire under certain teams. Maybe the Knicks, after licking their wounds from not getting Lebron, make a deal to bring in Chris Paul and build a team that can topple the Heat troika. Maybe Derrick Rose, sick of being referred to simply as a piece that would help James or Wade attain greatness, helps the Bulls mature into a juggernaut. Maybe the allure of playing in his hometown of Brooklyn entices Carmelo Anthony to join the Nets, with their cast of young players, and maybe the Celtics old guard has one more run in them and Kobe and the Lakers show that it takes more than just three guys to win.
Regardless, what has happened here will seriously dampen any momentum the league had obtained over the last few years, and it won't take long to notice. Stern and his minions might have been dancing over the extraordinary interest their league generated, but it will have been a very large price to pay.
If you want to know why, in three years, the NBA is talking about having to regenerate interest in its league, look to June 22-July 8 for the answer.