The summer heats up

By Timothy Hammill Sports Central Columnist

Despite a wide-open competitive regular season, the emergence of Kevin Garnett as one of the league's elite, the nightly technical and flagrant foul extravaganza that was Ron Artest, and the Michael Jordan farewell tour, the 2002-2003 NBA season may very well go down as one of the least memorable seasons in the game's history. Low ratings and a growing lack of interest from fans left many wondering where this game was headed.

However, just weeks after the amazingly talented yet not-so-electrifying Tim Duncan and his San Antonio Spurs raised the trophy as World Champions and just one month into the 2003 offseason, two major stories have developed creating a buzz for the season to come.

In front of thousands of screaming, angry New Yorkers, the worst-kept secret in NBA draft history was unveiled as Lebron James, Darko Milicic, and Carmelo Anthony were the first three picks in the draft. While the rest of the draft was very much a mystery, the first 15 minutes of ESPN's primetime broadcast were about as predictable as the plot in Eric Roberts' late-night Cinemax flick.

Regardless of its predictability, this one night had more electricity surrounding it then the entire season. It was impossible to pick up any publication without seeing James, Anthony, or Milicic's mugs on the cover of them. People were tuned in just to see the threads the $100 million dollar 18-year-old would sport. Proving that even though there is no magic-wand to determine just how good James or the other two will be, people are interested in these guys, more specifically James.

For anyone who thinks otherwise, just look at the amount of people who have come through the turnstiles in Orlando and Boston to watch Lebron and his Cavaliers play in the summer leagues against other draft picks learning the NBA game, youngsters fighting for minutes, journeymen looking for a spot, and potential UPS drivers. In fact, Monday's game versus the Celtics at UMass Boston seemed to have more of buzz surrounding it then Major League Baseball's showcase of its biggest sluggers in the Homerun Derby.

King James' summer tour was the biggest story in basketball for a day or two, then the market opened and one team prevailed. The Lakers are that team. They have cashed in on the free-agent market, gaining the services of Gary Payton and Karl Malone for much less than market value. Adding Malone and Payton to the tandem of Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal gives purple and gold four potential Hall-of-Famers.

On paper, the new-look Lakers may have locked a fourth championship in five years, forcing the LAPD to call in reserves nearly a year in advance for the riots that will blaze the city. However, the games are not played on paper. Before the locals hit the nearest Best Buy to pick out the plasma screen televisions they want to carry through the melee of broken windows and flipped cars, they should realize that its not out of the realm of possibility that championship number four may very well allude the Staples Center.

In 1999, following the lockout that delayed the beginning of the season, the Houston Rockets put together a sure-shot championship team when they added Scottie Pippen to their squad of Charles Barkley and Hakeem Olajuwon. Three members of the NBA's 50 Best Players on one team, they were the heavy favorite to win it all. Yet age and lack of chemistry lead the Rockets to a third-place finish in the Midwest Division, a first-round defeat to the Lakers 3-1, and Pippen publicly calling Barkley fat and regretting the day he signed with the team.

Fans are dying to see if this team will implode the way Houston did, struggling to gel four enormous egos, or if they will flourish under Phil Jackson's system and knock off the Bulls' 72 wins as the greatest regular-season of all-time. Either way, it will be fun to watch. Think of the entertainment value of Kobe and the Mailman bumping gigantic heads in front of the silicon-infested Los Angeles faithful or the entertainment value in seeing the gracefulness of a Payton lob up top to the massive hands of O'Neal to be thrown down with authority over the league's big men on a nightly basis.

June's NBA Finals' ratings may have left many wondering if this game will continue to flourish. However, a brief look into the events that have transpired in less than a month of the offseason should be enough proof that this game may be getting bigger than ever. There are more stories surrounding this league in July then there were in the thick of the season in January.

The new faces in new places, both ridiculously noteworthy rookies entering the league, and legends assembling under one roof have given the 2003-2004 NBA season a momentum it had not had in quite some time. So get ready for October, not for the triumphant finish of the World Series, but for the opener of the NBA.

Article courtesy of Sports Central.