National bonehead association: the NBA has a proud heritage as an innovative sports league, but it's suffered through a recent spate of silly ideas

Basketball Digest, March, 2003 by Jeff Ryan

THE NBA HAS HAD SOME TRULY great ideas through the years. Take the 24-second clock, for example. If that hadn't been invented, a bad team like the Memphis Grizzlies would consistently pass the ball around for three or four minutes before ever taking a shot, Tracy McGrady would be averaging 12 ppg, and the defensively diligent Detroit Pistons would be winning by scores usually seen in World Cup soccer.

Instituting the three-point field goal was a pretty smart idea, too. So were the draft lottery, the Sixth Man Award, the fan-friendly festivities of All-Star Weekend, and the Hardwood Classics clothing line. (Hey, anticipating that George Mikan's old Minneapolis Lakers jersey could become a fashion statement in 2003? Now that's foresight.)

Such a superb track record, unfortunately, doesn't preclude the league office and owners from coming up with some real bonehead ideas at times. As a matter of fact, the bonehead ideas have far outnumbered the brilliant ones as of late. Just take a look at these lame brainstorms that are either under consideration or have recently been approved:

TURNING THE RACE FOR THE RING INTO A MARATHON

It's only a matter of time before an agreement is reached with the players union and the NBA switches its opening-round playoff series from a best-of-five format to a best-of-seven. Then a ridiculously stretched-out postseason that already lasts almost two months win go on even longer.

Naturally, teams won't pass up a chance for more cash. After all, despite selling tickets to eight exhibition and 82 regular-season games, and garnering revenue from the current chunk of playoff contests, TV fights fees, merchandising, concessions, courtside signage, and that airline name hanging over the arena door, Mr. J.P. Owner III desperately needs that extra game or two of playoff revenue, lest he end up sleeping in a homeless shelter.

"More playoff games would really wear on the players," says ESPN analyst and Hall of Fame coach Jack Ramsay. "A team could conceivably have to go seven games in three different series just to win its conference. By the time you got to the NBA Finals, you might have two teams that are hanging on to the ropes."

In addition to diminishing the quality of play, the other problem with the extra games is that they'd reduce the chance of an opening-round upset. (In a best-of-five, if the underdog wins Game 1 or 2, it has a real shot.) And even though NBA commissioner David Stern and ABC might cringe at the thought of Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant exiting right at the start of the playoffs, upsets are what make any sport's playoff sweepstakes fun.

Some of basketball's best postseasons were the ones that produced unlikely champions, like the 1975 Golden State Warriors and the 1978 Washington Bullets. Two of the greatest upsets in playoff history, the No. 8 Denver Nuggets over the top-seeded Seattle SuperSonics in 1994 and the eighth-seeded New York Knicks over the top-seeded Miami Heat in 1999 came in best-of-five series. And there was no better drama last season than the top-seeded New Jersey Nets needing double overtime to oust the eighth-seeded Indiana Pacers in their fifth and deciding game.

The best-of-five format provides less of a guarantee that the "best" team will capture the NBA title, but that's OK. If a team is truly the best, it'll find a way to win, be it in a best-of-five series, a best-of-three, or one winner-take-all death game in a steel cage.

PLOWING THE GARDEN

Everything about New York's Madison Square Garden is unique, from the design of its circular ceiling to the fact that three railroad and seven subway lines converge beneath it. The Garden has an NBA tradition that's unsurpassed by any building still standing. It's Spike Lee and Woody Allen sitting at courtside and a bunch of guys who drive spikes through wood for a living getting drunk in the upper deck. It's part Broadway stage and part Roman Colosseum. It's, well, the Garden.

So, of course, the suits running the place would like to tear it down and replace it with a new home for the Knicks that would be constructed a few blocks to the west and look like every other cloned, skybox-saturated monument to sterility that has risen on the NBA landscape in recent years.

Why the desire to drop a wrecking ball on the court where Clyde Frazier dropped his no-look bounce passes? Mostly because this current version of MSG opened way back in 1968 and, in this era of state-of-the-art everything, that makes it as old as the Colosseum. Never mind that the Garden underwent an extensive renovation that added 89 luxury suites just a decade ago, or that the New York players, fans, and sportswriters are united in their belief that a new arena is unnecessary. Plans for a new building are currently being studied.

And just what will they name the new place? If you think it'll be Madison Square Garden, you probably also think Charlie Ward is going to have his number retired. The hunch here is that a corporate name will be shoehorned in there. So get ready for something like Madison Builder's Square Garden or the IBM Garden at Madison Square.