Book-browsing the other day, I came across the latest issue of Rolling Stone, their 40th Anniversary issue. Interesting in that it had 20 interviews with various VIPs and their recollections of 1967, The Summer Of Love.

Jimmy Carter, Patti Smith, George McGovern, Jane Fonda, Michael Moore, Paul McCartney...

... and not a single person of color.

Not a one.

Now, I know, it's Rolling Stone. Dedicated to keeping rock and roll alive, music that if you believe some is mostly white: The Beatles, Elvis, Buddy Holly, The Stones, Chicago, Led Zep, The Doors...you get the idea. Never mind the fact that R&R orgins are rooted in rhythm and blues, or the Chuck Berrys, Otis Reddings, Little Richards who helped shape the genre.

And I have no problem giving props where they are due - I have and play music from all of the above in my collection. But RS has always seemed to accept its roots with reluctance, preferring the "rock" in "rock and roll" - and that is not my reality.

Speaking of reality, quick: What were the two defining issues of 1967 - if not the decade? If you chose anything other than Civil Rights and Vietnam, kindly go back into hibernation.

And the faces of civil rights were...King, Ralph Abernathy, Stokley Carmichael, Huey Newton, Andy Young, Fannie Lou Hamer, and so on. (Notice a trend?) The most hated man in 1967 America?

Muhammad Ali, of course, refused induction ("I ain't got no quarrel with them Vietcong") and  unjustly stripped of his title that June at the peak of his serious, serious game. 

And Rolling Stone decided that out of 20 interviews they couldn't have ONE interview of an Ali, Andrew Young, Smokey Robinson or Carlos Santana? Was Bill Russell or Jim Brown busy? How about a close associate of the late, great, Ceasar Chavez? 

What, all of their phones were disconnected?

Rolling Stone blew it. By design. 

Then again, whitewashing history is so... 1967...

And that's why that issue stayed on the rack, unbought.

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In other news, the Spurs Robert Horry was ready and willing to compare his Spurs to the great teams of the 1980's.

"We would beat them," he boasted.

"No disrespect to the guys back in the 80's and the 70's, but the guys now are so much better than those guys," Horry said. "I don't care what they say. If you look at old films, guys only went right. They turned and kept it in their right hand. Look at the things LeBron (James) can do, Tim (Duncan) can do, Tony (Parker) can do, Manu (Ginobili) can do. Little (Daniel) Gibson over there. There's no way you can compare those guys. We watched what they did and expanded on that."

OK Big Shot Bob, are you telling me that everyone in today's NBA can go left? Please! You've been in the league since Mikan, and the next time I see you post twice in a row will be the first. I'll be the first to say that this league has more athletes than ever. I'll also say that basketball skills are still in shorter supply league-wide than common sense in the Paris Hilton household.

While I'm on this subject, Tim Duncan would have to play center, assuming that we use the 06-07 Spurs in this comparison. Honestly, does anyone really believe that Fabrico "Little Fabio" Oberto would last against Robert Parish, Kareem, or Moses Malone? I'm disqualfiying him on his hair alone. Nah, Timmy D, you're going to have to man up and be what you are - a center.

Now onto the comparison:

1985 Lakers vs 07 Spurs:

Backcourt: Magic v. Tony Parker. Parker would probably draw Bryon Scott, I suspect Magic would guard the offensively challenged Bruce Bowen or the solid, but aged Michael Finley. Scott would not only slow down Parker somewhat, but unlike Eric Snow, Bryon had a deadeye out to three point range. And who guards Magic? Ginobili would get posted more than a Gabrille Union pin-up. Bowen couldn't stop LeBron from posting - do you think he'd do better with Magic? Edge: Lakers, but not a huge one.

Frontcourt: Big Game vs Big Shot. James Worthy , A.C. Green and Kurt Rambis vs Bruce Bowen, Horry, and Oberto. I suspect that Bowen would start by guarding Magic, hence Horry would get the PT on James. For stretches, Horry would hold his own - after all, Worthy is the forefather of Horry - a tall (Worthy goes 6-9 to Horry's 6-10), "long" explosive 3 on the wing.

Alas, Horry may have been "The New", it doesn't mean he's "The Improved". Worthy is far more offensive-minded and can score inside or out, depending on the situation. A young Horry would have made this a really interesting confrontation with his defense and length. But over 7 games, if the series goes that long, Horry gets ground down, forcing Bowen or Finley to deal with number 42. A.C. Green/Rambis and Elston/Oberto would be a standstill.

