NBA Insider with Ken Berger

If LeBron James and Mike Brown are still waiting to get a call on the road on the final shot of a playoff game, they are going to be waiting a long time.

They are going to be waiting a lot longer than it will take the experienced, poised, surgically lethal Pistons to send them home for the summer.

Was LeBron fouled by Richard Hamilton when he drove to the basket with seven seconds left in Game 2 Thursday night? Technically, yes. Watch it here to judge for yourself. But I have other problems with what transpired down the stretch and don’t think the Cavs lost because the referees swallowed their whistles.

First of all, the non-call was entirely consistent with how the game was called throughout to that point. Granted, had Hamilton been called for hitting LeBron’s arm, it wouldn’t have been a bailout call because James was entirely under control and still had a good look at the basket. But in a game that close, in a situation that intense and pressure-packed, you cannot rely completely on a middle-aged man in a black-and-white striped shirt to win the game for you.

Which brings me to my second point: Down 1 with 24 seconds left out of a timeout following Rasheed Wallace’s baseline rain-maker over James, why, oh why did the Cavs go for the last shot in a road playoff game? I don’t care if it’s LeBron James or Henry James with the ball in his hands, the correct strategy is to try to get a quick two to extend the game – not risk your entire season on one shot. At least LeBron took the shot after passing to Donyell Marshall at the end of Game 1, but he didn’t get it right this time, either. Quite simply, it shouldn’t have been the last shot.

If LeBron had gone into his move to the basket early in the shot clock, the absolute worst-case scenario would’ve been a missed shot or turnover. In that case, there would’ve been plenty of time to foul and send the Pistons to the line. Even if they made both free throws, Cleveland still would’ve had time to come down with a chance to tie it on a three-pointer and send the game to overtime.

If LeBron had made the shot and/or gotten a whistle earlier in the shot clock, the Cavs could’ve dug in on defense and tried to win the game with a stop. Instead, their inexperience, and the inexperience of their coach, was exposed in a glaring way. LeBron dribbled the clock out at the top of the key and left himself only one option – drive to the basket and hope for the best. The best didn’t happen, and usually doesn’t on the road when it comes to expecting a whistle to win you a playoff game.

My colleague and friend, Chris Sheridan of ESPN.com, obviously disagrees strenuously with my take. He actually writes that Brown should have protested more; I guess stomping onto the court and making a scene that earned him a technical foul wasn’t protest enough.

Brian Windhorst of the Akron Beacon-Journal takes a little more balanced look at how things unraveled down the stretch for the Cavs.

The best thing about all of this: We are watching the growth of LeBron on the big stage in a way that is thrilling, albeit imperfect. There have been two games, and two controversial last-second situations revolving around LeBron. How many more of those there will be this season depends on how the Cavs handle themselves in crunch time on their home floor in the next two games.

My worst fears about LeBron James’ chances of getting past the Pistons to the NBA Finals came true Monday night.

Given a chance to carry his team to a victory, as superstars are supposed to do, LeBron passed.

Not only did he pass, to a much lesser player named Donyell Marshall, but he passed to him for a much more difficult shot – a corner three-pointer – than the layup and potential three-point play that was staring LeBron in the eyes.

I don’t pretend to know how this series will turn out, but this is exactly what the Pistons – or any team facing Cleveland – wants LeBron to do. With the lane clogged in a new version of the Jordan Rules, James played unselfishly – kicking the ball to the open man to the tune of nine assists and a near-triple double.

The Pistons will take Marshall, Drew Gooden, Larry Hughes, Eric Snow, Sasha Pavlovic, and even Zydrunas Ilgauskas trying to beat them 100 times out of 100 if it means LeBron is not going to try to beat them.

The book on James, as Scouts Inc.’s David Thorpe explained to me a while back, is to cut off his penetration and make him settle for jump shots (which he did Monday night) or pass to someone who isn’t as good as he is (which he did with 5.9 seconds left and the Cavs trailing, 78-76.)

Detroit won Game 1, 79-76. Game 2 is Thursday night at the Palace of Auburn Hills.

James scored only 10 points on 5-for-15 shooting. He had 10 rebounds and nine assists, but incredibly did not attempt a single free throw.

Just as Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, and Isiah Thomas had to experience failure before getting their first championship ring, my gut tells me that this is not LeBron’s time. Not yet. On one hand, you have to applaud his unselfish instincts. But at some point, the best player on the floor has to learn to take the game in his hands when it matters.

