The 55th NBA season tips off tonight with 13 games, and
the N.Y. TIMES' Mike Wise wrote, "You shouldn't hate this
game. But you should be worried about it." Wise pointed
out to NBA Commissioner David Stern, "The public doesn't
embrace your players as they once did, for reasons that
begin before they come into the N.B.A. People don't talk
about your league as passionately anymore. All the slick
packaging cannot obscure that" (N.Y. TIMES, 10/30). USA
TODAY's Roscoe Nance writes under the header, "NBA Starts
Amid Troubles It Didn't Court." Nance writes that Stern "is
confident that the league's off-court troubles will fade
into the shadows" (USA TODAY, 10/31). Stern: "There is
guarded optimism that this could be the year when we stanch
the almost necessary decline and begin what we think will be
our continued ascent, in a somewhat different way."
FoxSports.com's Mike Monroe wrote that one reason for
Stern's "optimism" is the "competitive balance" in the
league that Stern "hints is lacking in some of the other
major league sports" (FoxSports.com, 10/27). CBS
SportsLine's Mike Kahn: "Where is the game today as opposed
to 10 years ago when it closed in on its pinnacle? Not even
close" (CBS SportsLine, 10/28). Stern added, "There's very
much a re-energized sense here that we, not that we were but
just in case we were, taking fans for granted. It can no
longer be that" (WASHINGTON TIMES, 10/30). ESPN's Bob Ryan,
on low-scoring preseason games: "It's horrible, stultifying,
excruciating, painful and boring basketball" ("The Sports
reporters," ESPN, 10/29). In Phoenix, Norm Frauenheim
writes that between now and the playoffs, "something
significant has to happen in a league that can't find
another Michael Jordan" (ARIZONA REPUBLIC, 10/31).
COURTING A NEW BEGINNING: BLOOMBERG NEWS' Scott
Soshnick writes that the NBA season begins tonight "amid a
backdrop of Halloween-worthy ugliness, brought on by off-
color music lyrics" by 76ers G Allen Iverson and the "under-
the-table contract" of T'Wolves F Joe Smith (BLOOMBERG NEWS,
10/31). SALON.com's Allen Barra writes that the "real
problem" for the NBA is that now that it has "become huge
through the devil's bargain with national TV, it is living
and dying with the fluctuations in national TV." Barra:
"What the NBA needs is to stop looking for another Michael
Jordan and concentrate on the game" (SALON.com, 10/31).
OPPOSITE ENDS OF THE SPECTRUM: NEWSWEEK's Samuels &
Starr profile Iverson and write that his lifestyle and
attitude "threaten his reputation and his continued success
in the NBA." Samuels & Starr add that the league "can't
afford to alienate its largely white, middle-aged ticket-
buyers in a slumping post-Jordan era" (NEWSWEEK, 11/6). In
Phoenix, Norm Frauenheim writes that Suns G Jason Kidd has
"emerged as one of the players who can pick up a fallen
mantle." Frauenheim adds that in Kidd, Magic G Grant Hill,
Spurs C Tim Duncan and a "handful of others, the league sees
a chance to restore some of the grace that has been worn
away by Allen Iverson's anger" (AZ REPUBLIC, 10/31).