But the special matchup would be The Hair of Oberto vs The Jehri Curl of Green. A.C.'s grease would give him a small edge inside, where he'd be harder to grab, but it would be hell on his shooting touch.

Edge: Lakers, Worthy being the difference.

Center: Kareem vs Duncan/Oberto/Elston - Possibly the two most fundamentally sound big men to ever play square off. The Skyhook v. The Bank Shot. The Old Stone Face versus... The Younger Stone Face. Duncan would get the edge running the floor on the 40-year-old "Cap", but the skyhook is money - and I'm talking Euros (have you seen the dollar lately?). Kareem basically took most of the regular season off from rebounding, but stepped it up in the playoffs. Duncan's D would make life difficult for Jabbar, and Elston would bang to make life painful and slow The Old Man down. I suspect Horry would even take a turn here. But Duncan isn't used to guarding prolific post men. He usually left the dirty work of guarding Shaq to Robinson or Malik Rose until the 4th period. He won't have that luxury against this team.

Edge: Draw.

The Bench: Spurs bring the 6th man of the year in Ginobili. Brent Barry would drop in some threes. Horry would be the swing man playing the 3-4-5 slots. But the Lakers would bring Michael Cooper, the Bruce Bowen of the 80s (minus the cheap shots) to lock down Parker or G-Nose (more likely), and to match Barry or Bowen on 3's. Mychal Thompson and Kurt Rambis would provide more scoring than Elson or Oberto, and could guard Duncan credibly. Thompson and Kareem at the 4 and 5 have a clear edge on any Duncan combo that the Spurs could throw out.

Edge: Lakers, slight.

Overall, I actually like the 85 Lakers more, with a younger Kareem, but their bench wasn't quite as deep (Silk Wilkes was getting up there in age, as was Bob McAdoo), and no A.C. Green.

And I'd like the Spurs to take a couple of games on guts, Parker, and a big game from Manu supporting Duncan. But the Lakers' superior depth and running game and Magic would be too much over the course of seven games. The Spurs would have to slow the tempo, and the great secret of the Showtime Lakers was that they could play it either way, much to the chagrin of the Spurs.

The Verdict: Lakers in 6.

...and no one heard that sucker crash on Tony Parker's head, who could say it made a sound?

OK, Eva Longoria would.

(And that's the last time I'm bringing her fine behind  - or face - up in this conversation.)

The only drama left in this finals is whether LeBron finds his inner Kobe and goes 1 on 5 against the Spurs. The only way Cleveland can win even one game is if LBJ goes for at least 40. Forget this "Make your teammates better" crap.

Who is it easier to make better anyhow: Manu Ginobilli or Drew Gooden?

The Cavs scored 33 and 35 points in the first half of the first two games. I'm willing to bet a Happy Meal that the Browns - yes, the Browns with Brady Quinn - will score 30 points in a half this year.

The real remaining pressure is on David Stern. This has not been a good year for the comish, who could not have mishandled the New Ball Fiasco any worse than Phil Leotardo handled his meeting with Tony Soprano.

(And there is your obligatory Sopranos mention.)

Back to The David: The NBF was bad - the NBA playoffs were worse:

• First, a 67-win Dallas Mavs team folded like wet origami to the one team that matched up with them (and don't kid yourselves - the Spurs had few answers for Dallas - Coach Pop should do the class thing and send fruit baskets and mixtapes to Oakland in gratitude).
• Second, a Robert Horry cheapshot handed the Spurs the NBA crown, then David Stern's performance on live radio showed him to be arrogant and oblivious - at best  - to fan concerns. To top it off, he now alleges no owner wants to change the rule.(Show of hands, who REALLY believes that? Where is Mark Cuban when you need him?)
• Third, because of the above, we got a painfully boring Spurs-Jazz conference final.
• Fourth, the NBA Draft lotto totally bombed, as the three worst teams in the league were locked out of the three top picks. With the two best college players in long time going to the Pacific Northwest, the Eastern Conference pretty much ensured themselves a few more years of June beatdowns.
• Fifth - For the fourth time this decade, the Finals isn't an anti-climax - it is freakin' irrelevant. 2001-03, the Lakers and Spurs dispatched the Nets and Sixers, surprising absolutely no one. At least the Sixers had AI's Game 1 to hang their hats on. 2004 featured a Pistons upset, but not a watchable series, and the following year was even more boring. Now in '07, the common perception is that NBA champ was decided in the conference semifinals. And they are right.

