Perhaps this plan involved going the distance of 7 games which pump millions of dollars more per game into the NBA & owners pockets, perhaps for the best of reasons to help the depressed NO economy. However, it was not much fun to watch. I cannot play basketball with the big boys but I could adjust a game if I had the opportunity like the NBA Refs do, a non-call here, a stealth call there, 4 or 5 calls can result in a 10 to 15 point differential which evenly matched teams would find it difficult if not impossible to make up.

Now let’s lift & peek under the gag rule probably in everyone’s contract with the NBA. Of course this might risk the neck of the golden goose which even sports writers are loathe to do. They might lose NBA access and thus their livelihood. Here it is; the great NBA revelation! The NBA playoffs have more to do with market share than basketball!

Hopefully most of you are not surprised at that. But I must admit I was a bit surprised to see that the major portion of the NBA management involved, to include instructions to the Refs as a “top-down” enterprise. but even I should not be surprised since it involves just too much money to let a few under-talented & under-paid Refs decide who will win in the locker room before the game.

Assuming I am correct, I wonder how many new champion shirts the NBA have already ordered for the 2008 playoffs? If market share is the longest pole in the tent, then the order must be for LA. If you think this is silly, think of the prices for such shirts and then multiply by the number of Jack Nickleson fanatics in LA willing to fork over the $50 + bucks per item for NBA gear. Now multiply that by the number of teams & you start to get the idea of the many millions we are talking about.

You notice I have not even mentioned betting on the games. With so many millions hanging in the balance, do you think the mob will let the NBA have financial interests which differ from theirs? Either the NBA is informing the mob before the fact who will win, or we will see on CNN some accident to one or two of the movers & shakers of the NBA in the near future. I loathe the fact that Big Business (hold your finger to your nose) has eclipsed the sport of Basketball & that now the NBA Refs determine who wins when.

I kind of hope we will have more Refs gambling & getting cross-ways with the mob. Then the real entertainment will start as we sports fans watch the news and see some Ref or NBA big-wig wake up with a horses head in their bed! Now that’s entertainment! I for one would like to see that, rather than a mundane auto accident. Not only would it be more entertaining; it just might provide the justice I seek after those stealth fouls & non-calls in the final seconds of the first game against LA!

Go SPurs Go
and oh yes You go Manu!!!!!

that it i am real mad being a suns fan and being screwed by the NBA for 3 year in a row now