2006 NBA Draft Diary

This cannot wait. I'm feeling warm and fuzzy just thinking about it.

The unequivocal highlight of the first round of the '06 NBA Draft came shortly before the Utah Jazz took Ronnie Brewer at 14 (love that pick, by the way).

For those who missed it, Dan Patrick was wrapping up the panel discussion and throwing it back to the podium for NBA Commissioner David Stern's announcement of Utah's pick. Stern started out from behind the curtain - an area as mysterious to male sports fans as the women's bathroom - and then pulled back, causing an awkward delay. Patrick filled the dead air over the empty dais shot by joking that the commissioner was "playing peekaboo with us." A beat later, Stern ambles out to center stage, already at full smirk.

You KNEW it was coming. If you didn't, you haven't watched enough NBA Drafts.

"Dan," Stern said, "I was listening to your pithy comments."

"Ooooooooo," said the crowd.

Cut back to Patrick, chuckling nervously and looking down at his notes, as the camera hangs on him a second too long. This tortuous moment didn't surprise me in the least, knowing as I do that most television directors love to watch most talent squirm. Once Patrick had gathered his thoughts well enough to devise his own comeback - "I always liked Commissioner Tagliabue better" (not bad) - Stern was ready to lower the boom, punctuated by his patented withering glare.

"I was waiting for you to say something positive about one of our draft picks."

Fwoooosh. Air rushes out of Madison Square Garden. Stern, without skipping a beat, announces Brewer to Utah at 14.

Here's the part I love: Dan and all three of his analysts turn into absolute freaking church mice in discussing the Brewer pick. Even Screamin' A. Smith looked like a scolded schoolboy. Sure, they all got ramped up again when the Hornets took Cedric Simmons with the next pick, but for the three minutes prior, ESPN's crew was visibly shaken. A stunning power play on the part of the Commish.

Lesson: Don't screw with David Stern. Ever. He will find you, and he will kill you.

Nowthen. About the draft:

The first stunner came when the Charlotte Bobcats took Adam Morrison at number three. We shouldn't be stunned, considering what Morrison did at Gonzaga, but given the fact that Michael Jordan was pulling the strings for Charlotte, most NBA observers felt that the West Coast Larry Bird would end up somewhere else (like Portland, who desperately wanted him - more on that in a second). I think Charlotte made the right call. Morrison brings instant offense and a French Lick-style appeal that might win back the ACC-schooled basketball fans in North Carolina. Although Tyrus Thomas would have looked awfully good next to Okefor and May.

The Portland Trail Blazers (2006 motto: "Please Stop Hating Us!") were all over the draft board, swinging deals to land LaMarcus Aldridge, Brandon Roy, and Sergio Rodriguez (nickname: Spanish Chocolate. Really). All of this after a pre-draft trade that moved Sebastian Telfair and Theo Ratliff to Boston in exchange for Dan Dickau and Raef LaFrentz. The motivation is obvious. Everything about this team is acidic; an overhaul was in order. Aldridge and Roy are off-the-charts prospects, while Dickau and LaFrentz are pedestrian NBA players capable of occasional breakout games but (hopefully) incapable of getting themselves arrested. Morrison would have been the crowning achievement of the Blazers' PR offensive, but with that option removed, landing two college kids that everyone loves and two veterans who won't bother anybody is a smart play.

You have to give value to get value, however, and Portland gave value in giving up on Telfair. I wonder if a return to the East Coast will soothe the young point guard. I also wonder how long it will take the Bobcats to come up with their first "Wispy Mustache Night."

The first "whooooa!" moment of the draft came when Seattle used the 10th overall pick to draft a 20-year-kid from Senegal who last year averaged 3 points and 4 rebounds in 10 minutes per game for a pro team in Belgium. There's an old saying in the NBA: anytime you have a chance to spend a lottery pick on an underage Senegali who averages single digits in Belgium, you gotta pull that trigger.

There's nothing that I can say about the New York Knicks' draft that hasn't already been said by the greatest of men (stole that from Dave Revsine - thanks, Revver). My guess is that when Isiah Thomas signed off on Renaldo Balkman and Mardy Collins, he thought he was getting Rolando Blackman and Doug Collins. He also thought it was 1981.

