Ballers, Gamers and Scoundrels

Love is looking elsewhere

You might think of them as mercenaries, arriving with all the right intentions, all the right words, only to leave before you really get to know them, before they really grow. This morning, UCLA freshman Kevin Love became the latest college basketball “rookie” to announce he was leaving academia for NBA-demia.

In the weeks since the end of March Madness, fellow frosh Michael Beasley (Kansas State), Derrick Rose (Memphis), Eric Gordon (Indiana) and O.J. Mayo (USC) are the most heralded among as many as a dozen freshman who have declared their intention to leave school for pro ball.

This flood was precipitated by the 19-year-old age minimum imposed by NBA Commissioner David Stern and the league’s players’ union that is slated to exist until 2010-11. Just recently, Stern and NCAA president Myles Brand expressed a desire to raise the minimum to 20 years old - closer to college football’s three-year requirement.

I’ve long expressed the belief that if a young man is old enough to place his life on the line for his country, he’s old enough to go man-a-mano under the boards against Shaquille O’Neal or Dwight Howard (who leapt straight to the NBA from high school just prior to the new rule). That said I don’t see the one-year rule as a hardship - for the player or the game.

For every Kevin Garnett or Kobe Bryant, who successfully makes the leap from prep to pro, there are numerous Omar Cooks, who overestimate their skills and never play a moment in the NBA; or even Sebastian Telfairs, guys who merely play but who don’t appear to improve enough to anything more than role players, if that.

Attending college for at least a year can never be bad - whether or not the young man ever becomes a true scholar. Scholarship, alas, isn’t for everyone.

On the court the year on campus allows young studs to own the spotlight rather than fight for minutes or struggle (at least for a bit) against players who are physically stronger and savvier in the ways of the game. Beasley, Rose and Love all lived up to their billing this season, the latter two leading their respective teams to the Final Four. They came, they shined and they conquered. Now, time to go.

College basketball gained, as well. As with Kevin Durant and Greg Oden the prior season, national interest in college hoops was largely driven by interest in its young stars. Sure college sports benefits from the indigenous fans who root for the name on the front of the jersey, not the back. But when it comes to attracting new fans and those with no particular affinity, the stars are the thing.

Their presence gave college hoops its juice (the good kind) this season, as will another wave of younguns next season. They will draw the kind of spotlight that will also touch some of their less-heralded (older) teammates. They will boost ratings, and allow coaches like Bill Self of Kansas to get rich.

So why shouldn’t they?

One thing is clear: Winning a national title isn’t what it used to be - at least to the players. Otherwise many of these talented frosh would return to even more talented squads and chase the ring again.

That is, if they weren’t chasing the golden ring instead.

Kobe Bryant deserves an award. No question. This season the Los Angeles Lakers guard affirmed his status as the best player in basketball. He helped shape Andrew Bynum into a dominant young force. He managed the integration of Pau Gasol into the mix. He even nurtured young players like Jordan Farmar and, at times, helped Lamar Odom look like an All-Star once again. Bryant is the primary season the Lakers, if healthy, could be the favorite to represent the West in the NBA Finals.

In many ways 2007-08 was his year. But with all respect to my Yahoo! Sports colleague, Adrian Wojnarowski, Bryant should be declared Comeback Player of the Year. (For rehabbing his rep, as much as for his skills) because the MVP trophy belongs to Chris Paul.

I first made that point two months ago and my stance hasn’t changed. Bryant has been great. So has Kevin Garnett. Either is worthy MVPs. But Paul sits atop my list because this season no player has been more valuable, more integral to the success of his team. The New Orleans Hornets have been the most consistently good team this season and are contending for the best record in the stupidly competitive Western Conference, all because of Chris Paul.

David West is an all-star because of Chris Paul.

Byron Scott may be Coach of the Year because of Chris Paul.

New Orleans is loving basketball again because of Chris Paul. (In fact, he’s done more for the city’s revival since Katrina since either Mayor Ray Nagin or President Bush.)

CP3 is his team’s leading scorer (21.2 ppg) and he leads the league in both steals (2.7 per game) and assists (11.5). Yes, he’s quietly crept ahead of Steve Nash, long the standard at the position, in the latter category, further validating his MVP cred. In fact, pretty much across the board, Paul’s numbers either match or are drastically better than Nash’s production during either of the Phoenix guard’s two MVP seasons. (For instance, Nash averaged 3.4 turnovers over those two seasons; Paul gives up the rock only 2.5 times per game.

