NBA Tip-off: 10 Big Stories of the Season

Say what you want about The Decision, LeBron James’ widely disparaged ESPN special in which he dumped his hometown team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, on national television in front of a bunch of little kids who served as props for his enormous ego. But you have to admit this: thanks to LeBron’s histrionics, fans were obsessed with the NBA in July, normally a quiet month for pro hoops.

That buzz lasted throughout the summer and will carry over into this year’s regular season, which begins Tuesday night, Oct. 26, when James’ Heat visit the defending Eastern Conference champions, the Boston Celtics, who have added Shaquille O’Neal to their roster. Yet whether the love-’em-or-hate-’em new Dream Team in South Beach lives up to its All-Star billing is just one of several good story lines fans will be watching and gabbing about all season long. Here are 10 of them.

Can Anyone Beat the Heat?
If you’ve somehow escaped all the Heat hype, just tune in to one of Miami’s 30 national-television appearances this season. Or click on the Heat Index, ESPN.com’s Web page dedicated to coverage of the team. Yes, we’re coming dangerously close to suffering from Heat exhaustion, and the season is just starting. But if LeBron, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh (the other famous free agent who signed with the team this summer) click on the court, the Heat could challenge the NBA record of 72 regular-season wins held by the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls.

Miami’s season, however, has not started smoothly. Wade hurt his leg three minutes into Miami’s first preseason game. He sat out the rest of the exhibition season, though he will play against Boston. Further, Mike Miller, the sharpshooter president Pat Riley recruited to complement his three stars, is out until January with a broken thumb. Despite the early hiccups, however, don’t be shocked to see the Heat emerge as the favorites come playoff time.

The Year of Kevin Durant
No one had a more stellar off-season than Kevin Durant, the spindly scoring machine for the Oklahoma City Thunder. After leading Oklahoma City to a strong first-round-playoff showing against the defending champion Los Angeles Lakers — L.A. prevailed in six games — Durant quietly signed a five-year, $85 million contract extension in the midst of the summer free-agent frenzy. That token of loyalty to the small-market Thunder, and the understated way he delivered the news via Twitter (“Extension for 5 more year wit the #thunder…. God is Great, me and my family came a long way . . .I love yall forreal, this is a blessing!”), earned him major popularity points among fans still annoyed with LeBron’s Decision.

Then in September, he torched the world at the FIBA basketball championships in Turkey, scoring 38 points (an American record) in the U.S.’s 89-74 semifinal win over Lithuania. He dropped another 28 points — including seven three-pointers — in the gold-medal triumph over the host country and was named MVP of the tournament.

With a young, talented cast surrounding Durant, the Thunder can contend in the Western Conference. And if he isn’t already there, Durant is on the verge of joining James and Kobe Bryant in the “best player on the planet” debate.

The NBA Gets Technical
In an effort to cut down on rampant whining, the NBA has instructed its referees to whistle quicker technical fouls on serial complainers — that means you, Dwight Howard. The refs can now penalize a player for “excessive complaining,” even if it’s done in a civilized way. During a New York Knicks–Boston Celtics preseason game, for example, the refs called four techs in 16 seconds, including two on Boston’s hotheaded forward Kevin Garnett, who was ejected.

No one likes to see a millionaire moan after a ref calls a foul on him, especially since, most of the time, said millionaire committed a blatant violation. But fans don’t dish out hundreds of dollars for NBA seats to see prime players like Garnett get sent to the showers. If refs levy too many quick technicals, expect a backlash against the new rules from both fans and players.

Where Goes ‘Melo?
After Denver forward Carmelo Anthony, one of the best all-around players in the league, turned down a three-year, $65 million contract extension from the Denver Nuggets, his message was clear: Blast me out of the Rockies, fast. Since Anthony will be an unrestricted free agent this summer and Denver won’t let him go for nothing, he’ll almost certainly be traded this season. According to media reports, the New Jersey Nets almost pulled off a deal for Anthony in September. Given the big-market ambitions of his new bride, actress and television personality La La Vazquez, the New York Knicks seem like a logical landing spot. But can New York offer enough trade bait to lure Anthony to the Big Apple? And is he just an overrated scoring machine who won’t actually help any team go deep in the playoffs, as many detractors claim?

Labor Pains
If the league’s owners and players can’t agree on how to share their riches, any positive impact generated from a dramatic 2010-11 season will be gone — in an instant. The current collective-bargaining agreement between the NBA and its players expires next June, and posturing has already begun. Last week, NBA commissioner David Stern, who claims that teams have been losing hundreds of millions of dollars the past few years, said owners would have to cut salaries by a third in order for some struggling teams to sustain themselves. Stern even insisted that the NBA might have to contract teams, a measure that would outrage fans in cities wiped off the NBA map and a players’ union that would insist on fighting for those jobs. “If the owners maintain their position, it will inevitably result in a lockout and the cancellation of part or all of the 2011-2012 season,” Billy Hunter, head of the union, responded. “The players and union will prepare accordingly.”

