You gotta hand it to the NBA … at the time of year when the game’s supposed to be the thing, it ain’t.
And I’m not even talking about rounds that drag like RuPaul. Play three games in four nights during the irregular season and then take three “travel days” from Cleveland to Boston (a long enough time out for LeBron James to undergo right elbow transplant surgery, rotate and recover) and Los Angeles to Salt Lake City in the payoffs.
No surprise here; TV dictates the schedule, time slots and match-ups. Nah, son, don’t even think about going there! But, clearly, the league would rather live on its knees than die on its feet fighting against such a radical change in routine for the players and fans whose awareness wanes when forced to wait so long between games and locate which nitwork is holding court that particular day or night.
Leapfrogging that craziness for the moment, consider how my pet league chastised the NFL for moving its draft to prime time and deflecting the nation’s attention from the first round of the playoffs.
Next, David Stern decided to get up on his second-season soapbox and interrupt the gravitational pull of the payoffs by taking on any and all comers who dare to rail against referees.
Going rate: 35-large per pop (off).
Then came “Los Suns” . . . which all but disrupted the riveting replay of Phoenix vs. San Antonio that normally ends with the Spurs wrapping it up (four of five times) and the Suns teeing it up.
This time the tide appeared to be changing. Phoenix won a fiercely contested Game 1, and looked to hold serve by winning the first two games at home.
Interesting storyline . . . until politics occupied all the oxygen inside US Airways Center.
How adolescent am I? I always thought sports “between the lines” were supposed to be an escape from the really rotten “real world” issues of politics, pollution and payola.
(Except at the Olympics, of course, where seldom is heard a discouraging word — especially at NBC).
Wrong!
There were the Suns, “unfittingly” in their alternate jerseys — “alternate” being the operative word — to represent a diverse issue that overshadowed the only one that should matter.
The game!
By re-donning “Los Suns” uniforms for the third time to honor Latinos but first to protest Arizona’s controversial immigration law, owner Robert Sarver and his team’s players turned the series into a sidebar.
Though Stern may not have fully endorsed the Suns’ opinionated demonstration his comments made clear whose side he was on. What position would he have taken had the commissioner disagreed rather than agreed?
What’s more, Gregg Popovich said his team would’ve joined ‘the march’ had there been time to retrieve his “Los Spurs” jerseys from San Antonio. We can look forward to their statement of solidarity in Game 5, he promised. What if the Spurs coach refused to take the court because he fervently opposed the Suns’ stand or believed what I believe about not mixing games and politics?
Supposedly, the Suns unanimously voted to express their objection to a law — that polls show the Arizona constituency is 2-1 in favor of — by wearing the alternate outfit. What if there had been a dissenter or two? Would they have had the option to wear the Suns’ regular jersey or would they have been forced to comply with majority rule?
What happens if some of the Spurs actually feel differently about the law? Will Popovich back off or does only what he thinks politically count?
So, where exactly does the line in Stern’s sandbox get drawn? What’s the next hot button topic that gets shoved down the gullet of those who just want to watch a game?
Religion? Education? Health care? Charles Barkley‘s next performance in “A Street Corner Named Desire?”
So far, the lone voice of reason, out of left field, is Phil Jackson, who has taken a stand or two in his day and knows all about time and place.
“I don’t think teams should get involved in the political stuff,” the Lakers coach said. “If I heard it right, the America people are really for stronger immigration laws, if I’m not mistaken.”
I greatly doubt whether that many Suns or the Spurs or any players in any sport, for that matter, accurately understand Arizona’s new law.
It’s my understanding the state law does not allow the authorities to profile any nationality, let alone Latinos. What it does allow is stronger enforcement of existing laws. That doesn’t mean getting proofed (for citizenship) while ordering an ice cream. For that to happen, a person would have to be holding up the ice cream store, or committing some other illegal activity.
On a recent drive, I got stopped twice within a short period of time, the first for talking on my cell, the other for doing 54 in a 35. Both times the officer asked to see my license and registration? Then he went to his car to check his computer for outstanding warrants, whatever? Maybe I could’ve caught a bigger break than I got had I accused him of profiling people in beat up BMWs.
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Column contributor Richie Kalikow has a suggestion for the Knicks. At their first home game next season, the front of their jerseys should read: “LOS ERS.”