Statistically, Paul stands up to Kobe, as well. While scoring 7 fewer points per game (Kobe averages 28.7 pg), Paul averages six more assists (Kobe: 5.4), leading to an additional 12 points for the Hornets. Moreover Paul outdoes Bryant in steals (Kobe gets a mere 1.9 pg), turnovers (3.18 for Kobe) and every shooting category - from the field (.489 to .461), three-point range (.371 to .362) and free-throw line (.850 to .840)
Sure he’s only in his third pro season. Because of players like Paul, Utah’s Deron Williams, Boston’s Rajon Rondo and others, the point guard position is in good hands for at least another decade. But Paul shouldn’t be penalized because he may have the opportunity to win MVP awards for years to come. Heck, Kobe’s only 29! He’s not going anywhere, either.

Kobe Bryant’s season? Maybe. Chris Paul’s trophy? No doubt.

This year the numbers favor CP3

Forget the owner’s box. Glen Taylor should be slapped into a penalty box.

The owner of the Minnesota Timberwolves is a farm boy from Confrey who grew up to become a state senator and made a few bucks making wedding invitations and other stuff. Enough bucks to buy a majority stake in the T-wolves.

But bucks, clearly, have nothing to do with brains.

Sports owners are the most visible of a unique breed of man (and woman) - people who think that because they’re successful in one arena it makes them smart in another. Kinda like of lot of the guys on Wall Street, as in the guys at Bear Stearns - $2/share Bear Stearns. I’m sure the folks who ran that firm were smart enough, at one juncture, to make enough money to buy the Hamptons. Then they got stupid. Or arrogant. Or both. Over the weekend their once-vaunted firm sold for $2/share. On the Street, that’s punk money.

We typically don’t hear about the Wall Street guys until something like Bear Stearns happens. Sports, by contrast, owners might pipe up any time.

Some of them are actually worth hearing from. Jerry Jones knows a bit about the football business. Jerry Colangelo know hoops. Marc Cuban is passionate and often entertaining. And as long as George Steinbrenner is breathing The Boss can say anything he wants.

Taylor ’s millions have not earned him the right to say a peep.

And certainly nothing as asinine as he uttered on Tuesday. In response to a local columnist who insinuated that the T-Wolves should tank the rest of the regular season in an effort to secure a better draft pick, Taylor noted that his team would never do such a think but added that Kevin Garnett - the T-Wolves’ signature player for 12 long seasons - “tanked it” when he sat out the last five games of 2006-’07 in order to get his sore right knee checked.

It’s tempting to chalk up Taylor’s missive as a brain fart, but that would be too dismissive of a remark that is beyond absurd.

Garnett is a rare athlete whose greatest fault just might be his indefatigable passion and commitment. Tanked is not in his DNA. In fact, if anyone tanked on the T-Wolves it’s Taylor, bungled things up by signing Joe Smith to an illegal contract that cost the T-Wolves three first-round picks and refusing to fire GM Kevin McHale who, in the pre-Isiah Thomas Era, may have been the worst executive in the NBA.

Garnett elevated the value of Taylor’s franchise for more than a decade, and played to the highest level of professionalism.

And for that, Taylor throws Garnett under the team bus.

But I love Garnett’s response. Last night, after KG led the Celtics’ 94-74 streak-ending rout of the Houston Rockets, he showed nothing but class. He refused to grovel in slime of the owner’s making. “Glen Taylor was good to me while I was a Timberwolf and I’m a Boston Celtic now,” Garnett told reporters. “I’m not going to be going back and forth saying tasteless things. That’s not my character.”

Character. Class. All that time KG spent with Taylor, it’s too bad none of the player rubbed off on the owner.

I know I’m not the only one thinking this: It’s just too tantalizing to ignore.

As I witness (and marvel at) one of the greatest team achievements in pro basketball history, I can’t help but wonder where it’s all going. Not how many games the Houston Rockets will win before their streak - now at a mind-blowing 22 games, the second-longest in NBA history - comes to an historic end. But whether this wondrous feat, no matter how long it lasts, will ultimately be remembered as nothing more than a prelude for the Big Fall.

I wonder if they’ll become this year’s Dallas Mavericks.