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Shaq and the Celtics
Lost in all the hysteria surrounding the new-look Heat is a pretty fundamental fact: the team that won the 2008 NBA title, and almost snared another championship last season before fading in Game 7 against the Lakers, has a darn good (albeit aging) Big Three of its own. Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen of the Boston Celtics are back for another run, and this year, they’ll plug the Big Shamrock, Shaquille O’Neal, into the middle. Shaq, the league’s oldest player at 38, has slowed, but he is still a legitimate low-post scoring threat who can complement the strong perimeter game of Boston’s established stars.

The Celtics aren’t just a legitimate title threat — they’re also fun to watch. Point guard Rajon Rondo is an expert at winding through traffic and has quickly morphed from a weak link into one of the league’s elite players. Off the bench, Glen “Big Baby” Davis has shown flashes of dominant play — good luck powering through Shaq and Davis (who was nicknamed “Baby Shaq” at LSU, O’Neal’s alma mater) if they’re ever on the court together — and mighty mite Nate Robinson is liable to score 10 points — or commit 10 turnovers — within 30 seconds of entering a game. Plus, Robinson snapped the picture of the preseason, posting it in his stream-of-conscious Twitter feed.

Lakers … for Three
When we last left the NBA, Los Angeles Lakers forward Ron Artest, with his teammates around him celebrating a second straight championship, thanked his psychiatrist on national television for her calming effect on his mind. Kobe Bryant should have thanked the shrink too. Artest’s clutch shooting helped the Lakers survive Game 7 and a less than stellar performance from the game’s most lethal player against a gutsy Boston squad. The Lakers have Bryant, Artest and the rest of their key components back for a run at three-peat. It would be Bryant’s second trifecta with the Lakers, his other being the 2000-02 championships, which would match Michael Jordan’s achievement. Lakers coach Phil Jackson has already pulled off the triple three times (with Jordan and the Chicago Bulls from 1991-93 and 1996-98, and with the Lakers during their 2000-02 run). If anything should strike fear in NBA players, it’s Bryant’s poor performance in Game 7; he took a ton of flak for the near miss and would relish nothing more than squashing LeBron and the Heat in a dream finals for the league.

Mr. Wall Comes to Washington
The Washington Wizards are coming off a(nother) tumultuous season. They finished 26-56 in 2009-10; mercurial scoring guard Gilbert Arenas was suspended for the season after bringing firearms into the Wizards’ locker room and then mocking the incident by mimicking gunshots in a pregame huddle. Arenas is back this year but has already ceded the spotlight to a rookie, John Wall, the top pick of the 2010 draft. Wall, who played one season of college ball at Kentucky, is the rare player who moves as fast while dribbling as while running. His long arms and exquisite athleticism had scouts across the country salivating. With a stellar rookie controlling the point, it looks like basketball, not controversy, could be back in the nation’s capital, though Arenas proved he could still be a distraction when he faked a preseason injury, supposedly to get a teammate more playing time.

Is B-Ball Back in the Big Apple?
Basketball is known as “the City Game,” but in New York City over the past few years, pro hoops has all but disappeared. The New York Knicks have averaged just 29 wins per year over the past six seasons. In New Jersey, the Nets finished last season with a 12-70 record, one of the worst in league history. This year, however, there’s hope on both sides of the Hudson. The Knicks missed out on the top free-agent prize, James, but the team did sign 6-ft.-10 forward Amar’e Stoudemire, a five-time All-Star with the Phoenix Suns whose versatile game will return some glamour to Madison Square Garden (though probably not enough rebounds). The Knicks have a legitimate chance to end their six-year playoff drought, and Denver’s Carmelo Anthony may soon join Stoudemire in the New York frontcourt.

New Jersey’s mysterious new owner, Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, has promised to spend whatever it takes to build a winner. The team is finally set to move to Brooklyn and will spend the next two seasons playing in the Prudential Center, the shiny downtown arena in Newark, instead of the mausoleum known as the Meadowlands. Prokhorov has predicted a title for the Nets within five years. Such hubris may seem foolish, but at least a charismatic owner, intense new coach Avery Johnson, rapidly maturing big man Brook Lopez and promising rookie Derrick Favors give fans reason to follow New Jersey.

Big Men’s Health
In 2007, the Portland Trail Blazers selected Ohio State center Greg Oden with the top pick in the draft over Kevin Durant. Of course, back in the 1984 draft, Portland took another injury-prone college player, Sam Bowie, over an athletic scorer — named Michael Jordan. But who’s counting? Oden missed his rookie season after having microfracture surgery on his knee, was serviceable in 2008-09, and in December of last season went down for the year after rupturing his left patella. Oden just returned to practice this week. He’s a loose, likable and mature kid whom you’d like to see escape Durant’s shadow one day.

Other big men will return this season. In Houston, Yao Ming has looked sharp this preseason after missing all of 2009-10 with yet another foot injury. And in Los Angeles, Blake Griffin, the top pick in the 2009 draft, will try to prove that the Clippers aren’t jinxed. He missed his rookie year after suffering a stress fracture in his left knee but will slip right into the starting lineup of an athletic team with potential to steal some of the spotlight from the Lakers. Though we’ve heard that song about the Clippers many times before.

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