How much better can the Chicago Bulls get? I mean, seriously? Tyrus Thomas and Thabo Sefolosha are the kind of picks that compel your fellow fantasy league owners to nod their heads and murmur, "dammit, that's a good pick." Those two join a roster that already includes draft-day larcenies Luol Deng, Kirk Hinrich, and Ben Gordon. Are the Bulls the only team in the league that watches videotape of college basketball games? One of the panelists on ESPN opined that we might be talking about Chicago as an NBA championship contender in the next three to five years. And he's not crazy.

Favorite "smart picks" in the latter half of the first round: UConn's Marcus Williams and Josh Boone together to the Nets, back to back, at 22 and 23, and Michigan State's Maurice Ager to Dallas at 28. There's a reason why certain teams show up in the playoffs every single year and others don't. Williams and Ager, in particular, are locks to play ten years in the league. Write it down, in ink.

Now the hard part. JJ Redick.

Look, I understand every plus: four-year player at a top-25 program, school's all-time leading scorer, demands the ball in tense situations. It's the resume' that Jameer Nelson has successfully padded in Orlando, and now Redick brings his copy.

Plus, we've heard of him. Don't think for a second that the Magic didn't have "public relations impact" somewhere on their list of criteria for the 11th pick. It may have been 47th on the list - behind "knows the Windsor knot" and just in front of "uses deodorant" - but it was there. Redick is the most recognizable college player that Orlando has drafted in the first round since Mike Miller six years ago, and that's not a bad thing.

My question is this: do the Magic figure to work Redick into the starting lineup, or will he be a Mariano Rivera-style closer, coming off the bench to bomb away? Because if they see him as a 35-minute-per-game guy, I'm a little concerned. At 6-5 (which means 6-3 and a half), who does Redick guard?

Just in his own division, he's got Dwyane Wade, Gilbert Arenas, and Joe Johnson. We haven't gotten to the Nets, Cavs, Pistons, or Bulls yet. There's a reason that Travis Diener, a second-round pick last year who brought a scaled-down version of the Nelson/Redick college cache', rarely saw the floor as a rookie: said floor has two ends. The best shooting in the world is irrelevant if your guy is matching you shot for shot.

That being said, yes, Redick can flat-out shoot it. The last Magic player with that sort of step-off-the-bus range was Dennis Scott, and as I recall, Orlando won a lot of games with 3-D in uniform (Dennis couldn't guard furniture, but what the heck). Orlando was one of the worst three-point shooting teams in the league last year. They need a guy like Redick.

They need him for his moxie as much as his shot. JJ relishes his role as America's Villain, and being hated has done wonders for many NBA players in the past (see Miller, Reggie). The Magic could use a little nasty in their game. Maybe Redick brings that. A little swagger wouldn't kill them.

But remember: if you cross him, David Stern will.

The Beautiful Game

I wasn't going to do this, but a note in Saturday's Orlando Sentinel proved too karmic.

Dave Darling, the Sentinel's media columnist, noted that his defense of ESPN World Cup play-by-play announcer Dave O'Brien has drawn nasty notes from soccer fans in Central Florida.

On that note: "Having announcers who do not know the proper names of the positions on the field and who mispronounce the players names is aggravating, frustrating and annoying to real soccer fans and that should be your market."

The above comes from an online petition that protests ESPN's choice of play-by-play announcers for the 2006 World Cup in Germany. As of this writing, the petition had nearly 4500 electronic signatures attached. There are two salient points here: first, the belief that "real soccer fans...should be your market," and second, the number 4500. We'll get to both of those in due time.

The petition is obviously aimed at O'Brien, the former Marlins announcer who has called Major League Baseball for 15 years and admittedly had never called a soccer game until six months ago, when he was named to ESPN's A-team at the World Cup. Soccer fans in the states have noticed; hence the petition, and Darling's busy in-box.