I’m not trying to diminish the streak at all. I was never one who believed the streak should have been minimized because, until the Rockets beat the Los Angeles Lakers on Sunday, none of their wins had come against any of the other top five teams in the Western Conference. Twenty-two straight wins is twenty-two straight wins - whether the opponents are the New York Knicks or the local CYO team. (I will resist the temptation to note that some might consider the latter to be the stiffer competition.)

Nor am I disparaging the Mavs, who charged through the 2006-’07 regular season with the league’s best record, only to endure a stunning fall to eight-seeded Golden State in the opening round of the playoffs. Far from it. As my regular blog-readers know, I co-authored a book with Mavs coach Avery Johnson. (”Aspire Higher: Winning On and Off the Court with Determination, Discipline and Decisions,” which hits bookstores next week. You can even buy it HERE now! Yes, shameless plug.) So you know my publisher (Harper Collins), my accountant and my two kids are hoping for an extended playoff run!

But the parallels are intriguing and inescapable. Last season, the Mavs looked to be on a John Wayne-like mission to erase the nightmare of ‘06 when they lost to the Miami Heat in the NBA Finals four games to two after winning the first two games at home. They barreled through the heart of the season, challenged the 70-win mark, ended with 67 victories and were a near-consensus pick to win it all.

Then they ran into the buzz saw that was Golden State. Led by a former Mavs coach (Don Nelson) with a quirky and lightening-paced playing style and a point guard fueled by Lord knows what sort of redemptive pixie dust (Baron Davis), the Warriors pulled off a shocking four-games-to-two upset that still reverberates in some parts of Big D.

The Rockets - yes, the Houston Rockets - are now the best team in the Western Conference. Their 46-20 record puts them one game ahead of the Lakers. But right now, I don’t know anyone who’s picking the Rockets to be standing next to NBA Commissioner David Stern in June and accepting the Larry O’Brien trophy.

Heck, I don’t know anyone picking them to win the Western Conference. Hello, anyone out there want to stand up for the Rockets reaching the Western Conference finals? I didn’t think so.

How can you when this team has never survived the opening round in the Tracy McGrady Era (since 2004). Indeed ten seasons have passed since the Rockets last played more than one playoff round. And that was perhaps the most high-powered Rockets team ever, with three of the league’s 50 Greatest Players Ever: Hakeem Olajuwon, Clyde Drexler and Charles Barkley. Each of those players would probably still start for these Rockets! (Okay, maybe not Charles, at least not without a couple of workouts.)

I love what the Rockets are doing, and love how they’re doing it - as a team, on both ends of the floor. They’re doing it with Dikembe Mutumbo, for goodness sakes! Yes, they’ve been a tad lucky (The Lakers were without Andrew Bynum and new-stud acquisition, Pau Gasol.) But there isn’t enough luck in the world to account for a 22-game win streak - in any sport.

All I’ll say is celebrate it now. Drink it in and digest it for all it’s worth. Because while the Rockets are winning, they’re expending a lot of energy (mentally and physically) when, ideally, the top teams would like to be fine-tuning for their playoff run.

And no matter when the streak ends, Houston will carry the heavy weight of expectations into the playoffs.

Oh, I almost forgot: If the post season began today, the Houston Rockets’ opening -round foe would be - yes - Golden State.

Davis and the Warriors just may be awaiting…

Don’t get upset. I know the question asked in the title of this post possesses certain connotations. Just let it go. “The Missing Link” best describes what many folks (including myself) are expecting Andrew Bynum to be for the Los Angeles Lakers in their quest to win their first NBA title since 2002 - their first in the Shaq-less Age. And yet I’m starting to wonder whether we’re expecting too much.

During my weekly stint on NBATV, I’ve boldly declared the Lakers “the team to beat” in the NBA playoffs. My reasoning is simple: In the wake of this stormy and intriguing season of trades, the Lakers appeared to have gained the most for the least. In February, they obtained all-star forward/center Pau Gasol from the Memphis Grizzlies in exchange for a couple of ham sandwiches and a bag of pretzels. Since then the Lakers have gone 15-3 and soared to the top of the Western Conference standings, a status not even Kreskin could have predicted for this once-dysfunctional squad.

