Rivalries Can’t Be Manufactured, They Just Happen

Posted by Jeff Sack under Main

Do you remember when Carmelo Anthony and LeBron James came into the NBA in the 2003-2004 season? NBA Marketing gurus tried to promote a rivalry calling them the next “Bird &?Magic.” Had things gone according to Hoyle and Anthony was drafted by the Detroit Pistons, their plans may have worked. However Pistons coach Larry Brown, and or Pistons President Joe Dumars decided to go with Eastern European forward?Darko Milicic. Carmelo ended?up going to the Denver Nuggets with the third pick, meaning he and James would only face each other twice in the regular season. That still did not deter the NBA’s Marketing Team.

You really can not comprehend the “Culture Shock” that the band of 5-7 regular members of the media including myself who had previously covered the Cavaliers were in for the season of 2003-2004. As I just wrote there were a core group of 5-7 reporters who showed up for 41 home games.?Four Newspaper?reporters, another?radio reporter and myself, and the occasional TV producer, or camera man. Unless it was a big named opponent coming to town the Lakers with Shaq and Kobe, the Wizards with Michael, that was it. Now on those nights you could get 30-40 members of the media but for a 15-67 team those nights were few and far between. We called those members of the media “New Year’s Eve Drunks” comparing them to a tee-totaler who only drinks?on holidays.

The next season was different from the jump! Media Day used to total about 20 of us including videographers and newspaper camera people. That day the media contingent was in the three figures! Every National outlet was there ESPN, Fox Sports, USA Today, Sports Illustrated, the New York Times, I could go on and on. My picture was on the front page of the USA Today Sports section as I stood next to LBJ wedged in like a sardine holding onto my microphone for dear life. Cleveland’s General Manager at the time Jim Paxson gave me a very candid answer to a question I asked him that day. My question was what was different about this season. He responded “People are here! I mean you used to show up and a couple of others but look at this place!” He was beaming from ear to ear, we knew we weren’t in Kansas any more.

That whole season was like a Ringling Bros. show, people who hadn’t even realized that the Cavaliers still played in town showed up at the then “Gund Arena.” People used to think that the Gund was just a storage facility for Jacobs Field where the Indians played next block down. But they soon discovered they did not keep bats and balls in there, there was a budding superstar named LeBron James who was making himself known even if the team was still mediocre at best.

As insane as the season was, the night that took the proverbial cake was the night the Denver Nuggets came to town. The first match-up of James VS. Anthony in Cleveland. I have never covered an event outside of an All-Star Game, or a Playoff game that had this kind of coverage! The League kept hyping up the “rivalry” and media outlets from all over the planet showed up. The pre-game interviews which are usually held in the locker room, or a hallway, were held in a specially prepared conference facility. Needless to say the game was lackluster, Anthony scored more points than James but it was incredibly anti-climactic. By the time LeBron went to Denver the following season?the hype was rapidly cooling down, the NBA finally got the message. This was not going to work, no matter how hard they tried. James would experience natural rivalries, D-Wade, Gilbert Arenas. I would assume if Carmelo has rivals they would be players like McGrady, Maggette, and Lamar Odom, players you play against a few times a year not just?twice.

Larry Joe Bird versus Earvin “Magic” Johnson was the “Perfect Storm”! They ended their college careers playing each other in the NCAA Championship game which Johnson won. They ended going to two teams that had been rivals since the days of Wilt versus Russell. And the two teams ended up as the two dominant teams in the NBA in the 1980’s. They played each other in the finals in 1984(Boston won) 1985(L.A. won) and 1987?(L.A. won again.) Boston beat Houston in the Finals in 1986. The rivalry and eventual friendship developed naturally, and that is why it worked, and saved the NBA in the process.

Now according to the Orlando Sentinel on Tuesday, the NBA is once again tyring to manufacture an artificial rivalry. The first installment of this bogus rivalry will take place this Friday night as the Milwaukee Bucks travel to Houston to take on the Rockets. If you have not figured it out by now we are talking Yao versus Yi! Houston All-Star center Yao Ming versus Milwaukee’s rookie forward Yi Jianlian. If there was ever a rivalry that made absolutely no sense this would be it. But according to the Sentinel the circus will be in town Friday night in Houston as three National Chinese TV networks will be in Houston to cover the game. Ten to fifteen other reporters will also be on hand, and the NBA is throwing a viewing party in Beijing!

I can understand the People’s Republic of China caught up in all this hype. After all these are two of their countries most prominent athletes?playing in what is recognized as the premier Basketball League on the planet! But for the NBA to once again try to foist a manufactured rivalry on the fans is just insipid! Again these two players will meet twice a year in the regular season, and Milwaukee at least is eons from making the NBA Finals which would be the only time these two men would meet in the Post Season. And they are two totally different types of players at two totally different positions, in two totally different stages of their careers. Yao is a proven All-Star, Yi has proven nothing.

I hope that the entire country of China gets great joy from watching this game Friday night. But for fans of the NBA this game will not be anything else but just one of eighty two.

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