Say what?

As I do nearly every morning, I was listening to sports talk radio. One of the local morning sports shows features a guy by the name of David James (he also happens to be a sports anchor on the local CBS affiliate KUTV). David James is a funny guy and his impersonations and observations can be quite humorous. However, a serious NBA analyst James is not. Not only was he beating up on the Utah Jazz for having a very successful season in spite of two serious injuries to two of there three top players, James ran down the list of who he thinks are NBA title contenders now that the season is all but over and, frankly, he doesn't know what he's talking about.

Spurs (check), Pistons (check), Nets (huh?) (James went on to trash the Heat, of all teams, as a pretender).

A few things are just so wrong with his "analysis". Maybe I missed it, but where on New Jersey's roster is there a hall-of-fame caliber big man? Maybe James hasn't been paying attention to the last sixty (sixty!) years of NBA history but a hall-of-fame caliber big man is the one position a team must have in order to win an NBA championship. Michael Jordan and the Bulls being the only dynasty that is the exception. The last seven NBA champions should have been the first tip to those who ignored the first fifty or so years of NBA history: The Spurs had Tim Duncan and David Robinson in '99 and Duncan in '03 and '05; the Lakers had Shaq is '00, '01 and '02; the Pistons had Rasheed Wallace and Ben Wallace in 2004. It's simple. Unless you have Jordan on your roster, it is virtually impossible to win an NBA championship without a hall-of-fame big man--usually a center--on your roster. Even though Jason Kidd is still the best point guard in the league and even though New Jersey finished the season very strong, the Nets are most certainly not a title contender.

As already noted, James went on to trash the Heat in his half-assed analysis. How absurd! The Heat came within one two-minute stretch in the fourth quarter of game seven of the Eastern Conference finals last year to advancing to the NBA finals. And that was before the Heat made several smart off-season personnel moves to add depth and offensive punch to the team. Shaq plays for the Heat and that should be enough to grant the Heat automatic title contender status. But according to James, a team that almost beat the Pistons--the defending champs last season--and then went on to improve the via trades and free agency (while the Detroit Pistons did not) is not a contender. Maybe I'm nuts, but I don't think James thought this one out well.

David James's idiotic analysis aside, there are only three contenders for the NBA title this year: the San Antonio Spurs, the Detroit Pistons and, yes, the Miami Heat. Anyone who says otherwise is ignoring the history of the NBA.