It would be easy to credit the surge to the inside-outside arsenal of the versatile Gasol (19.8 ppg as a Laker) and the wondrously gifted Kobe Bryant (the league’s second-best player, according to my 13-year-old sneaker-addicted son). But the Lakers would not have been in position to obtain Gasol, nor would they have already emerged as one of the surprise team of the season, had it not been for the maturation and emergence of Andrew Bynum.

The not-yet-20-year-old, in his third pro season, had emerged as a low-post presence on both ends of the floor, contributing 13 points, ten rebounds and more than 2.1 blocks every night. He was not yet as explosive as Amare Stoudemire, nor as wisely dominant as Tim Duncan but save those two, and perhaps Yao Ming, he was the most vital big man out West.

Then he went down. It was Game 35, on January 13 against the Memphis Grizzlies (in an irony, Gasol was on the floor as an opponent). An MRI later revealed he’d suffered a subluxation of the patella and a bone bruise of his left knee, and he was declared out for eight weeks.

This week, Bynum, whose work ethic during the off-season led Laker GM Mitch Kupchak to believe this would indeed be a breakout year for the precocious 7-footer, began running on an “anti-gravity” treadmill that allowed him to reduce his impact on the machine by essentially decreasing his weight via an air-pressure chamber.

The playoffs begin in about a month. Optimistically, the Lakers originally hoped Bynum would have returned by now. Late March is the thinking now, maybe. Even that would give him less than three weeks to regain his form, strength and, perhaps most importantly, his confidence. Moreover, Bynum has never played with Gasol - and while the veteran Bryant possessed the savvy to ease the transition, a young player like Bynum might struggle a bit to find his lane in the new lineup.

In fact, might Bynum return affect the Lakers’ mojo? As well as they’re playing, adding another player to the mix at this critical junction - particularly one with such a formidable presence - might be the very wrong move for a team looking to roll into the postseason.

Just ask the Phoenix Suns.

How many times can Dwayne Wade fall down and still get up? Pat Riley isn’t willing to find out, apparently.

Word was stirring late last week that Riley, the Heat head coach and president, was trying to shut Wade down. In the midst of this nightmare of a season, Riley wasn’t willing to risk any more injury to his young star. Today, it became officials -the Heat announced that Wade is done for the season.

The league’s fifth leading scorer has been nursing a sore right knee all season - possibly a residual of the surgery Wade had on his left knee and left shoulder last May. He missed 31 games last season and, with today’s news will have missed the same number of games this season. Not long ago, Wade was showcased in a famous Converse ad touting his toughness. Watch it here:

No one doubts Wade’s guts, certainly not me. But I’ve long wondered - as I watched Wade fall down so many times - just how long he’d get up. Or how long he’d last.

Two years ago, he was one-third of the three amigos that was rescuing the NBA from its seemingly interminable malaise. Along with LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony, they were the bright stars that were supposed to make us stop missing Michael Jordan and lure a new wave of fans to the game. Wade did his part, leading the Heat to the 2006 NBA title, and - as a tither and a young, married father - he was the kind of young man fans wanted their sons to be.

But the left knee and shoulder injury clearly affected him. And while he was as affective and aggressive this season as he’d, the season’s toll (on and off the court) was obvious - on his body, mind and heart. Last fall, the blogosphere was abuzz with rumors that Wade and his wife, Siohvaughn, might divorce. They have not.

For all of those reasons, shutting down is the right thing for Wade’s long-term viability. Physically. Mentally. Emotionally.

It’s also the right thing for the Heat, who are still hoping Wade will be their cornerstone into the next decade.

And Lord knows it’s the right thing for the league to allow him to sit, no matter whether or not Wade has a specific ,traumatic injury that prevents him from playing. (He played 39 minutes last Saturday against Atlanta.)

Later this week, Wade is slate to undergo a new, noninvasive treatment called OssaTron, a high-tech form of shock therapy. Today, Wade said, ‘The knee will be hit by shock waves, electrical shock waves. It’s actually a pretty painful experience.”

Afterward, Wade will limited to passive exercise for a month. before being able to return to basketball.

But here’s where it gets dicey: Wade says he still was to be part of the summer Olympic basketball team, which is shaping up as the for USA squad that just might be truly capable of winning a gold medal. Like Houston Rockets center Yao Ming, who’s out for the season with a foot injury but might be pressured into anchoring the Chinese national team’s home-turf quest for gold, Wade wants to represent his country on what looks to be the best USA squad in years.

