SEND US NEWS TIPS!
blog@nypress.com






C.J. SULLIVAN & DAVE HOLLANDER

By C.J. SULLIVAN & DAVE HOLLANDER

HOLLANDER: The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) will serve as the host organization for NBA All-Star 2007 this weekend. You might ask: What NBA team plays in Las Vegas? For a degenerate gambler like you, C.J., the answer is: all of them. In Vegas, all 30 NBA teams are in play, all season long.

Foregoing the annual tradition of awarding a city that actually supports an NBA team as the All-Star Weekend host city—allowing that city, it’s citizens and business to reap the financial benefits that flow from hosting the cash-creating event—David Stern is taking everybody to Vegas. It’ll be hookers and blackjack all around.

Betting on sports is illegal, didn’t you know? But betting in Vegas is legal. Is David Stern saying he’d like betting on basketball to be legal? Is he advocating players, agents and sponsors to acknowledge gambling as an unspoken part of the game? I find the whole thing pretty blatant.

But ever since they let the fans vote for the starters, the NBA All-Star Game has become less about what’s deserved and more about doubling down on the league’s marketing chips already on the table.

Shaquille O’Neal missed 35 games, yet he’s the starting center. Steve Nash continues to be the NBA’s MVP, but had to be named as a reserve. And, among the 2007 starters and reserves, we see nary a Knick.

Actually, the Knicks haven’t sent a representative to the All-Star game since 2001. Wow. Some in New York think Eddy Curry, who leads Eastern Conference centers in scoring and field goal percentage, should’ve gotten the nod.
There’s a theory going around that the NBA coaching fraternity that selects the All-Star reserves is punishing the Knicks for their treatment of Larry Brown.

I think this local hand wringing is misdirected. If any Knick is being overlooked it’s David Lee. He’s the only Knick who averages a double-double (points and rebounds). He has been among the league’s top 10 rebounders all season and the NBA’s number 1 offensive rebounder most of the season. Among all top rebounders, he plays the least minutes by far. Imagine what David Lee could do if he played more. I guess it’s tough for a guy to make the all-star team when don’t give him a starting job on his own team.

SULLIVAN: After that polemic on Vegas and gambling I feel like I am stuck in some 1960’s Rat Pack soap opera that you are directing. Let us start off with the fact that the NBA All Star game is nothing but a big yawn. The rose is off the bloom. Last year, when they let Mighty Mite Nate Robinson win the Slam Dunk contest (after missing over a dozen dunks), the NBA was trying to re-create the mid-’80s magic of Spud Webb.

Actually, that is what the NBA is stuck in: a mid-to-late ’80s funk. David Stern longs for the glory days of Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and the Show Time Lakers. Stern is so desperate with these new jacks playing in the NBA he actually misses the once hated Bad Boys of Detroit and longs to cuddle with Dennis Rodman and Bill Lambier.

In a better time, Curry and Lee may well have been All Stars. They are both “on the bubble” players, and if they made it, no one would complain. I love David Lee. He plays ball like a man possessed. Curry needs to shed a few more pounds, but he is the best offensive weapon the Knicks have had in years, and is quite the player.

But to say either one is not on the All Star team because of Larry Brown is just plain silly. Brown has few friends in the league, just like Isiah. They are both despised, and with good reason. So the Knicks have no player on the All Star team and again New York is suffering from a brutal basketball season. Has February ever felt longer for New York sports fans?

HOLLANDER: Well, there’s always the Caribbean World Series. And, there’s apparently plenty of action at Italian soccer games. You look like you’ve weathered your share of hooligan-related incidents, C.J. Why not catch a face full of mace at a soccer stadium in Milan? That’ll keep you interested in February.

But you’ve got to love the NBA field trip to Vegas on TNT. Charles Barkley freely admits to having a huge gambling habit. He recently boasted of his Super Bowl $700,000 betting windfall on “the Colts and blackjack.” How great would it be to see Barkley, Ernie Johnson and Kenny “the Jet” Smith setting up the studio set right under the board at Caesar’s? Barkley—with a KINO card in one hand a cocktail waitress in the other.

As for snubbing the Knicks, well, that’s where it’s at for Madison Square Garden’s only basketball team. They’re a bad team with a bleak future. Looking for good or just watchable NBA basketball? Go west young man.

SULLIVAN: Yes, Barkley won $700,000 betting on the Colts, the team I wisely told our readers to bet on while you bored them with your lockstep pick of the Bears. When will you ever learn, Hollander, you’re over your head in this column. I carry you every week.

To spice up the NBA All Star weekend held in the nether reaches of Lost Wages, and not one Knick on the damn team, I decided that I would name the All Time New York Team. Eight of my picks were voted as the 50 Best NBA Players of All Time. New York owns basketball and it is about time we reclaimed it.

FIRST TEAM
C) Kareem Abdul Jabbar
F) Bernard King
F) Julius Ervin
G) Chris Mullin
G) Tiny Archibald

SECOND TEAM
C) Connie Hawkins
F) Ron Artest
F) Billy Cunnigham
G) Lenny Wilkins
G) Stephon Marbury

Look at that team. I know you have a problem with Marbury (as do I), but you put him in with those rocks and he would toe the line. Damn the All Star game and freezing out the Knicks. In my mind, New York will always rule the hardwood. 
del.icio.us digg NewsVine