LeBron is only 22, so it’s understandable that he hasn’t learned this yet. He has a few more games to figure it out, or wait until next year.

On a side note, check out ESPN.com’s Chris Sheridan’s piece on where LeBron is at this stage of his career. Good reading. I’ve played golf with Chris, not basketball, so I don’t even know if he can make a layup. But something tells me that he wouldn’t have passed to Donyell Marshall in that situation if it was him.

Although David Stern trotted Stu Jackson out Tuesday night to do his dirty work in announcing the controversial suspensions in the Suns-Spurs series, you knew it was only a matter of time before the NBA commissioner surfaced to defend his decision.

He came out Wednesday afternoon throwing bigger punches than anyone involved in the Game 4 incident had to offer, giving a spirited defense of his one-game suspensions for the Suns’ Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw.

Stern: “You can jump up and take a step or two to look out, but the entire intent of the rule for the 10 years or so it’s been in effect was to make it clear that there’s no way to know whether someone running out on the court is coming as friend or foe.

“When Rudy Tomjanovich came running out to see what was going on and then tried to break up a fight, his face was forever changed. And it’s a great concern that we have and so we made it as simple as possible.”

In a contentious interview with Dan Patrick on ESPN Radio, Stern said Stoudemire and Diaw should have known that there is no room for interpretation in the leaving-the-bench rule, which players are reminded of before the season and again before the playoffs.

“Either they didn’t know about it, or they knew about it and they forgot about it, or one of the six assistant coaches that was there didn’t grab them fast enough,” Stern said. “So these players took themselves out of the game.”

Would the owners want Stern to have the authority to interpret a player’s intent when he leaves the bench?

“No,” he said. “They were 20 or 25 feet away from the bench and they violated the rule. It’s a fair point if you want to change the rule.”

Asked by Patrick about the suspensions affecting the outcome of a playoff series, Stern snapped.

“I’m going to wrestle with you, and you better stop that,” he said. “It’s not being decided by that. It’s being decide because two Phoenix Suns, who knew about the rule, forgot about it, couldn’t control themselves, and didn’t have coaches that could control them. And don’t you forget it.

“Now, is it exactly fair? Probably not. Is it a red-letter rule? Absolutely. Did it cost other teams their playoffs and championship? Yes. So I guess there’s no way for us to get the message through. Do you think next year the players will understand it?

“I’m unhappy with this result, there’s no doubt about it. And if the owners would like to change it, I’m happy to do it. Believe me, I’d be very happy to do it. But to listen to the clamor that Robert Horry changed this series is just silly. What changed this series is Amare and Boris ran out onto the court. And they either forgot about it or they couldn’t control themselves, I don’t know which one. And there wasn’t an assistant coach there, one of the six, to restrain them. OK? So now either we have to have new rules, put up a fence, or hire more assistant coaches.”

Stern said he reviewed video of the Spurs’ bench during the altercation sparked by Robert Horry’s hard foul on Steve Nash with 18 seconds left in Game 4 and said no member of the Spurs left the bench. He also rejected the notion that Tim Duncan should have been suspended for walking several steps onto the court in the second quarter when the Spurs’ Francisco Elson and the Suns’ James Jones got tangled up after a dunk by Elson.

“He didn’t leave to go to an altercation,” Stern said. “That was looked at. … Your point is right on one point: It’s a shame this happened, and it’s a shame that by the players not being able to control themselves, they’ve put their team into this position. And I guess it’s a shame that we have a rule that I have to enforce. And I accept all of the above. So the owners and the teams will have to decide to change the rule, which is fine, too. I’m OK with that.

“Frankly, one of the things that I’ve watched over the years is that we’ve tried so hard to squeeze fighting out of our game and potential injury out of our game,” Stern said. “And so if I had a team, I would make sure that my players never leave the bench, and so would you. … That’s the spectacle that we try and avoid: bench-clearing brawls, OK?”

Strong stuff from a commissioner who, as usual, is not backing down to criticism.

Breaking news update: The NBA has suspended the Spurs' Robert Horry one game for his flagrant foul on Steve Nash last night, while the Suns took the brunt of the punishment: Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw each got one game for leaving the bench immediately after the incident in Game 4 of the Western Conference semifinals last night. Stu Jackson, the NBA's vice president for operations, is about to have a conference call.

I am seriously torn about this Spurs-Suns incident last night in San Antonio.