Let's face it, the NBA Finals isn't the Super Bowl. As Tim Keown points out, it isn't even the BCS Championship game, and you know you're in trouble when the BCS gives the world a better product.

What are you to do Mr. Stern?

For starters, here are a few ideas:

• Re-weigh the lottery so that the worst team has at least a 40% chance instead of 25%. Make sure that the worst team can finish no worst than 3rd in the lottery. If a Portland gets lucky - fine. But we shouldn't have THREE Portland's getting over on the system.
• Forget this re-seeding the playoffs that always comes up, that just kills the whole concept of having a conference. I'd go one further:

Move San Antonio to the Eastern Conference. Or Dallas perhaps? Swap the Bucks and Hornets for good measure. Look, if the Baltimore Colts could spend 20 years in the NFL Western Division, and the Atlanta Falcons could spend 30 years in the NFC West, why not put a Texas team back in the Eastern Conference? Think the Rockets or Mavs wouldn't be a huge threat in the East?

• Mr. Stern, the next time you hear someone call you the "Greatest Comissioner In Sports", RUN LIKE HELL. Far away. I can make a case that you've read too many of your press clippings, because...
• ...it's about the game sir. Once you get past the bling, the slick marketing, it always comes back to the game. You waited too long to get rid of all of the excessive physicality. Too many 86-77 games killed your committed fan base. But the game is cleaner now. Now widen the court and lengthen it. Go from 94x50 to 100x55. Half-court sets in the NBA remind me of pickup games at the Y, when we play 5 on 5 half court. Crowded.
• Take some of those games back from ABC. Last year, some of the best and/or most exciting basketball (Cavs-Wizards and Suns-Clips come to mind) was never watched because it was on cable. And it was on LATE. Same with these Finals. You don't need a MJ or Bird to sell the Finals. But you do need to sell the league. And you can't do it all on cable. What's next - Pay Per View?
• When you do get some of those games on free TV, give them to Fox or NBC if ABC won't promote them properly. And when you do, make sure you get Kenny Smith, Sir Charles and Ernie Johnson to provide analysis. They are the most fun since Cosell and Meredith had their A-game. They are an asset to the league.
• Get rid of the best of 7 first rounds. Go back to best of 5, and end the silly layoffs. You're doing it for ratings, and the ratings suck anyway because the games have no interest. And it would be nice to see the season end before the fourth of July. Besides, a shorter season means more time to rest for the players. That means they'll be healthier for the following season.

Time to do the counter-inutitive. Like, right now.

Good luck Mr. Stern. Try to stay awake.

Marvin Lewis, coach of the Bengals was on the 4-Letter Sports Network, and made an honest mistake...of being honest.

When asked if the Bengals were profiled by the Cincinnati police, Lewis had the temerity to point out - politely - that getting written up and publicized for not turning on your blinker is a bit extreme.

Whoops.

Of course, human nature is such that once you have a reputation for trouble, such as the Bengals do, you are going to have walk a straighter line. Everything, no matter how minor, gets magnified. Lewis basically said as much. Of course, in the minor furor afterwards, this was ignored.

The unspoken undercurrent here is the low reputation that the Queen City Police Department has in the local black community. Since 1995, the police have shot 22 black men, 13 of them fatally. While some of those incidents were justified, others were - to put it nicely - questionable. Any talk of racial profiling has to take that into account

The Bengals have justly been ripped for their indiscretions in the past, and should be held to a high standard, both by their management, fans, and the NFL. None of that ever justifies profiling based on status, race, or profession.

Lewis offered a clarification/apology the next day. As someone who has been on the wrong end of a racial profile (not in Ohio), I'm sorry he did so. Too often, speaking truth is usually followed by a backpedal worthy of Champ Bailey.

Kudos to Marvin for making the attempt. I just wish he had stuck to his convictions.

Today's travesty of an NBA ruling had me thinking of Charles Dickens, the OG NBA fan.

