But when talking about the National Basketball Association, fans may want to think twice before reaching into the cliché bag-o-tricks. The common explanation for the league’s off-the-court problems, and to hear your typical middle-aged sportscaster tell it, there are many, is to proclaim, "the inmates are running the asylum." Fan’s translation: the players have more control over the teams they play for than the coaches who scold them and the owners who pay them. But before we anoint NBA athletes as Scapegoats of the Month, there is a larger force pulling the proverbial strings of professional basketball.

The television networks. Anyone watching the 1999 playoffs must have noticed the bizarre schedule of games, when teams would play Monday, sit a few days, then play Friday, only to play less than 48 hours later on Sunday. The idea is that weekend action sells, and if the rhythm of the season is shaken, the fans and players can get over it. And while the scheduling is a bit more predictable in the regular season, the power of the networks is just as strong during that 82-game time period. During a typical NBA season, which the 1999 campaign was anything but, the National Broadcast Company and Turner networks TNT and TBS jam their months-after-the Super-Bowl sports lineups with pro basketball action. The Turner networks will show a couple games during the week, while NBC will show at least one and as many as three games during the weekend, usually on Sunday. Unless you have a satellite contraption sitting outside, these games offer exclusive national coverage of NBA basketball, save some Chicago Bulls games on superstation WGN and Atlanta Hawks games on TBS.

Fans who live in cities with NBA teams can usually see most of the games the local boys play in a season on a local channel, but rely on the aforementioned networks to see games outside their markets. Those of us who live in pro-ball-free towns rely on the networks for action. Professional basketball is like a modern presidential campaign; if it didn’t happen on television, it practically didn’t happen. With ticket prices skyrocketing to a level where most of the live NBA crowd wears a tie to work, fans depend on television to see who’s got game and who’s got shame on the court. If a player’s off-the-court shortcomings are caught on camera, they stick to the brain that much longer. I’m willing to bet that had Latrell Sprewell chased his teammate with a 2x4 and choked his coach on television, as he did off camera, he would not be allowed back in the league. Instead, he’s playing in the NBA finals.

While the small screen pumps out pro games faster than sorority girls buying khaki shorts, it allows fans to almost forget the past. Our basketball minds have become so saturated that we forget the game existed before Magic and Bird met in the ‘79 Final Four. We’re prone to make history-forsaking exaggerations, such as "Patrick Ewing changed the game of basketball."

And though the volume of games on the tube is high, the content is about as diverse as a Spice Girls focus group. Each Sunday, fans are guaranteed of seeing a Los Angeles team on NBC, and Gary Coleman has been on the Peacock network more recently than the Clippers. Despite the fact that 30 teams comprise the NBA, fans are fed a subsistence diet of Kobe, Shaq, and the rest of the boys playing for a team whose own fans arrive halfway through the second quarter and leave halfway through the fourth. The Utah Jazz, Houston Rockets and New York Knicks also made more appearances than they deserved, often because they were playing the Lakers. Such a strategy is not new to the network, as Michael Jordan in his playing days showed up more on Sunday television than Ed Bradley.

Apparently, NBC had the ratings to back up their programming. Particularly when Dennis Rodman flirted with the team, the Lakers and their opponents produced strong numbers for the network. Yet NBA fans across the country may have gone the entire season without seeing some of the best young teams in the league, such as the flashy-but-inexperienced Sacramento Kings and the young and dangerous Philadelphia 76ers . San Antonio’s Tim Duncan, who has stepped up as perhaps the league’s top star, had to wait until the playoffs until he gained the national exposure he deserved.

The executives at NBC need to make a decision; they can either build their advertising rates in the short term, or they can build interest in the game for the long-term. It’s no coincidence that while the last decade was spent giving all glory to Michael Jordan, the fundamentals of the game eroded. Jordan did so many special things that, in trying to imitate him, we forgot he was special. Our next generation of ball players became fixated on the Jordan technique, and abandoned the simple pleasures of playing the game. It’s kind of like the cast of "Saved By the Bell" trying to imitate Cary Grant; they can spend all day watching his movies and imitating his voice, but at the end of the day they’re still going to end up on Pacific Blue, bad nudey movies, and shampoo commercials. Life would be so much easier if they’d just realize their best moments were spent foiling Mr. Belding, giving Screech wedgies, and trying to convince me they participated in every single activity at Bayside High. As the main engine for fans to watch the game week in and week out, the minds behind the television networks have an obligation to show us more than just the teams with Spike Lee or Jack Nicholson sittting courtside. These networks must re-invent the game for the fans by showing us that exciting stars play across the country, often in a city near you. And don’t focus on one or two men on the team every second of every halftime show or every Sunday. Develop fan loyalty to teams instead of individuals, so that when a player leaves for the next big paycheck across the country, said loyalty will not be lost.

Furthermore, let’s all get over this Jordan thing. Granted the man lacks a little credibility when it comes to saying he’s left the game, but we all really need to just take his word, move on with our lives, and move on with the way we watch this sport. From now on, the only person I want to hear referred to as the next Michael Jordan is Number 23’s own son. The "next Jordans" have come and gone throughout the last decade, namely in the form of Harold Minor and, now, Kobe Bryant. Byrant is going to be a great player, but only if he carves out his own unique style. As with the rest of society, if we focus on the heroes of yesterday, we will miss the rise of today’s.