Like I said, I wasn't going to do this. I had grand plans to give you a minute-by-minute account of Sun Sports' coverage of the Miami Heat championship parade on Friday, which I co-hosted with Jason Jackson and John Crotty. Summary: it was hot. Jerry Greene noticed.

My attention is drawn away from my beloved basketball and into the maelstrom of futbol thanks to the two articles above, and thanks to Jamie Shapiro, the senior studio producer at Sun Sports who is enough of a soccer fan to have traveled to Germany to see the USA-Czech Republic match. When he got back, he forwarded me a blog entry regarding ESPN's coverage of the World Cup. As a mere curiosity, I forwarded the entry to several people I know, mostly soccer people, including one ESPN employee who is directly involved in said coverage. Not surprisingly, my ESPN friend was not amused - not after working 16-hour days for the last month, not after spending the previous three months of his life burying himself in World Cup research. This internet chatter on ESPN's soccer coverage represents the relatively small but unfailingly passionate futbol fan base in the US, the hardcores who are never satisfied with our treatment of The Beautiful Game, no matter what the network - although ESPN, like Microsoft, is always an easy target.

I traded e-mails with my ESPN contact on this subject, the contents of which will remain private. Also, Jamie and I talked about the Dodgy blog at length. I feel the need to explain a few things.

ESPN, and Sun Sports, and every other network in America spends millions of dollars on market research every year, begging the viewing audience for insight into their likes, dislikes, and desires when watching sports on television. The results of this research are constant:

1. Give us more stats and information.
2. Give us more profiles and "behind-the-scenes" access.

Since the idea is to draw viewers, which boosts ratings, which makes money, we - the TV networks - all program accordingly. In other words, we program to the wishes of the audience. I encounter many people in my daily routine who believe that television is capable of creating demand from thin air - we put it out there, you watch it. That's true perhaps ten percent of the time. Nine times out of ten, TV is reactive. We give you what you tell us you want. Exhibits A and B are "Gator Postgame" and "Seminole Postgame."

Should "real soccer fans" be the "target market" for the World Cup? If I were in charge of programming for ESPN, or Univision, or any other World Cup broadcast partner with an American audience, my logic would be as follows: no.

Real soccer fans are going to watch no matter what. The trick, as I have explained in this space before, is to draw in casual sports fans. Fact is, there are WAY more of those Middle Ground viewers floating around than there are "real soccer fans" - or real hockey fans, or real paintball fans, or real Ultimate Fighting fans, or any of the other sub-groups that pound the table to demand better coverage. Note the 4500 signatures on the petition.

4500 doesn't move the ratings needle. The Middle Ground does. There just aren't enough lifers out there. The casual fan base is a much, much bigger number, so to be fiscally responsible, a network must program for them, even if the hardcores consider it insulting. That's smart business. It's also the democratic principle of majority rule.

Here's my social commentary: soccer has immense appeal in European and Latin American nations because the game closely matches the social mores and attitudes of the audience. There's a flow and rhythm to soccer; it's not a game that can be defined by statistics. It's passion and emotion and hubris. In short, the game is appealing to the sensibilities of those who watch it.

We lost? A Gallic shrug. We won? Time to party. Soccer is a happening. This does nothing for most American sports fans.

Americans lead the world in tight sphincters. Witness our obsession with sunblock, Bird Flu, car seats, political correctness, no-smoking laws, etc. Unlike most soccer-mad nations in Europe and Latin America, we worry. It's what we do. Therefore, when we watch games, we want to have some sense of control over them. To that end, we like stats, and we like to think we know everything there is to know about the figures we're watching, because that empowers us and soothes us with a sense of competence. Major League Baseball, in my opinion, remains popular in this country - despite its inept central leadership - because it's the most stat-friendly game in the world.

In programming the World Cup with an American feel, ESPN is doing what the target demo demands, that target being the casual fan who may or may not tune in to a World Cup game. If enough "maybes" become viewers, the needle moves, and the Cup is profitable. So they gotta do what they gotta do, including having play-by-play guys explain the rules and refer to statistics that lifers (especially Euro/Latin audiences) find utterly meaningless and distracting. The World Cup is drawing tremendous ratings on cable, but ESPN is taking a beating from that hardcore audience.

