Since the beginning of the regular season, it's been a fairly strict rule of mine that whenever I'm in the car, I'm listening to sports radio. I consider it a form of incidental research. And while wading through all that hot air, loopy logic, and masculine banter can prove pretty damn tedious at times, it does keep me cued in to what other people are thinking and saying about the Sonics, and the NBA in general. Despite the monotony and cretinous humor of local call-in shows, themes do arise; folksy opinions and philosophies emerge. That's what I'm interested in.In recent years, and especially of late, the most consistent and consistently aggravated refrain on the open-lines programs has gone something like this: "The NBA just ain't what it used to be! It's all ego and endorsements now. It's all about money. Teamwork has gone down the tubes, along with the most fundamental skills of the game. Players are spoiled, lippy, and too rich. At worst, they're a 'bunch of hoods.' There's no real excitement in the game anymore, nothing to sink your teeth into. And there's never going to be another player like Michael Jordan. That guy had class!"

There are certain aspects of this jeremiad that I immediately grant. Yes, the extravagance of the NBA is obscene, as it is with all professional sports. To be a basketball fan these days, one must get past a huge wall of distortion just to find the game itself. It's sad. I find it particularly disgusting that real fans (i.e., people who go to games because they actually love basketball, and not because they snagged comp tickets from Microsoft) have been priced right out of attendance. You want to see some serious class and racial division? Go to a Sonics game at KeyArena, where seats run from $9 to well over $100. And, yes, players' salaries are outrageous--though it's curious that you don't hear a corresponding critique of, say, pop or movie stars. But, hey, that's entertainment. Or, more specifically, that's entertainment meets capitalism. Surely no one here is deluded as to the sort of hell that capitalism wrecks on popular culture (and teamwork, for that matter). Same old story.

What's new about this, though, is the idea that the NBA is currently suffering from some kind of collective image crisis. On one level, there's all this rose-tinted nostalgia for Michael Jordan, which I find ridiculous. I was delighted when Jordan retired (for good). Yes, he was a great player. Beautiful to watch. He also fit snugly into the American ideal of the Jesus Christ Superman--singular, unbeatable, immortal. The cultish level of hero-worship that surrounded Jordan was, frankly, a terrible development for the NBA. His name became synonymous with the league. And, let's face it, the guy ultimately proved to be a selfish, petulant jerk. By the time he came out of retirement in 1995, he'd begun to worship his own image.

Sometimes I get the sense that the people who complain about how uninteresting the post-Jordan NBA has become don't even like the actual game all that much. They seem to prefer idolatry to the thrill of decent competition. I happen to think the league is fantastically exciting this year. There are many great players, and the title is up for grabs. The prospect of a Sacramento-Milwaukee championship series--which has television sponsors shaking in their boots due to its lack of "superstar appeal"--is invigorating. Those are two good teams.

And the claim that today's cagers are just a bunch of "hoods" seems to contain no small amount of white panic over this transitional moment in the league's evolution, as the first generation of players raised on hiphop comes to prominence. I say deal with it.

rick@thestranger.com