Why? Because he put these famous words in the mouth of aptly-named (and Doug Christie-style whipped) Mr. Bumble in Oliver Twist. When facing jail time for his wife's misdeeds, he said, "If the law supposes [that a man is responsible for the crimes of the wife] the law is an ass, an idiot...and a bachelor."

If David Stern truly believes that justice was handed out yesterday, because "Rules are rules" (as his puppet Stu Jackson said), then the rule is an ass, an idiot, and conceived by a man who never played a competitive sport in his life.

Give it up to Cheap Shot Rob - he came through huge for the Spurs. he did it again for his team. The Spurs lose an over the hill scrub, the Suns lose 40% of their starting lineup. All with malice aforethought.

We shouldn't be surprised by any of this. Stern's constant attempts to alternatively paint himself as in total control of "his" players and "his" league have brought us to this point.

• The ridiculous "zero tolerance" attempt at banning back talk to referees brought a flood of silly technicals.
• The aforementioned zero tolerance experiement allowed Joey Crawford to go out of control at Tim Duncan's expense.
• A lack of consistency and fairness has produced a product where Kobe Bryant can get suspended for throwing his arm out while shooting, but Baron Davis' drive-by on Mehmet Okur, and Bruce Bowen's multiple transgressions go unpunished.

And Stu Jackson, Designated Puppet got off the signature line to this mess: "It's not a matter of fairness; It's a matter of correctness."

OK I get David Stern. He's never played a game of competitive anything in his life. Only a man who has never been in the heat of any athletic competition can have the arrogance to tell Dan Patrick, "When will they learn to obey?"

Stern lives in fear of another Kermit Washington punch, and as a result we have a comissioner ruling by fear - his own. And now we have a man trying to turn the league into neat rows of automations.

Safe, harmless, emotionless (unless league-sanctioned), and of course well-dressed. 

Don't argue with authority boy.

Don't leave the bench kids.

You know the rules. Why? Because I said so.

The saddest part of all of this? I wasn't surprised. You shouldn't be either. The league knows the ruling is wrong. They KNOW the rule is thoughtless, unflexible, and is in need of an overhaul. But they wouldn't change it because that would be an admission that David Stern was wrong, and we can't have The Infallible One admitting to being wrong can we? 

I mean we hit our lifetime quota with The New Ball. When a man who has never played the game has the gall to tell the experts in their field to use the tools that HE feels are better, are you really surprised?

The real surprise is that hiding behind the letter of the law isn't working here. The fans and a previously slavish media is stepping up to finally call Stern to account.

Too late for Phoenix.

Somebody let me know how the game turns out. I might just skip it.

For the first time since 1993, when Sir Charles Barkley tipped the scale roughly a biscuit less than 300 pounds, I'm looking forward to a truly entertaining NBA Finals. Sure, last year's Finals were competitive, but as a defense-oriented series utterly devoid of charisma, it was painful enough to make a grown man demand an epidural.

For the next 10 days, die-hard fans of the hardwood can kick back and enjoy watching the two best teams in the NBA, teams with starkly contrasting styles and charismatic personalities struggle to earn the honor of being called the world's best basketball team.  To their respective credit, each team is led by an outstanding coach - one coach, Pat Riley, already has four rings to his credit and a guaranteed pass to the Hall Of Fame, while the other, Avery Johnson is the wunderkind coach in only his first full season at the helm.

Most of all, NBA fans casual and hardcore alike are ecstatic to finally have what is sure to be one of the most compelling series in a very long time.  Replete with storylines, could this mark the beginning of the Next Great Era in NBA basketball -- a confluence of events, born of accidents and design, as well as the new and old,  all culminating on the grandest of stages?  Albeit only rarely, it has happened before:

1957. The Celtics begin their dynasty with a thrilling 7-game win over the St. Louis Hawks in what was arguably the greatest championship series ever played. It not only marked the beginning of the Russell Era (11 titles in 13 seasons) based on team defense and a devastating fast break, but the beginning of the end of the NBA racial quota system. The Celtics often played as many as four black players together in an era when most teams were only carrying two or three on the entire roster.

1977. The Sixers versus the Trailblazers. This was the supreme object lesson of the superior team beating the more talented team. As the NBA absorbed the best of the ABA prior to the season (and 10 former ABA players wound up in the 1977 All-Star game), Julius Erving and George McGinnis were swept up by the Sixers, as well an assorted array of lesser known stars who introduced a more wide open style to the NBA.  Although Philly took the first two games against a Blazers' team that featured Hall of Famer Bill Walton at his best, the Blazers ultimately swept the next four games to take the title.