Of course, it's a terribly trite cliche' to blast ESPN. For that matter, every time I read a post on GatorCountry.com or RenegadeReport.com killing Sun Sports for showing too much/not enough Gators/Seminoles, I have to remind myself of who's doing the talking, and the ratings that we get during college football season. We can't please everyone. I find that psychological aspect of what we do both frustrating and fascinating. For the football fans - and the futbol fans - who wish for something different from television networks, here's the only sure way to affect change: tell your friends to watch the kind of programming that you approve of. Tell LOTS of your friends.

TV networks react. They react to viewership above all else. The Chevy Florida Fishing Report went from one hour to 90 minutes after its second season because the demand was too loud to ignore. Our college football coverage has been expanded in each of the three seasons of Chevy Tailgate Saturday because the viewers responded. If you watch it, we will deliver it. That's the golden rule of TV.

Petitions don't work. Blasting a network's choice of announcers doesn't work. Boycotts don't work. Ratings work. You watch, we react. You just have to generate enough numbers to move the needle. That's the democratic process in action.

Like I said, the challenge lies in the fact that to date, there aren't enough "real soccer fans" out there to significantly move the ratings needle. Until that happens, networks that air soccer in the States will do so with an "American" feel, for the reasons outlined above. They're trying to win the Middle Ground. For those who find this distasteful, save your e-mails - you still might get what you want.

If, based on their Americanized introduction to the game, enough of the Middle Ground decides that soccer is worth adding to their viewing schedule, they might just turn into "real soccer fans." If that happens in large enough numbers, the networks will react accordingly. And come 2010, the "real soccer fans" will get the World Cup coverage they crave.

The game's the thing. Not the coverage, the game. If American audiences like it, they'll watch it. No matter who's doing the talking. In the meantime, don't kill the messenger.

Or, as Darling suggests, turn down the volume. After all - it's just TV.

The Best Father's Day

My six-year-old son has developed an interest in golf. As you may imagine, this pleases me greatly.

His curiosity was mined from the same patch of grass that spawned my obsession - the driving range at Winter Pines Golf Club in Winter Park. "The Pines" is one of the busiest munis in Orlando, and the driving range is rumored to be among the busiest in the country. My dad used to take me there after work, where I flailed away with a set of Jack Nicklaus Golden Bear blades until I caught one flush and got hooked for life. Now, a quarter-century later, I take my son and his graphite-shafted US Kids Golf set to the Pines, where he whacks striped Top-Flites until it's time for the perfunctory lemonade-and-pretzel break. It's important to have a good practice routine.

Every time we go to the range, I get one of two reactions from the weekend warriors on the tee line. The most common is a wistful stare and a shake of the head, followed by this comment: "I wish I had started when I was that young." Makes me think I'm doing something right. Also makes me silently thank my Dad for starting ME that young.

The second common reaction is a comment about my son's address - he's left-handed. When he started eating, drawing, and throwing things from the port side, his mother and I wrote it off as a stage of development, reasoning that with two parents and four grandparents all playing from the right, he couldn't possibly be a lefty. But he is. Somewhere back in the deep end of our gene pool, somebody was a southpaw, and the kid got it. He's legit. His handwriting is impeccable for a rising first-grader. No way am I attempting to change him over. For one thing, it means we can face each other on the range, which allows me to keep an eye on his wayward shots. That's how Phil Mickelson got started, you know. For another thing, he can pitch in the majors until he's 45. My Golden Bear irons remain in the attic, awaiting his little sister, who will probably choose field hockey.

Like most dads, I'm terribly cautious about forcing anything on my kids. The surest way to breed resentment is to create an obligation. When he wants to hit balls, we hit balls. When he wants to drink lemonade, we drink lemonade. When he wants to watch the airplanes drifting south over the Pines on the way to Orlando International, we discuss the colors on their tails. Of course I want him to like it. I pray for it. I just don't force it. He's six.

