David Stern shoots . . . he misses!

So I'm scrolling through the headlines at ESPN.com (no, I'm not going to hyperlink it - I'm still mad at them about Insider) and I come across an article about the players' union filing a lawsuit against the league over the current wave of technical fouls and the much maligned new ball.

Well, I say to myself, this is interesting. I just saw Mavericks' owner Mark Cuban on PTI earlier tonight talking about his (disfunctional) relationship with Commissioner David Stern and he made no mention of this lawsuit. So technically, since the suit is against the NBA itself, Cuban would know if his players were suing him.

So, I'm not really sure how I feel about this whole players suing the league thing. As a baseball fan, I'm use to the players' union almost always getting its way. This whole "strong commissioner" thing isn't really something you see in baseball nowaday. Cough, steroids, cough, Bonds, cough, Palmeiro, cough, BALCO, cough, the All-Star game a few years ago, cough, contraction, cough, why the hell haven't the Yankees won a World Series in the past six years? I do have to commend Stern for trying to take control of his league here. The NBA has over the past years gained the image of being the league of rappers, of gangstas, and of general disarray. I don't think this is the fairest of generalizations but it works. Yeah, an NFL player can get suspended for steroid use but no one cares. I understand that each league is held to its own standard.

I really don't want to address the whole technical fouls thing right now, so let's tackle this ball issue. And what an issue it is.

Already, top names like Shaq and LeBron have spoken out against the new ball. It doesn't bounce right, it holds moisture, it doesn't shoot right, etc., etc., etc. C'mon, Sterny, a new ball? Was that really necessary? This would be like baseball switching to aluminum bats all of a sudden. Yeah, the college kids use them but no one really cares. It's one thing to market a new fad basketball to the kids but to force it upon seasoned veterans who grew up using the old ball? Seriously, not smart.

So now the NBA has a near-insurrection on its hands. League hates the way the players act. Players hate the way the league acts. Mark Cuban hates the way David Stern acts. This really isn't the Brady Bunch of sports leagues anymore.

To concede defeat and admit that the new ball was a horrible experiment would be a severe blow to Stern. But maybe he's finally crossed the breaking point on this one. You can create dress codes and tell kids they have to play an arbitrary year of college hoops but you can't change the one constant of the whole game. Firetruck, David Stern, firetruck.

Insider Scam

Okay - ESPN has once again managed to tick me off.

How you may ask?

Let me introduce you to the ESPN.com Insider.

ESPN.com has this club that gives members access to more articles and more features. The catch though, is that you have to pay to join this club. Not just register, not just give your e-mail address but pay.

$39.95.

Why should I have to pay 40 bucks in order to read articles that are going to be free in a couple of days? That's absolutely ridiculous.

SI.com has a similar feature to this in it's EXTRA program. The nice thing about SI's though, is that it's free if you're a subscriber to the magazine. It's also technically free if you borrow a magazine from a friend and enter their subscription number. But SI.com's EXTRA info doesn't take up basically half of their site. Most of SI's stuff is available for free - like it should be.

ESPN.com, on the other hand, has almost every interesting feature or rumor locked down under the INSIDER program. In the past, there would be a little "in" next to articles that INSIDERs only could access but they've stopped making that a consistent feature. It seems that now almost anything on the front page of ESPN.com is unavailable to the viewing public.

Personally, I have never heard of anyone who has forked over the 40 to gain INSIDER access. I have though, heard many complaints about this program.

So c'mon, ESPN - stop alienating your faithful following and let us in. We'd really like to read what you have out there.

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