Being somewhat of a Dream Team snob (I covered the original DT and had loathed anyone using the moniker to describe any of the pretenders that were cobbled together for the last several Olympics), I am actually cooling with calling USA Basketball’s new entry Dream Team II (For Real). Their displays during qualifying rounds show a lethal combination of talent and savvy regarding the international style of play.

They will win the gold medal in Beijing in August.

But Dwyane Wade should not be there. He should dispel any thoughts of joining LeBron, Carmelo, Dwight Howard and America’s other young guns as they seek to restore order to the basketball world - no matter how difficult it might be.

Sitting out now is the right thing to do. Sitting out Beijing is the smart thing to do. After all, no one knows just how many falls D-Wade’s body has left.

During a recent sports-talk show, I was asked my view on whther a certain veteran athlete should retire. The guy was coming off a mediocre season, one that fell far short of the all-World seasons he regularly produced at the peak of his career. The inference was that he should go out with “dignity,” or before he suffered some life-altering injury.

Without much thought I said: “Play on!”

Who are we to tell an athlete when he or she should retire? We do it all the time, typically wanting our icons to retire “on top,” or before we have to watch them perform like pitiable shells of their former selves. (Old guys, please let the Willie Mays thing go!)

We want New York Giants defensive leader Michael Strahan to retire after winning his first Super Bowl. (Please, the man has huge alimony payments.)

We wanted Michael Jordan to retire after nailing the NBA Championship-winning offensive foul/jumper against the Utah Jazz in the 1998 Finals. (The body said yes, but MJ’s mind clearly said no.)

Most athletes retire quietly, disappearing before we know they’re really gone. Some leave in the wake of ignominious remarks that will live in infamy. (See: Latrell Sprewell’s “feed my family” diatribe for turning down $5 million three years ago, an amount his agent called “a slap in the face.” Just recently it was reported that Sprewell’s home was in foreclosure due to more than $200,000 in payments in arrears, and that he’d auctioned off his yacht to pay the $1.32 owed on it.)

Some athletes don’t really retire retire - i.e. the spate of NBA veterans that have been dusted off of late by teams either looking for wizened reinforcements for the playoff stretch (P.J. Brown) or someone to throw into a trade deal to make the numbers work (Keith Van Horn). (The lesson: Never sign those retirement papers!)

Back in the early 90s, I waxed on about how Jimmy Connors should retire. It was 1991 and the aging, injured champion had fallen to No. 936 in the world. Because of his petulant behavior (on and off the tennis court) I had never been a huge fan. I respected his achievements and on some level admired his up-from-nowhere fire. But as he pushed 40 his act had grown weary. I was adamant that tennis (and sports) would be better off if Connors and his tantrums just faded away.

He did nothing of the sort, of course. And that fall Connors put on what may have been the greatest show in tennis histor, reaching the semifinals of the U.S. Open and stirring all of New York in the process. On his 39th birthday, he defeated 24-year-old Aaron Krickstein 3-6, 7-6(8), 1-6, 6-3, 7-6(4), overcoming a 2-5 hole in the final set, in 4 hours and 41 minutes of the most scintillating sports exhibition I may have ever witnessed.

An exhibition we would have missed had Connors retired, as so many were saying he should do.

After that, I’ve been loathe to judge whether any athlete should retire. Play on.

Yesterday, Brett Favre retired “on his terms,” as we like to say. He said simply that, after 17 NFL seasons, he was tired. He had nothing left to prove to anyone, including himself. Some lament that the certain Hall-of-Fame QB’s last pass was an ill-thrown interception in the NFC title game that led to Green Bay being eliminated from the Super Bowl Derby. Hogwash. The all-time everything QB will be remembered for far more than that.

What will we remember about Roger Clemens? I’m not sure whether he’s thrown his last pitch from a major-league mound. but it certainly seems unlikely now that he’ll stare down another batter. He’s too busy staring down the rest of us. He’s too busy telling us what few others believe to be true - that he did not take steroids, was not at Jose Conseco’s party, did not influence a caretaker about her potential testimony and did not tell Andy Pettitte his drug use.

And soon he may have to stare down a federal investigator trying to determine if he lied to Congress.