So last week, I took the family on vacation to Amelia Island Plantation, north of Jacksonville. We spent a week there last summer and loved it. Couldn't wait to get back. Beach for all, 72 holes of golf for Dad. One of the assistant pros there, a nice young man named Matt, watches Sun Sports. Treated me well last year. When my son asked if he could bring his clubs, I figured, what the heck. Maybe he'll come out to the range with me once or twice while his mom and his sister kick up their heels in the condo.

On the third or fourth day - after Alberto had passed, giving way to clear skies and cool temperatures - he did exactly that. Went through his routine of whacking 3-woods off the tee in between sips of lemonade, while I tried to straighten out a disturbing hook. I was fresh off Brady Ackerman's charity tournament in Ocala the week before, where I was lights-out during the Friday skins match (me, Peter Tom Willis, Shane Matthews, and Judd Davis - good grouping) but very average during the event itself on Saturday. While I tweaked my setup and grip pressure, I noticed my son paying close attention to me, and to the other golfers on the range.

You have to understand this kid. He's a deep thinker. There's none of the typical six-year-old hysteria about him. He was the peacemaker in kindergarten, the smart, quiet one that all the other kids wanted to be around. I'm not sure if a six-year-old can be "wise," but he comes pretty close. On this particular day, I could see him chewing on something in his mind. His mother and I are powerless to resist when he moves into one of these reflective moods. He sets world records for sweetness. At those moments, it's anything he wants. And I thought I knew what he was thinking.

So the next day, with permission from The Mom, I rolled the dice.

I told him we were going back to the driving range. He was excited, but I could tell there was something he wanted to say. When we pulled up to the parking lot at Amelia Links, I played my hand:

"So, do you want to get a golf cart and go play nine holes?"

You would have thought I just told him that every day from now until November was his birthday. Wide eyes. Bouncing in his seat. "You mean PLAY GOLF? On the golf course? By the ocean? Wow! That's EXACTLY what I wanted to do, but I thought you wanted to go to the range! Yeah, Daddy, can we play golf?"

At those moments, anything he wants. Anything.

And what he did, was play golf. What I mean is, the boy - the six-year-old lefthander - dead solid PLAYED nine holes of golf. Tee to green, chipping, putting, racing to the next tee. I couldn't hold him back. We've played nine holes at executive courses before, but this was his first legit round, with a golf cart and everything, and he was absolutely geeked. I think he shot 150 for those nine holes - we're not quite at the "keeping score" level yet - but he showed no signs of boredom or fatigue. He was enthralled. The child was playing golf, completely of his own free will. My job was to stay the hell out of the way and enjoy it. It was the finest two hours of the entire trip to that point, and among the top ten in my lifetime.

Until he trumped it in the parking lot with this little gem: "Daddy, before the vacation is over, can we play 18 holes?"

I had the tee time booked before he finished his sentence.

Two days later. The Oak Marsh course at Amelia Island Plantation, a short-but-tough sojourn through the marshes of the Amelia River and the ICW. Nobody but us on the course. Daddy playing from the tips, Lefty playing from the reds. The only allowance made for his first 18-hole round was a promise from Mom that Dad would get him a snack after nine holes. Dad dutifully obliged. Chocolate-chip muffin and lemonade.

At the turn, I gave him an out. He was looking a little peaked, despite the 80-proof sunscreen his mother had lathered all over his forehead. I told him I would take him back to the condo if he was tired, or just let him ride for the last nine holes while I played.

"Nope. I want to hit every shot. I've never played 18 holes before."

Let it be known that while the best players in the world were slogging through the third round of the 2006 United States Open at Winged Foot, a six-year-old lefty was playing every single shot over 18 holes at Oak Marsh on Amelia Island. Every single shot.

My dad taught me how to play at Winter Pines. Coincidentally, he recalls that I broke 80 in a round of golf for the first time at Amelia Island, playing the Long Point course at the age of about 14. He's wrong.

It was Alaqua Country Club in Longwood, and I was 16. I shot 76. Dad was there, along with one of our neighbors, who commented afterwards, "that was fun to watch." I'll never forget it. Though my dad's memory of my first sub-80 round is hazy, neither one of us knows or cares about the first time I beat him over 18 holes. That kind of thing doesn't resonate much in my family.

