Only NBA’s Fittest Will Survive

The NBA season begins tonight without Shaquille O’Neal, Scottie Pippen, John Stockton and Alonzo Mourning.

All the more reason to watch.

With such key players out because of injuries to start the season, this could be the first time an NBA championship is decided in November.

For years, baseball worshipers have said the NBA’s regular season meant nothing compared to the purity of the 162-game baseball season. Now that a wild card beat the team with the ninth-best record for the world championship, maybe they’ll keep quiet.

The NBA regular season matters because it determines home court for the playoffs. And home court means everything in June.

Home court advantage got the Utah Jazz to the NBA Finals and the Miami Heat to the Eastern Conference finals for the first time last season. Now a couple of knee injuries mean the Jazz and Heat won’t have Mourning and Stockton for the first few weeks of the season. Even the mighty Chicago Bulls will be vulnerable while Pippen nurses his bad foot the next two months.

So the top spot in each conference is up for grabs, with plenty of worthy competitors ready to take advantage of their wounded rivals.

The Lakers could win the West--maybe even win it all--if Shaq’s abdominal muscle heals quickly and their brains start functioning.

In New York, the Knicks think this could finally be their year. One thing’s for sure: it won’t be next year or any time after that. They’ve traded away all the youth on a roster where 26-year-old Allan Houston now qualifies as the baby.

The San Antonio Spurs could go from the lottery to the finals thanks to the return of David Robinson and the addition of the league’s best rookie, Tim Duncan.

And by the time the playoffs roll around, Pippen, Stockton and Mourning should all be back, making the action that much better.

Even the coaches are interesting, from the return of Rick Pitino and Chuck Daly to the debut of Larry Bird.

It all adds up to make this the most exciting NBA season since Larry Bird retired and Magic Johnson first said farewell in 1991. It’s also the first time since 1991 that Michael Jordan has been in training camp without a sure shot at a championship.

With Pippen out, Jordan will have to play more minutes and score more points if the Bulls want a shot at the league’s best record. If they don’t get it, their run of championships will halt at five. In their younger years, it didn’t matter where they played; the Bulls won eight of their first nine finals road games from 1991-1993. But in the last two years they’ve lost four of six finals games on the road.

And how will they stay focused knowing that this is Jackson’s last year, Jordan has said it’s his last year, it’s Dennis Rodman’s last chance to attract attention and Jerry Reinsdorf and Jerry Krause can’t wait to start this team from scratch? The Bulls always thrived on turmoil, but this is ridiculous.

The league isn’t filled with pushovers anymore, as it was when they made their run to 72 victories in 1995-96. There are 10 legitimate contenders for the eight playoff spots in the Eastern Conference: The Bulls, Knicks, Heat, Hawks, Hornets, Magic, Pacers, Pistons, Wizards and Bucks.

And the number of bad teams in the West is dwindling as well, although the Grizzlies and Warriors are still around.

The Phoenix Suns went from laughingstock to a scary team in the course of last season and only got better over the summer by trading for Antonio McDyess.

For a team that seemed to be in a no-win situation, the Seattle SuperSonics came out pretty good by trading the unhappy Shawn Kemp for the underrated Vin Baker.

(Nice move by Kemp. He goes from a championship contender to a team that will have to fight just for a shot at the playoffs. He goes from one of the best cities in America to one of the worst. But he got his money. Hope he’s happy.)

And while we’re in the Pacific Northwest, don’t sleep on the Portland Trail Blazers.

If Charles Barkley decides he wants to act more like his 1993 MVP self and less like Mr. T in those early ‘80s dwarf-tossing contests--that is if he decides to play at all--the Rockets might be heard from come playoff time as well.

Barkley’s incident in an Orlando bar this week capped an NBA off-season that found players speeding, mouthing off to cops, speeding and mouthing off to cops, driving while intoxicated and driving with marijuana in their cars.

Now that the season is here, hopefully we can concentrate on ball.

And hopefully we finally put an end to all of this Knick whining about how David Stern’s suspensions cost them the NBA title last season? They blew it themselves when they couldn’t finish off the Heat in Game 5 of the conference finals. They had a 3-1 lead in the series and Miami came out unable to hit a shot, yet the Knicks still got waxed. If they hadn’t been losing so badly, their starters would have been in the game and never have been in position to leave the bench during that scuffle on the baseline in the first place. Besides, they weren’t going to beat the Bulls anyway.

If you think this summer was filled with trouble and complaining, wait till next year, when, in a worst-case scenario, the NBA stages a lockout and Jordan announces his retirement.

So try to enjoy what should be a thoroughly enjoyable season and try not to think about what lies ahead: a life without NBA games. Or, even worse, NBA games without Michael Jordan.