Celtics Central

I’m really uninspired to write about the Celtics at the moment. Call it decompression. Call it ‘no news is good news.’

Few changes means little news.

I’m in the camp that says the team gets even better this season, due to being together for a whole season. They probably don’t win as many games though. The maniacal sense of urgency won’t be there. Last year they won games they should have lost. This season, they will probably lose a few they should have won. But maybe not. I underestimated them last season.

I say that knowing full well how huge home court came to be after all. They will still go for it…and get home court advantage. But whoever is number two will be right there with them. Detroit? Cleveland? Toronto? Philly? Orlando? We’ll talk about that in a future set of columns.

What I’ve been reading about the popularity of basketball and Kobe Bryant in China has caused some forward thinking. Wrap your mind around the following…….

China – Basketball’s World Champions 2028

Maybe even sooner?

David Stern talks about working with the Chinese government to erect 800,000 baskets in Chinese villages and creating an NBA affiliated, but independent Chinese league. 800,000 baskets? ummm…wow.

Of the Olympic things I’ve read about, it has struck me how quickly basketball has been embraced in the world’s most populace country – China.

Or is India the world’s most populace? I get confused. They run pretty close to each other population-wise (China 1.3 bil/ India 1.1 bil.) – which reminds me…when is India getting basketball fever?

Their favorite game is cricket. Other than the game is British, and you use a stick to hit something, I have no idea what cricket is. And oh yeah…are there any groups/castes/regions of very tall Indians? Or has Karma determined that Indians will not be tall nor leap very well? When was the last (first?) time we saw an Indian high jumper in the Olympics? I just don’t know the answer to those questions.

But wait. By sheer coincidence, there is a quote from NBA commissar David Stern about that very country from Boston.com….

India could be next on the NBA’s radar. Stern said NBA officials have met in Beijing with Indian authorities, and the league staged its first Basketball Without Borders events in India this summer. “We think that that’s a very promising market,” said Stern.

Wow. I was just kidding. Holy schnikees. We already have trouble with the Greek, Russian and some eastern European player names. Remember back when Coach K was calling the Greek players by their numbers?

If India gets even halfway interested in basketball, that would mean the world’s two most populace countries could both eventually field teams that could beat the NBA’s…oops…I mean the U.S.’s best in, say about….. 20 years. The sheer weight of talent of the player pool could make it so, if they get top competitive leagues going.

Remember when Taiwan was winning all those Little League World Series back a while ago? Little League officials finally figured out that one team comprised of the best of a nation of less than 20 million (23 mil. currently) were being assembled from far larger districts than American little league teams were. Our teams are small town teams for the most part. That created an innately built in advantage for the Taiwanese. If all other things are equal, the talent pool to draw from is larger, therefore …unfair.

The rule governing the area from which a Taiwan team could be assembled was changed to make a more level playing field. Since then, Taiwan’s Little League dominance was waned.

The same concept would apply here, except in the Olympics, it is all fair. The smallest countries compete against the largest without any allowances, handicaps, or dispensations at all. Tough toenails. That is why teams from Greece, Argentina, Spain and perhaps a few other countries are even more impressive, considering the smaller populations they are drawn from.

Except for the area of China that Yao Ming hails from, much of the Chinese population tends toward shorter heights. Does that negate much of the ‘population’ advantage?

Would the many poor areas of India be a fertile ground for dirt court ballin’ ?

Can you imagine the possibility of an Indian version of Kobe Bryant? How about an Indian Shaq?

China is an infant in the world of basketball and already has a unique player in Yao Ming.

Can you envision a world where the U.S team basketball, fielding its very best, and playing its best, would consistently finish ….3rd?

Neither can I, but it is quite possible.

Heck, we finished 3rd (Bronze) twice in the last few years to much smaller countries. But we always had excuses for that. Can the game one day simply rise above America and out of its reach?

I’ve always said that one day basketball would capture the world’s attention. I believe it will surpass soccer (football to the rest of the world) one day. That possibility gets more real every year. It is that good of a game.

Time…and 1/3 of the world’s population will tell.