City Game Branded By Texas

This article appeared in today's NY Times, and it was too good not to post here. Enjoy...RMT

City Game Is Branded by Texas
By HARVEY ARATON


EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J.

AMERICA is tuning out the N.B.A. finals in such historically retro numbers that next season's marketing slogan, barring an upset by the Nets, will have to be changed from Love It Live to Don't Mess With Texas.

This is not funny. This is cultural revolution we are talking about. The celebrated City Game traditionally sustained East to West, or vice versa, is being fitted for cowboy boots and wide belt buckles and is being fed a steady diet of Tex-Mex barbecue.

The Spurs are two victories away from winning the championship. The Dallas Mavericks might have beaten them had Dirk Nowitzki not been injured in the Western Conference finals. And now Jeff Van Gundy, the former Knicks coach and rumpled New Yorker, is headed to Houston to preside over the Yao Ming Dynasty.

And just for the record, the University of Texas had its men's and women's basketball teams in the Final Four in April.

What's next, an El Paso playground with luxury boxes wooing the Rucker tournament from Harlem?

"In San Antonio, basketball has always been the thing, outside of high school football," R. C. Buford, the Spurs' general manager, said yesterday at Continental Arena, where the Nets and the Spurs prepared for tonight's Game 4.

"But in Dallas, it's really become fashionable, and Houston, with Yao, is on the rise again.

"Texas will always be a football state, but basketball is growing, and I think we're starting to see that at the high school level, especially with better coaching."

I asked Buford if the home territory of George W. Bush is poised to become the center of the basketball universe.

"I'll let someone else say that," he said. "Indiana and Kansas will get mad at me."

What about New York? The nowhere Knicks will be receiving a lousy second-round draft pick from the Rockets as compensation for the services of Van Gundy.

What about New Jersey? Win or lose, the Nets will soon be sweating dollars, fearing an offer from the Spurs that Jason Kidd might accept.

If I didn't know David Stern to be the New York liberal he is, I would be wondering about what is going on between him and the Bush administration. Texas, home of Friday Night Lights, of football as religion, is now a land of opportunity paradigm, the new basketball melting pot.

A 21-year-old French point guard, Tony Parker, has powered the Spurs to a two-games-to-one lead in the finals; the German Nowitzki has become one of the league's most productive scorers; and the 7-foot-6 Yao has, in one season, gone from Chinese curiosity to the recent beneficiary of a seven-figure deal for his autobiographical rights.

Darn tootin', Texas is suddenly where Madison Avenue is looking for a little of that old N.B.A. marketing magic.

Turn on the television these days and there is Don Nelson yakking with Nowitzki in German while conducting a Mavericks practice.

Yo, there's Yao playing the very tall straight man in a variety of clever spots. Can the ultratalented Tim Duncan, raised in the Virgin Islands, and the baby-faced Parker be far behind should they bring home San Antonio's second N.B.A. championship?

In Duncan's case, this would be long, long overdue.

"Tim's a wonderful person, one of the all-time great teammates," said Steve Kerr, the Spurs' reserve shooting guard. "He's humble. He cares nothing about personal stats. He's just not someone you want selling your candy bar. This is America. It's about image."

Image is also a choice, and you have to wonder if the N.B.A. is paying for years of selling style over substance. Now that the skateboarders of America have found other amusements, now that a high school kid who has yet to play an N.B.A. game is the most talked-about player, have millions of adult Americans just grown tired of the hype and noise?

Has the N.B.A. alienated its serious fan base in a desperate attempt to remain hip-hop hot? All sports ratings are in a down cycle, and though the N.B.A.'s may be more related to the expiration of the Shaq-and-Kobe Lakers, it is important to remember that the ratings for the previous three finals were in steady decline from the Jordan-Bulls era.

Whatever the explanation, this is the N.B.A.'s problem, and no one else's. I have never understood why sports business declines are reported as bad news, and not as some hope for the tapped-out fan.

The N.B.A. is not going anywhere, but a few more years of single-digit finals ratings and maybe prices will start heading south, like the flow of talent to Texas.

Pro basketball made its debut there in 1967 with the American Basketball Association's Dallas Chaparrals, who moved to San Antonio before the 1973-74 season and became the Spurs.

The state has had championship teams, Houston winning with Hakeem Olajuwon in 1994 and 1995, and the Spurs with Duncan and David Robinson in 1999. Now, bucking N.B.A. business trends, Texas suddenly has three teams with a multitude of talent and international appeal. Don't call it the Lone Star State anymore.