Draft or No Draft, the NBA Goes On

Every article about the Clippers should include a standard paragraph: “Given the choice of paying a good player millions of dollars or keeping it in his pocket, Donald Sterling will keep it. Rather than pay a coach lots of money, or keeping it for himself, same result.”

Sterling has proven it pays to be a loser. He has ridden the coattails of the Lakers’ success into an arena that would’ve never been built for his team alone. He rides the success of the NBA to greater capitalization of his business. For these benefits, he has contributed nothing to the sport and has paid minimum wages for the privilege of ownership.

Perhaps the result of the Sterling experience will be the end of individual ownership and/or the creation of structures that allow financial reward only for competitive success. Until then, the undaunted Mr. Sterling epitomizes sports’ greatest evil: individual accomplishment at the expense of team success.

Rick Wallace

Malibu

While Mark Heisler continues to pontificate about the less-than-boffo NBA Finals ratings and how the traditional East-West matchup ought to be shelved in favor of something more compelling to viewers, may I, as a prospective viewer, offer why I barely watched the recently completed finals? No fights.

Call me a brute, but I get a little misty-eyed thinking about Tree Rollins biting Danny Ainge’s finger, McHale’s takedown of Rambis, Worthy’s retaliation against McHale, Ralph Sampson vs. the Celtics and his expletive into Pat O’Brien’s microphone after getting ejected, Bill Laimbeer and the Bad Boys, Dennis Rodman and his iridescent hair, etc.

Even if your team wasn’t in it, you knew a fracas was bound to erupt sooner or later because of the intensity of play and the high stakes. It made for great theater. Now David Stern has thrown down the gauntlet so hard against fighting, a player won’t so much as clench a fist for fear of being suspended a game or two (never mind ejected). Hence, with no exciting players to watch (sorry, Tim Duncan) and scores in the 70s and 80s, we needed something. But we also knew we would never see Kenyon Martin cold-cock David Robinson, or Steve Kerr lay into Aaron Williams, so we turned to reruns of “Friends” instead.

Ratings malaise? David Stern doesn’t need to create a new playoff seeding format. That’s giving us fans too much credit. Just ease up on sanctions levied against players who fight and, dog matchup or otherwise, the ratings should perk up again.

Kevin Reading

Irvine

I must protest the poor taste of Phil Jackson’s advertising choices. A current American Express ad campaign features NBA coaches, with Don Nelson embracing the international appeal of the game and promoting the study of foreign languages and Bill Cartwright teaching his young players how to be adults on and off the court.

Coach Phil is seen purchasing lottery tickets with his American Express card in a convenience store. What is the supposed Zen master doing promoting gambling? While his players clearly need to work on their off-season conditioning programs, it seems to me that Coach Phil needs to work on his decision-making skills.

David Hatcher

Glendale

I still say that Jim Harrick is better suited for the pros than college and that he would be the perfect coach for the Clippers. Here are six reasons:

1. He loves L.A.

2. He has been successful everywhere he has been.

3. He would be reunited with Lamar Odom.

4. The NBA has no pesky recruiting or eligibility issues.

5. The NBA has no nepotism clauses; he could hire his son.

6. Compared to Peter Dalis and the NCAA, Donald Sterling and Elgin Baylor are cream puffs.

David Macaray

Rowland Heights