Right now, all the greatness Clemens displayed on the mound, the greatness that led us to debate whether he was the best pitcher ever, seems pretty insignificant relative to the ugliness that surrounds him now.

Definitely not a way to go out.

Ralph Ellison would love Chris Paul. Despite the mounting evidence that screams for attention, the New Orleans guard remains the NBA’s Invisible Man, largely unrecognized, largely ignored.

Oh sure, some have noted and celebrated his gifts. But few (if any) have said the obvious: Chris Paul is the best point guard in pro basketball.

Moreover, Paul belongs in any discussion regarding the league’s 2008 Most Valuable Player. In fact, right now, he’s at the top of my ballot.

Go ahead, make your case for Kobe or LeBron. Bring it on. Either would be a fine choice. In fact, both are better than CP3, as he’s know in N’awlins. But dang, not by much. And picking one of them would be safe. This is what I think of safe: Zzzzzz.

First the numbers: He leads the league in steals (2.7) and is second in assists (10.8 per game). He’s averaging more than 20 ppg (18th in the league) and shooting 48% from the field, highest among guards in the Top 20.

The team: The Hornets have been the best team - start to finish - this season. Not that they have the best record (fifth-best, 38-18). But they’ve been consistently good, avoiding the kind of long losing strides that have tripped up even the better teams. Their recent-three game slide matched their longest losing string of the season.

On Wednesday night, Paul erased any doubt regarding the league’s top playmaker. In fact, he made two-time MVP Steve Nash look like a wide-eyed D-Leaguer. He had 25 points, 15 assists, six rebounds and 3 steals. Nash failed to even score in the first half, and finished with 8 points on 1-of-6 shooting. If you watched the game, frankly, it was as if Paul was the only point guard on the floor. New Orleans won in a blowout, 120-103.

A week ago, Paul took advantage of a disoriented Jason Kidd, playing his first game as a Mav, to make the Hall of Famer long for the New Jersey swamp he left behind. He abused Kidd for 31 points, 11 assists, 5 rebounds, and 9 freakin’ steals. He shot 55% from the floor. The Hornets won, 104-93.

Interestingly, he and the Hornets are still void of the proverbial “respect” that gets bounced about when discussions begin about MVP and teams that could win the title. The Hornets have been dismissed with the same brush-off that once was used against a certain presidential candidate - lack of experience. Fair enough, neither Paul nor his two best teammates - center Tyson Chandler and all-star forward David West - are playoff tested. Heck, they three they’ve played 19 playoff games between them, almost seven times fewer than Kobe (131.) Even 23-year-old LeBron, who’ll probably break ever “youngest to…” record in the books, has more post-season seasoning (33 games).

But I like their fire, their consistency and the fact that their coach has a bit of a chip on his shoulders from being fired after twice leading the Nets to the NBA Finals. Revenge can be a great motivator.

For his production, his consistency, his team’s success and his downright dominance of his peers, Paul should be the leading chocie for MVP. Just as neither youth, nor inexperience has deterred support for that certain presidential candidate, those traits should not sway MVP voters against Chris Paul, either.

You probably didn’t hear them, but a lot of people screamed “Hallelujah” today when Candace Parker, one of the best basketball player on the planet, said she was going pro. Parker will graduate from the University of Tennessee this spring, and although she has another year of eligibility she’ll opt to play in the WNBA rather wear burnt orange for another season.

The hosannas came from those who’ve tried and tried and tried again to make the WNBA work, to make it matter to more than a small gaggle of fans. In their minds, Parker is The One. She’s the one who’ll make us care, who’ll make us watch, who’ll make little girls across the nation beg to tune into the summer games featuring the world’s best female players.

It almost seems preordained. Parker is the unquestioned face of women’s college basketball. Heck she may be the very face of college basketball. Period. (Is any male player more well known?) She’s one of only six players to dunk at that level (remember when a woman dunking was really a big deal?). In fact as a high-school player she defeated five boys, fellow all-American prepsters, to win a dunk contest. She’s won a national title, played on the U.S. team, and will almost certainly be one of the most high-profile Olympians in Beijing.

Moreover, the cards are aligned to team the 6-4 Parker with the baddest mother-baller out there, Los Angeles center/model/mom Lisa Leslie. The Sparks own the No. 1 pick in the upcoming WNBA draft and unless LeBron or Kobe gets a sex-change operation, they’ll chose Parker, placing her in the No. 2 media market in the nation.