1984. Magic Meets Larry. The league gives us Celtics-Lakers (Version 2.0) and catapults the league to even greater heights.  Bird and Magic finally meet in an epic East vs. West showdown. Hollywood versus Beantown. It was the Lakers "Showtime" versus the Celtics so-called "blue collar" power game. And, somewhat like the Larry Holmes/Gerry Cooney fight, the series also featured a slight tinge of racial undertones (yes, it played a role). Add in eight Hall Of Famers between the two teams, and Jerry Bruckheimer and Brett Ratner combined couldn't have scripted it any better. These two powerhouses would meet in 1984, '85, and '87, giving us the basketball equivalent of the Ali-Frazier Trilogy. Each series set ratings records and featured transcendent basketball, yet as jazz artist Sade would croon that year, it was never as good as the first time.

1991. The Bulls begin their decade of dominance with a decisive thrashing of the aging Lakers.  Air Jordan receives the torch from Magic, and then ushers in an era where the NBA took professional basketball to The Next Level, and truly became a global giant.

2006. Welcome to the present, and the future -- an era surely to be defined by its balance between the great all-around game of the 1980s and the urban mystique of the New Millennium Baller.  Even more remarkable, for the first time in league history, a Finals team is being led by a European-schooled baller.

While Hakeem Olajuwon hailed from Lagos, Nigeria, he learned his game in Houston. Tim Duncan may have started off backstroking in the Virgin Islands, but his game was honed at Wake Forest.  In contrast, Dirk's game was based and developed entirely in Europe.  For all the justified hype surrounding Dirk's enhanced low-post game as well as his willingness to take it to the rack, his status as "Un-guardable Force" owes its roots to his Euro-honed game.  

To be sure, like many of his H1-B colleagues, Pau Gasol, Andres Nocioni, and Boris Diaw, Dirk is a big player with small player skills.  At 7-0, Dirk is too tall for smaller players to guard, and he has too much perimeter game for the game's bigs a la Shaq.

Of course Dirk wasn't the first such player bringing this package, but Dirk's enhanced game is the embodiment of the best of the New Era. It is hardly an accident that the NBA is getting the same infusion and impact from global talent in the 21^st century that black players provided in the 60s and 70s.  Players like Wilt, Russell, Elgin Baylor, "The Big O", et al, took a grounded one-dimensional game and expanded it to the three-dimensional spectacle it is today.  Of equal impact, the improvisational skills of an Earl Monroe, Connie Hawkins and Julius Erving should be credited for bringing the urban flow of the Rucker Park game to the mainstream and redefining the NBA game as the ultimate creative sport.

This incredibly successful playoff season has displayed all of the diversity of the new NBA, and the teams in the finals embody this. Besides Dirk, the flexible style that Dallas employs on offense is the perfect platform for the diverse talents of Jason Terry, Devin Harris, Keith Van Horn, Jerry Stackhouse, and the emerging game of Josh Howard. For their part, the Heat features the total floor game of Dewayne Wade, the third year guard already on the fast track to NBA immortality. His game complements the old-school power of Shaquille O'Neal, who is quite possibly the last great back-to-the basket, low-post center we will see for a long time. For all of D-Wade's nascent greatness, Miami will go as far as the classic skills of their centers O'Neal and Alonzo Mourning take them.

Even with the Three-peat Lakers of Shaq and Kobe, and the success of the Duncan-led Spurs, we can classify more recent times as a barren era for NBA fans since 1993. The league allowed lesser-talented teams to dictate pace by employing slowdown tactics and physical defense better suited for the NFL. The credo seemed to be; if you couldn't beat 'em, beat on them.  The league also suffered from the weakening effects of overexpansion and poorly schooled younger players.

That down period the league suffered from has ended. The wave of superb young players from the US and abroad that have emerged, combined with the rules changes designed to improve offensive flow, have helped to give us a fantastic playoff season and brings us to the precipice of the most anticipated NBA Finals in recent memory.

Perhaps best of all, these Finals mark the dawn of the NBA's next great era at last.

We've waited long enough for the revolution.

Enjoy the New NBA.