Someday, we'll have to acknowledge that Michael Jordan is not the Greatest of All Time.

Michael Jordan is in all likelihood the best player to have ever played in the NBA and the game of basketball as a whole. But there’s a subtle implication to the phrase “Greatest of All Time” that says much more. It says “greatest ever and forever and ever”, literally the time behind us and the time ahead of us. After all, it’s not like time takes a break every nanosecond to extend itself. "All Time" is the same in 1950 as it is in 2050. This might be a cute semantic argument ("Greatest So Far" and "Greatest, Past and Present" don't lend well to acronyms), except that in the case of Jordan, it belies a serious belief that most of us share. Let's examine. Continue reading →

AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Ryan Remiorz

Let’s face it, the All-Star game has never been particularly enjoyable. Hell, my dad has always thought of it as a solid representation of how he felt about basketball. And he would say so:

“3 and a half quarters of boring back and forth action, and sometimes an intense last 6 minutes,” he'd say, quickly adding that he enjoyed playing the sport. He just hated watching it. He loves hockey, but he's not a one-sport guy: he loves watching the NFL and CFL. As an extra dish to his beloved hockey, that is.

Let's talk about hockey. It’s not surprising that my dad, a guy who went through his 20s watching Wayne Gretzky and the Oilers in Edmonton, (while playing the sport whenever he had free time) had plenty of pretty good reasons to watch it. And yet, hockey - usually a relatively more exciting and unpredictable game - at one point managed to have an even less passionate All-Star Game than the NBA's. The whole experience of watching the NHL All-Star Game was tantamount to watching the lockout leagues — soulless, careless, pointless.

So, the NHL realized something that we'd all known pretty damn well — it’s all about the Weekend. On its face the All-Star Weekend is no great innovation: the NBA has its All-Star Weekend, with all the excitement that comes with jumping over Korean cars, Charles Barkley choosing Allen Iverson with the 1st pick in an All-time Fantasy Draft. And yet, in recent years, the NBA has lost the All-Star battle to the NHL. How did that happen? Continue reading →

In a two part series, Adam and Aaron are going to examine two aspects of Kevin Love's 2-game suspension following the inglorious footwork he employed against Houston Rockets forward Luis Scola last Saturday. For today's half, we'll examine the hypocrisy of the NBA's incessant emphasis on "respect for the game" when a player mouths off to the refs that becomes curiously absent when the livelihood of a player comes to call.

When the NBA assesses technical fouls, how often does it cite "respect of the game?" Remember all of Dwight Howard's technicals last year? When asked to explain the one game suspension Dwight received for angrily chucking the ball at the refs, all we could hear echoing from the office of the Commissioner was “respect." Me, personally, I never really understood what agreeing with every call the refs make has to do with respecting the game. The refs are the authority, but even the best authority makes mistakes. The NBA's response to players trying to express their unhappiness in an emotionally charged moment is basically akin to the “Say what again!” scene in Pulp Fiction.

Nobody can forget the epic Sheed techs for virtually nothing, everyone's seen the infamous Duncan technicals, and we’ve all seen an aggravated Dwight have to leave the game early because he’s had it with the zebras. And I don’t think a single person among us knew what this all had to do with respect. And now the NBA has lost another part of it’s credibility, demonstrating how respect for another player has nothing to do with their particular definition of "respect." Personally? I'm a bit disgusted.

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