Didn’t see it? Can’t blame you. These West Coast NBA playoff games are aimed at a pretty narrow target audience back here in the East: insomniacs, people working the graveyard shift in security booths, and NBA writers who got stuck in traffic driving home from Game 4 of the Nets-Cavs series at the Meadowlands.

For those who do not fit those demographics: The Spurs’ Robert Horry hip-checked the Suns’ Steve Nash into the scorer’s table with 18 seconds left and Phoenix leading, 100-97, in Game 4. It was ruled a flagrant foul-type 2, and Horry was ejected.

Horry, who has made a living on big shots in the playoffs, might have inadvertently connected on the biggest one of his career with that foul.

That’s because as Nash popped up and Raja Bell came to his defense along the sideline, the Suns’ Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw left the bench area and headed toward the fray. They were stopped by assistant coach Marc Iavaroni, but perhaps too late to prevent them from being suspended for Game 5. Watch the video here.

The NBA has a history of strictly enforcing a rule prohibiting players from leaving the bench during an altercation on the court. It all started with the Knicks’ Patrick Ewing, Larry Johnson, Allan Houston, and John Starks leaving the bench during a Game 5 brawl between Charlie Ward and P.J. Brown in 1997.

The Knicks led 3-2, but lost Game 6 without Ewing and Houston and then lost Game 7 without Starks and Johnson.

David Stern is in a very tough predicament on this one, and it’s of his own making. A one-game suspension for Horry goes without saying. But if Stern follows the rule to the letter, he must suspend Stoudemire and Diaw for Game 5 as well.

That would mean rewarding the Spurs for Horry’s actions. And it would all but doom the Suns, who have all the momentum in the series after closing Game 4 with a 12-1 run and stealing it on the Spurs’ home floor, 104-98.

Game 5 is tomorrow night in Phoenix, and the Suns would stand little chance to beat the superior Spurs without their All-NBA center, Stoudemire, and Diaw, a valuable backup.

First of all, the Suns’ immediate explanation – that Stoudemire was on his way to the scorer’s table to check back into the game as part of an offensive-defensive substitution pattern – is absurd. But that’s their story, and you can’t blame them for sticking to it considering their best shot at winning an NBA title is at stake. There is no way such a transparent explanation gets past Stern and disciplinary chief Stu Jackson.

As of early this afternoon, a league spokesman said there’s no word yet on the timing of any disciplinary announcements. But they’re expected today, if nothing else to give the teams enough time to make adjustments for Game 5.

It’s a nightmare scenario any way you look at it. If NBA officials aren’t already petrified of the Spurs dragging down the TV ratings for the NBA Finals, there is no doubt the broadcast partners feel that way. But that is not the point – or shouldn’t be.

The point is, should Stern enforce his no-leaving-the-bench rule without regard for the star power of the player involved? That has been his history, in case anyone has forgotten Carmelo Anthony’s 15-game suspension for throwing a punch that escalated the December brawl between the Knicks and Nuggets at the Garden.

What makes sense is that the league should consider that Stoudemire and Diaw got up and took a few steps in the heat of the moment, then retreated once they realized the consequences of their actions. Neither player got involved in the altercation, nor did either player appear to have intentions to do so.

But I can hear Stern’s harsh explanation reverberating between my eardrums already: The posture or intentions of a player leaving the bench cannot be left up to interpretation. That is why the rule is as black-and-white as it is. Leave the bench during a fight, and you are suspended for the next game. Case closed.

Which means enjoy the Spurs-Jazz in the Western Conference Finals. And congratulate Horry for the biggest shot of his storied playoff career. No, it doesn’t seem right or fair. But that’s the rule.