Someday, my son will kick my ass. I can't wait. I'll cherish it. But not as much as I cherish the vision of 18 holes in the dying afternoon light over north Florida. The little lefthander, Red Sox cap pulled down tight, swinging from his heels and chasing after it. Catching one flush and seeing it soar off the tee box. Draining a long putt and cheerfully tromping all over my line, followed by him reprimanding me for stepping in his "imaginary line," the one that I explained to him only moments earlier. Happier than pigs in slop, both of us. A round that will never end.

While Colin Montgomerie and Phil Mickelson - the "other" Lefty - are drowning their sorrows over missed opportunities at the Open this year, I hope they'll take a moment to at least thank their dads for introducing them to the game. I'd like to thank my dad for doing it. And I'd like to thank my son for reminding me that it is, in fact, a game.

Happy Father's Day, Dad. And happy father's day to me. The lefty wants to play.

Miami, This Is Your Time

Now THIS is an NBA Finals matchup that I can get into.

The Mavs against the Heat. Dallas versus Miami. Big D and the Magic City. Dirk Nowitzki and Josh Howard against Shaquille O'Neal and Dwyane Wade. Mark Cuban v. Pat Riley (preferably in a Steel Cage Death Match, TV time remaining). The Mavs Drumline throwing down with DJ Irie - loser has to sit in a dark room listening to John Tesh's complete catalog. Young, vibrant crowds, watching from comfortable seats in lavishly appointed arenas, raising the profile of their hometowns via national television while simultaneously infusing millions of dollars into their local economies through their patronage of ancillary businesses and events.

Sorry. That was for Mike Thomas.

The Mavs and Heat have cool uniforms. They play in great buildings in great cities. Even the dance teams are, umm, widely recognized. Somewhere in New York, NBA execs are exchanging high-fives, Lebron or no Lebron.

Okay, so it's not the Finals I predicted. It's not the Finals anybody predicted. No matter - the peeps are watching. TNT's ratings for the 2006 NBA playoffs are up 14 percent from last year; ESPN is up 22 percent. And, ahem, Sun Sports has done quite well with its exclusive pregame and postgame coverage of every Miami Heat playoff contest as well, thank you. The Tampa Bay Lightning won the Stanley Cup in 2004, and the Florida Gators won the NCAA men's basketball title this spring. One more champion among our television partners won't hurt us. Nope, not one bit.

The Heat become the second NBA team from Florida to reach the Finals, joining the 1995 Orlando Magic, whose starting center was one Shaquille Rashaun O'Neal, eleven years younger and probably thirty pounds lighter. Darrell Armstrong was a rookie on that '95 team. Played eight minutes in three games, scoring ten points. Eleven years later, with over 55,000 regular season minutes of NBA basketball between them - that's 38 days of continuous hoop - the players they called "Baby Boy" and "Big Fella" in '95 line up on opposite sidelines in the Finals.

Armstrong was not on Orlando's playoff roster in '95, so this is his first trip to the medal round. The same is true for every other Maverick, save one: Keith Van Horn, who, along with the rest of the New Jersey Nets, got swept in the '02 Finals by Shaq and the Lakers.

On the other bench, Gary Payton first reached the summit as a Sonic in 1996, only to get buzzsawed by Jordan, fresh off the baseball thing. Shandon Anderson feels his pain; MJ did him twice in Utah in '97 and '98. Payton took another lump in 2004 during his ill-fated cameo with the Lakers, losing the Finals to Detroit. In case you're scoring at home, that's zero rings in five chances for the three players in the 2006 Finals who have actually been here before.

The three players other than Shaq, that is. The Diesel brings three titles and one loss with the Lakers, plus one loss in Orlando, for a total of five previous Finals appearances.

Impressive, but not as impressive as his head coach. Pat Riley makes his staggering ninth appearance on the mountaintop as a head coach: four titles, all with the Lakers. He's also lost four times, three with L.A. and once with the Knicks. His Dallas counterpart, Avery Johnson, is batting 1.000 in Finals appearances as a player, having earned a ring with the Spurs in '99.