So, if she’s not The One, then who is?

Answer: Nobody.

Candace Parker cannot “save” the WNBA. Just as The Last One - Diana Turasi - couldn’t save it. Nor could Sue Bird, Swin Cash or Theresa Edwards or Sheryl Swoops or Cynthia Cooper or any of the wonderful athletes who have donned WNBA uniforms during the league’s 11 seasons.

I don’t believe in saviors - not in sports, at least. And to think any one athlete can “save” a sport is ludicrous. Not even MJ saved the NBA and today, it’s not just LeBron who’s given the league new life. It’s Chris Paul. It’s Dwight Howard. It’s Deron Williams. It’s Dwayne Wade. It’s Steve Nash. It’s, well, you get the point.

Candace Parker will be great for the WNBA. But the league’s needs more than she can provide.

It needs smart management. It needs smarter marketing. It needs more compelling combatants. It needs rivalries more fans will care about. It needs a bit of luck, too.

The players have done all they can. They simply can’t be Tennessee or UConn or Texas or Duke - schools, like many others, whose indigenous fans support them season in and season out, no matter who’s wearing the uniform. Right now, the WNBA does not have those kinds of fans. At least not yet. And I’m not sure they would even if they opened franchises in Knoxville, Storrs, Austin or Durham.

What they can best hope for is that Candace Parker becomes the league’s tipping point. They can hope that she becomes the face of American pride in Beijing and that her success makes Madison Avenue swoon. (In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if by the time this item is posted, one of Nike’s minion isn’t already in Knoxville with a fat deal.)

Parker and NBA rookie whiz Kevin Durant (pictured with her below) - They Got Next. They’ve got the game and the charisma to fly behind those players who’ve solidified the foundation. (And she is pretty cute - if not “hot”,” as this site attests.)

For Candace the pivotal question isn’t whether she’s good enough, but this: Will her sweetness (or hotness) be enough?

Be careful what you wish for. I said that to Doc Rivers last fall, just after the Celtics acquired Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen to give him the most potent arsenal (by a long shot) of any coach in the league.

I also said it to Avery Johnson last week during the early days of the madness that finally culminated today with the trading of Jason Kidd, the future Hall of Fame playmaker, to Johnson’s Dallas Mavericks.

The Mavs pretty much gave up the whole of South Dallas for Kidd. But the only cog in the deal that matters (especially the way it finally went down) is Devin Harris, the young point guard. Harris is a star on the rise. His stats improved during each of his four pro seasons. He just wasn’t rising fast enough for the Mavs, particularly when measured against peers Chris Paul and Deron Williams, who are each a year younger than Harris.

Anyone could see that, but Johnson particularly so. The coach loosened the reins during the early weeks of the season, only to have to take hold of the Mavs’ erratic offense once again when it became clear that Harris’ leadership (a nebulous term, but one that means everything in sports) just wasn’t what it needed to be.

Not now. Not when neither of the team’s two best players - Dirk Nowitski or Josh Howard - was up to the task as well. And not as the Mavs’ Western Conference combatants were loading up on weapons like hunters at a gun show.

No matter how much he tried, Avery Johnson simply did not have an Avery Johnson on the floor.

Now he does. Now he has someone he can trust, someone whose mere presence eases the way for Dirk and Josh.

And now, as Avery well knows, it’s on.

With Kidd being 35 years old, he knows he now has a two- (maybe three-year) window to win it all.

At minimum, the Mavs must likely reach at least the conference finals this season in order to a) purge the weight of last season’s first-round flame out against Golden State; and b) justify the reported extra $11 million this deal is costing Mark Cuban over the way the deal was originally constructed. Next year, the bar will be even higher.

Most of you know that I spent much of last year working on a motivational book with Johnson (no relation). “Aspire Higher: Winning On and Off the Court with Determination, Discipline and Decisions” (Harper Collins) hits bookstores in March (But you can buy it HERE now! Yes, shameless plug). One portion of the book talks about surviving the “storms” life brings forth, the kind of storms Johnson - like the rest of us - endured throughout his life, from the housing projects of New Orleans to 18 years in the NBA to the near-pinnacle of coaching.

One view might be that the storm that has engulfed the Mavs since last season’s post season might finally be lifting with Kidd in the house.

Then again, it may be just beginning.