The Sacramento Bee has nailed down one of the inevitable offseason developments to come: The Kings will make it a priority – perhaps their biggest priority – to trade Ron Artest this summer.
I’ve been advocating for months that the Knicks should be interested, for a couple of reasons.
First, despite all his baggage, Artest would give them a multidimensional small forward who can score, shoot the three, provide elite defense in the post and on the perimeter, and bring high levels of energy and effort.
The second reason will become obvious once Kings GM Geoff Petrie actually starts shopping Artest: So many teams, including the Knicks, will be afraid of Artest destroying their locker room chemistry that he’ll come cheap. In fact, he’ll come ridiculously cheap for a player of his caliber making the money he’s making: $7.8 million next season with an $8.45 million option in 2008-09.
That’s only slightly more than Dr. Phil money, and whatever team winds up with Artest will need to clear some cap space to add a psychologist to the payroll.
The reasons to be wary of Artest have been well documented, starting with the NBA-record 73-game suspension he earned for setting off the infamous Palace brawl between the Pacers and Pistons in 2004. When he loses his way, Artest can as lethal a nut case as there is in the NBA. That’s why it took the Pacers months to trade him in the brawl’s aftermath. Once they unloaded him to the Kings in January 2006, all they got back was Peja Stojakovic, who wound up signing as a free agent with the Hornets.
I’m told that the Knicks’ interest in Artest, of Queensbridge, is lukewarm at best, stemming from the fact that Isiah Thomas coached him in Indiana and understands first-hand what a headache he can be. As things stand now, Thomas doesn’t seem willing to mess up a young locker room with a force as polarizing as Artest.
But what if Thomas finds out that Artest could be had for a song – or, better yet, simply for the biggest head case on his roster, Nate Robinson? With Mike Bibby’s future in Sacramento uncertain, the Kings will need a point guard. Nate the Flake doesn’t fit Isiah’s style, but he might be able to resurrect his career with fewer constraints on a team out West.
Of course, Artest wouldn’t fill the Knicks’ most important need for a power forward who can defend. And with Kevin Garnett and Jermaine O’Neal both likely to be on the trading block, Thomas should focus first on finding out what it would take to get either one of them.
But as Mick Jagger once sang, you can’t always get what you want. It’s hard to argue that the Knicks wouldn’t be better with Artest joining Eddy Curry in the front court with the power forward position occupied jointly by David Lee and Channing Frye, depending on matchups. If the Warriors have awakened the league to anything this postseason, it’s the idea that you put your best five on the floor and play, instead of getting bogged down in who plays the 3, 4, or 5.
I’ll readily acknowledge one glaring problem with my idea: It would send Quentin Richardson to the bench, unless he moves to shooting guard, which would imperil Isiah’s plans to start Stephon Marbury and Mardy Collins in the backcourt.
My boy Alan Hahn can’t say enough good things about Richardson, and I agree with all of them. But if I were Isiah the president, and I could get Artest for next to nothing, I’d do it and let Isiah the coach figure out how to make it work. Plus, I wouldn’t be dissuaded from gambling on Artest just because of the impact it would have on Richardson. Artest is a gamble from the neck up, while health-wise, Q is a gamble from the neck down.
Artest wouldn’t fix the Knicks. But if Isiah could find a way to coach him, he’d certainly make them better. At these prices, he’d be worth a shot.

One of the most intriguing aspects of the NBA playoffs to this point is not who is left, but who is not.

You should pay especially close attention to this if you are a Knick fan – specifically, if you count yourself among Knick fans who think they can become a playoff team next season with the roster as it is currently constructed.

Isiah Thomas has built the Knicks around center Eddy Curry, who is developing into one of the few traditional post-up forces in the league at the drastically depleted center position. Yes, Curry needs to make dramatic improvements in his post defense and rebounding, but not many teams have that kind of offensive force in the paint.

But my alarm bells started going off as I looked around the league and saw what happened to the few true centers who made the playoffs. Shaquille O’Neal, Yao Ming, and Dwight Howard all lost in the first round. If you want to consider the Lakers’ Andrew Bynum in that group, his team didn’t make it out of the first round, either.

The teams that have enjoyed the most postseason success have a glorified power forward playing center: the Spurs (Tim Duncan), Suns (Amare Stoudemire), Pistons (Chris Webber), and Jazz (Mehmet Okur).

The small-ball Warriors barely have any power forwards, never mind a center. The Nets start 7-footer Jason Collins at center, but he’s strictly a defensive presence. The Bulls are getting eviscerated by the Pistons with a 6-9 center, Ben Wallace, whose impact is mostly at the defensive end – and often from the weak side.

In fact, the only team still alive in the postseason with a traditional center who plays more than a cameo role is Cleveland. But Zydrunas Ilgauskas is more of a face-up offensive player, and the Cavs’ offense runs through LeBron James, not Ilgauskas.

So what does this all mean? Is it a trend, and if so, are the Knicks chasing the wrong trend?

Whatever you think of Curry’s development – frankly, I’d find it hard to lodge an objective complaint – it’s worth wondering whether the Knicks have placed all their eggs in a basket whose time has passed.

As I’ve presented this theory to people around the league whose opinions I value, I’ve gotten mixed responses. Essentially, it’s both. First, the league is trending toward smaller, more athletic frontcourts – i.e. Golden State and Phoenix – and teams that want to play the traditional post-up way have been forced to adjust to that style.