As they step into this brave new world, the Heat are obviously lucky to have the experience of Riley and O'Neal on their side. For that matter, those two men have more to do with Miami's presence in the '06 Finals than anyone. In the days to come, you're going to read a zillion articles about their legacies in the league; I have one request for both.

I hope that Riley and O'Neal will take the time to explain the magnitude of this opportunity to the Heat organization. The entire organization. I'm thinking full-staff meeting at the Triple-A. Ticket sales reps, broadcasters (like my man Eric Reid, who's waited nearly twenty years for this), community relations staff, interns, DJ Irie, everybody. They need to hear it.

Here's why: in 1995, when the Orlando Magic rolled to the NBA Finals against Hakeem Olajuwon and the Houston Rockets, I was finishing my first year as a full-time employee in the Magic's broadcast department. A young pup, like everybody else in that front office. Shaquille O'Neal was in his third year in the league; second-year guard Penny Hardaway was already one of the five best players in the NBA. The rest of the starting five - Horace Grant, Nick Anderson, Dennis Scott - were all in the prime of their careers, all under the age of 30. The Magic had closed the Boston Garden in the first round. They shut down the mighty Bulls in the second round, catching Jordan while he was shaking off his Birmingham Baron rust. They looked the Pacers in the eye in the Eastern Conference Finals - the mean, nasty Pacers of Reggie, Smits, McKey, Byron Scott, Mark Jackson, Haywoode Workman, Sam Mitchell, and the still-bouncy Davis Boys - and stared them down in seven games. Orlando was loopy. This was only the beginning. We thought it would never end.

Boom.

Missed free throws led to a Kenny Smith three, which led to an Olajuwon putback, which led to a sweep, which gave way to 60 wins the following season, which brought back an angry Jordan, which was followed by Shaq bolting to La-La Land (for less money), which placed the burden on Penny, who ended up in Phoenix, and the next thing we knew, it was "Heart and Hustle" and a conga line of bad draft picks and new head coaches. I'm glazing over ten years of NBA basketball, but that's how quick it felt. A snap of the fingers. Dwight Howard, Jameer Nelson, Darko Milicic, and 16 wins in 22 games may have lifted the franchise's momentum this spring, but it was a very long time coming.

We thought it would never end. That's the message that I'd be drilling into heads on Biscayne Boulevard right now. This must be your time, because it can vanish in a heartbeat.

Pat Riley knows this, of course, probably better than anyone. I'm sure he had at least a similar thought as he cradled the Larry O'Brien trophy for the fourth time in 1988 - "I'm just getting warmed up." That was eighteen years ago. If anyone can convey the message of desperation, it must be Riley.

My words of wisdom to the Heat players, and to Eric, and DJ Irie, and Mike B, and the Heat Dancers, and the interns, and the guys in the ticket office, and Boris Becker, and Jimmy Buffett, and every Miami fan who laid down his money for years in hopes of seeing this moment: savor it. Revel in it. Take pictures. Keep a diary. You earned it, so enjoy it. But don't waste it. Tomorrow, it could be gone, and in this league, there's absolutely no guarantee that you'll ever get it back.

Make this your time. The only thing that never ends is the glow of a championship.

The Day It All Started

Every mention of Barry Bonds in the national media - and Lord knows, that's every fifteen minutes - reminds me of my very small role in the unfolding steroid scandal in Major League Baseball. I've alluded to it in this space before, but after watching Bonds get the full Roy Firestone treatment in his interview with Jim Gray this week, I figure now's a good time for the story.

August, 1998. I was about eighteen months into my gig in Bristol, working primarily as an anchor for ESPNews. 24-hour news networks, like Fox News, CNN, or ESPNews, are predicated on filling all those hours with new information, a challenge vastly different from a "scheduled" news program like, say, "Sports Talk Live." File that away for a moment.

On this particular day - August 21, 1998, a Friday - I was assigned to the afternoon shift, co-anchoring a three-hour block from 4pm to 7pm. All of us in the newsroom, like all baseball fans in America, were captivated by the Great Home Run Chase: Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa. McGwire was at 51, Sosa hot on his heels. It was the biggest story of the summer. Further, it was great TV. Sports networks covered The Chase the way CNN covers an election. Loads of content, updated hourly.

