01:00 AM EDT on Tuesday, June 21, 2005

Want to hear a secret?

I like the NBA.

Really.

Yeh, I know I might be the last guy over 45 who still does.

But I've got to come clean.

I like the NBA.

Even if I don't admit it a lot.

Because it's fashionable to denigrate the NBA. Too street. Too many tattoos. Too many cornrows. We've all heard the negatives. They've been around for a while now, all these perceived reasons why the NBA is not as popular as it was a decade ago, back when it was riding high on Michael's back and the afterglow of Bird and Magic. Back when everything David Stern touched seemed to turn to gold. Back before the NBA went hip-hop, and with it came the inevitable backlash.

That's the current mantra, and just about everywhere I go I hear it. I don't watch the NBA anymore. I can't watch the NBA anymore.

Over and over and over again.

But enough already.

I'm tired of hearing it.

If you didn't like Sunday night's fifth game between the Spurs and the Pistons, you simply don't like basketball.

To say it was a classic might be hyperbole, but there's little question it was a great finish. Both teams made big shots down the stretch. Several players could have been the hero, not just Robert Horry. In short, it was a great NBA playoff game, full of drama and plot twists, complete with a big finish. Sports at its best.

But it's more than simply one game, as good as it was. These playoffs have seen the emergence of Miami's Dwayne Wade as a great young player, arguably in the same stratosphere as LeBron James. Have seen the emergence of Steve Nash as a legitimate superstar. Have seen the emergence of several young players on the fast track to stardom, Manu Ginobili being one of them. Have seen the emergence of international stars, tangible proof that this is now a worldwide game.

So why are the TV ratings down?

Why is it that virtually everywhere I go someone is telling me they don't like the NBA anymore?

Why has it become so fashionable to denigrate the NBA?

I suspect there are several reasons.

One is no doubt generational. Not racial, for the NBA was predominantly black a decade ago, when it was extremely popular. Generational.

Rest assured, though, young people have little problem with current NBA fashions. Tattoos. Hip-hop accoutrements. You don't have to be in some NBA arena to see those things. Walk through any mall and this is what you see, as American as the food court. To focus on this is as self-defeating as adults in the early '70s obsessing over long hair and bell bottoms. It's fashion, nothing more. Get over it.

One is no doubt a backlash against the perception that the league is full of too many pampered kids who make too much money. Sports aren't helped when the money is always in fans' faces. Especially when too many of the players tend to treat it as a birthright.

Another?

This pervading sense that some lost era was somehow purer, more fundamental, that something irretrievable has been lost. This pervading sense that somewhere along the way the game got off track, and now the pieces lie scattered on the ground like some basketball Humpty-Dumpty that no one seems able to put back together again.

You can make this case, certainly. The bastardization of the rules. The influx of too many young players. The obsession with control by too many coaches, often resulting in a stagnant, halfcourt game. These are real problems, one the NBA should address.

But there's little doubt the players are appreciably more athletic than they were even a decade ago -- bigger, stronger, able to do more things. Virtually every time I watch a game, I'm amazed at what players can do, how athletic it's become.

Does this make the game better? Maybe. Maybe not. That depends on your point of view. But it's definitely different. Maybe that's the thing to focus on.

Rick Pitino was right, though: Larry Bird is not walking through that door anymore. And to continue to dwell on the past is foolish. All games evolve, change. To keep harping on days gone by is as pointless as listening to the sound of one hand clapping.

So enough.

The past isn't walking through the door.

Not anytime soon, anyway.

For now?

Here's my secret: I like the NBA.

The last man standing.