But the second point favors the investment that the Knicks have made in Curry. Basically, you can’t feature what you don’t have. And other than the Heat, Rockets, and Magic, no one has a traditional center like Curry who can do the things he can do on the low block.

“There haven’t been a lot of big men floating around, so coaches had to adjust and start playing power forwards as centers because there weren’t a lot of Eddys and there weren’t a lot of Shaqs,” Thomas said during the season when I asked him about this. “But when you have an Eddy or you have a Shaq, it totally changes the game. When you can force people to start having to play the bigs inside, then basketball will change again. It will go through another evolution. The Currys and the Howards, the Bynums, those guys coming up, they’ll change some things in this league.”

What caused the shift?

“When the NBA and college put in the three-point line, that changed everything,” Thomas said. “I think the first evolution was the Garnett class and those guys. I remember when I was in Toronto, I saw the big guys, the Garnetts and the Rasheeds and all that, they started moving their game to the perimeter because it was easier to get a three out on the perimeter than it was the old fashioned way. So you lost a lot of footwork inside and you lost a lot of low-post movement.

“The Kareem sky-hook went out the window, the McHale low-post play,” he said. “That used to be the only way you could get three points. But then, I think it’s starting to come back. I think the bigs are starting to get better inside. We don’t play Curry at the three-point line at all, although he’s capable of making shots from 15-18 feet. … Right now, his game is on the block and we’re doing it the old fashioned way. Thus far, it’s paid off for us and for him.”

Thomas and Knick fans can only hope he’s right.

The 2007 playoffs already have been better than advertised on the court. On Wednesday night, they got even better because of Derek Fisher.

You remember Fisher, the glue that held the Shaq-and-Kobe Lakers together during their championship run. Now he plays for the Utah Jazz, up 2-0 against the Warriors in a series that went from merely interesting to downright inspiring with what Fisher did in Game 2 under the most difficult of circumstances.

Fisher’s absence from the Jazz had been unexplained publicly until Wednesday, when it was revealed that he was in New York dealing with a family emergency. Jazz coach Jerry Sloan left a spot on the active roster open for Fisher in case he could make it to Salt Lake City in time to suit up for Game 2, and he did.

Fisher arrived at the arena during the third quarter, put on his uniform and walked right into the game. He helped send it to overtime by hounding Baron Davis into a missed three-pointer, then helped seal the victory with a three-pointer of his own. It was Jazz 127, Warriors 117, but the Fisher family won by a landslide.

After the game, Fisher revealed that his 10-month-old daughter, Tatum, had undergone successful surgery that morning in New York to remove a rare tumor between her eye and her brain. The condition, known as retinoblastoma, claims the lives of 87 percent of the children stricken with it worldwide. (Henry Abbott of Truehoop links to the Retinoblastoma International web site from his blog.)

Here is what a teary-eyed Fisher told TNT sideline reporter Pam Oliver moments after the game:

It was very, very serious. My daughter’s life was in jeopardy. She has a form of eye cancer called retinoblastoma. And the only reason I’m saying this now is because there are kids out there that are suffering from this disease, and people can’t really identify it. It’s a very rare disease. And I want people out there to take their kids to the ophthalmologist, make sure they get their eyes checked and make sure everything’s OK, because we could have lost my little girl had we waited any longer.


Fisher is one of the good guys in the NBA and has been a humble, steadying force in every locker room he’s inhabited. If you are looking for someone to root for as the playoffs unfold, Fisher is reason enough to root for Utah, which is starting to look capable of giving either the Spurs or Suns everything they can handle in the Western Conference Finals once they dispatch with the Warriors.

Sometimes, sports gives us stories like Michael Vick’s alleged involvement in a dog-fighting ring or Stephen Jackson’s court date being postponed so he can hit a few more three-pointers.

And sometimes, we get Derek Fisher and a reason to hug our kids a little harder.

Just when we thought the NBA was a bastion of racial bias, the league has once again received a glowing report card from someone who actually knows a little something about diversity in the workplace.

Richard Lapchick, author of the “Race and Gender Report Card” for the various American sports leagues, has been studying hiring practices for minorities and women in sports for the better part of two decades.

When I first started out as a sports writer in the mid-1990s, Lapchick was at Northeastern University in Boston.
Now, he heads up the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida in Orlando.