That afternoon, as we were writing our scripts for what was usually a pretty boring shift, a story crossed the Associated Press wire, written by one Steve Wilstein. The slug read as follows: "Drug OK In Baseball, Not Olympics." You know the deal. Wilstein, an AP reporter, had seen a bottle of something called androstenedione in Mark McGwire's locker, done some homework on it, and concluded that this was newsworthy. Which it was - to a point.

Pretend, for a moment, that it's 1998. Jose Canseco, Congressional hearings, Rafael Palmeiro's finger, Barry Bonds - none of that has happened yet. Try to imagine. The reality of that August day eight years ago was this: an AP writer wrote a story about Mark McGwire using a supplement, one that was not only legal in baseball, but available at your local health food store. Yes, it was already banned by the NCAA, the NFL, and the Olympics - but given that the NCAA and the Olympics were already burning athletes for using allergy medication, that comparison was sketchy at best. Andro's connection to anabolic steroids was still unexplored. Based on what we knew at that moment, McGwire was taking the equivalent of a protein shake. That was the reality of 1998.

Now - what would you do with that story?

Here's what the coordinating producer in charge of my shift did: he announced that we were dumping our entire rundown and leading our show with the McGwire story. He was adamant.

I was adamant, too - adamantly against it. To repeat: at the time, andro was not a banned substance in baseball. It was perfectly legal outside of pro sports. I wasn't at all surprised or bothered by the fact that McGwire took something to help repair muscle tissue. My CP, on the other hand, wanted to spend the first hour of our show "breaking" the story that Mark McGwire was taking something that anybody could buy at the mall. A brief discussion ensued - one might call it an "argument" - and as one might expect, the anchor lost. We re-wrote the show. As far as I could tell, my co-anchor and I were the first in the national broadcast media to cite the AP story. On Friday, August 21, 1998, we were unwittingly at Ground Zero, right next to Steve Wilstein.

Kaboom.

Everyone remembers the fallout. The Cardinals threw a fit over the Wilstein story. Tony LaRussa called it "an invasion of privacy." McGwire held an impromptu press conference at his locker a day or so later, claiming that everybody he knew in baseball used the stuff, or something similar to it. Within weeks, the andro story simmered, pushed off the front page by the storybook battle between McGwire and Sosa, while Wilstein was vilified by many of his own peers. By the time Big Mac was hugging his son after number 62, with a grinning Sosa applauding from the outfield, baseball had successfully buried andro.

Years later, we get Canseco's book, and the hearings, and the wagging finger, and Barry Bonds. And here we are.

It's easy to argue that we were ahead of the curve by harping on McGwire's use of andro, but that conclusion can only be drawn with the benefit of eight years of hindsight. Truth is, it was dumb luck, the equivalent of Peter Vescey throwing ten NBA trade rumors against the wall in a column and crowing about the three that stick. At the time, given what anybody knew, the news value of "McGwire uses andro" was highly debatable.

The better story, then and now, is baseball's stubborn insistence on burying its head in the sand when it comes to performance-enhancing substances. In 1998, the home run chase between two of the most popular players in the game drove attendance through the roof, sent TV ratings skyrocketing, and erased the memory of the humilating cancellation of the World Series only four years earlier. Baseball was enjoying a renaissance, one punctuated by dollar signs. Nobody wanted to rock the boat. It took a scathing memoir from a previously unreliable source - Canseco - and the tragicomedy of Congressional hearings to finally force baseball to draw the curtain. That's embarassing.

I still can't figure out why Major League Baseball's front office gets a hall pass relative to the treatment that Bonds and McGwire currently endure. The players weren't doing anything wrong - not by baseball's rulebook at the time. Rafael Palmeiro is now a pariah, but Bud Selig has a new contract. And as an aside, the economic gap between haves and have-nots in baseball has never been wider. I don't get it.

Anyway, I was there, in the delivery room, the day the andro story was born. Interesting day.