His latest report on diversity in the NBA came out today. Contrary to what you might have read in the last week or so, the league once again was heralded as “the industry leader on issues related to race and gender hiring practices,” Lapchick wrote in the report.

The NBA earned its highest grade ever for minority hiring – A-plus. It received a B for gender hiring and a combined grade of A-minus, the highest ever given to a sports league in the 15 years of the study.

Lapchick, son of the late Knicks and St. John’s coach Joe Lapchick, knows what he’s doing. Sports leagues have been steadily increasing opportunities for minorities and women as a direct response to his research.

So like me, Lapchick was floored last week when The New York Times made a front-page story out of an academic study stating that white NBA referees call fouls at a greater rate against black players than against whites, and vice versa.

“If that’s true, that’s not by design,” Lapchick told me this afternoon in a phone interview. “It’s certainly not by design of the league, which has bent over backwards to create a racial climate that is second to none.”

The Wolfers-Price study has been widely ridiculed by NBA players and league officials, including Commissioner David Stern, who called it “a bum rap” – and rightly so.

Lapchick’s report on the NBA cited numerous incontrovertible facts, some of which will he addressed in tomorrow’s newspaper (well, at least in this one). For example, the NBA has the highest percentage of black coaches, general managers, and vice presidents; the highest percentage of league office employees of color; and the only black majority team owner in men’s pro sports (Robert Johnson of the Bobcats).

It also has the only six black CEO/presidents in the history of men’s pro sports, according to Lapchick. Among those are two black presidents of basketball operations – Isiah Thomas of the Knicks and his former backcourt mate, Joe Dumars of the Pistons.

Oh, by the way: 64 percent of NBA referees are white, 32 percent are black, and 3 percent are Latino. Lapchick doesn’t assign grades for game officials, but if he did, he said the NBA would get an A for that, too.

“They have the highest percentage of referees of color anywhere,” Lapchick said.

And regardless of color, they all miss a call now and then.

UPDATE: You can read Lapchick's NBA study at www.ncasports.org/images/2006_NBA_RGRC_PR.pdf.
and draw your own conclusions.

David Stern came loaded with vitriol Friday night at Game 6 of the Nets-Raptors game. The commish was apoplectic about the academic study released last week purporting that racial bias has affected NBA officiating.

But with the postseason off to a thrilling start – Golden State’s stunning victory over Dallas, plus four stellar matchups in the conference semifinals – Stern had a lot more on his mind.

One could argue that he doth protest too much about the flimsy officiating study first published in The New York Times Wednesday, and that he should be careful not to give the story more credence by defending his system of referee oversight so staunchly.

But Stern’s strongest comment on a topic other than race and refereeing came when he rolled out a laundry list of talent that is either in the league or on the way and predicted that the next golden age of NBA basketball will begin to evolve in the next two years.

“Here we have Duncan, Shaq, Kobe, Kevin Garnett, Allen Iverson – sure, future Hall of Famers in our league – Jason Kidd, probably Vince Carter,” Stern said. “At the same time, we’ve got LeBron and Dwyane and Chris Bosh and Carmelo, and then we have Dirk and Nash and Tony Parker and the great international players that we’re looking at on Utah, and Yao, Kirilenko – still going – and we have the best draft coming in a long period of time.

“With those four groups,” Stern said, “in the next two years we’re going to have the largest number of great players playing in the NBA in its history. That’s what we should be talking about, OK?”

Stern, of course, is given to hyperbole. But I happen to agree with him on this. A strong argument can be made that once the likes of Kevin Durant, Greg Oden, Roy Hibbert, Mike Conley, et al are added to those Stern mentioned, the talent in the NBA will never have been as strong in the post-Michael Jordan era as it will be in the next few years.

One problem is that the league is still struggling to wrest itself from the era of isolation offense, which dragged down the tempo of the games and overemphasized one-on-one play. But Stern said rules changes to allow zone defense and limit hand-checking on the perimeter has the quality of play “getting to a place where it will be as good as we’ve ever had.”

“I believe that the isolation game really caused us to stagnate,” he said. “Our rules allowed it, and we encouraged it. And we made changes to do away with that. And I think that, together with the idea that anything short of an attack wouldn’t be called as the guy made his way to the basket, was not a good thing for our game.

“The game just didn’t look very good, and it’s starting to look good,” he said. “And what the rules changes do is encourage teams to do these strange things – pass, run, and shoot.”

The way Phoenix and Golden State play prove Stern’s point. But there’s still a long way to go before a majority of teams catch on.