National Basketball Association

When the Chicago Bulls entered the National Basketball Assn. in 1966 as the first expansion team of the modern era, the team paid a $1.2-million franchise fee. Their payroll was $180,000 for 12 players, which is what Michael Jordan probably makes for a 1-minute TV commercial. The Seattle SuperSonics and San Diego Rockets paid $1.75 million to join the NBA the following year, and it cost the Milwaukee Bucks and Phoenix Suns $2 million to get into the league in 1968.

Once upon a time in the West. . .. There was once a mighty conference that fell into ruin until last season, when no team could come closer than 11 games behind the Lakers. Unfortunately for the Lakers, it turned out to be a very brief time. With all eight playoff teams on pace to post 50-59 wins and heating up since the All-Star break — well, except for the Lakers — any West team really can beat any other. Forget the Cleveland Cavaliers. If the Lakers play well enough to see the Cavaliers, they'd have every chance of beating them.

The question of who has the leverage has been settled. Arbitrator John Feerick's long-awaited decision came down Monday, ruling that NBA players with guaranteed contracts will not be paid during the lockout, strengthening the owners' hand. . In what amounted to a daring end run around management's dug-in defense, the National Basketball Players Assn. had asserted that 226 players, with contracts worth more than $700 million, must be paid.

So much for the era of good feeling. NBA Players Assn. Director Billy Hunter, who held a love-in with Commissioner David Stern at the 2009 All-Star game, said Friday the players have just told the league its new contract proposal is a "non-starter," and it was then withdrawn by the owners' negotiating committee. Hunter said the proposal called for lower salaries, shorter deals, elimination of guaranteed contracts and, in something no U.S. professional league has ever sought, much less gotten, modification of existing contracts.

Roughly once a month, the NBA cuts 31 checks to NBA teams as revenue from its multibillion-dollar national television contract. There are only 30 NBA franchises, so who gets the extra check? The money goes to brothers Ozzie and Dan Silna, co-owners of the long-forgotten ABA team, the Spirits of St. Louis. Thirty years ago, Ozzie Silna, with attorney Donald Schupak, negotiated a deal that cleared the way for the ABA to merge with the NBA.

There's no more overrated issue than violence in pro basketball. If you believe your eyes, ears and TV, the game is beset by hooligans and none of us is safe anywhere. Actually, it has never been more peaceful. The game is certainly too physical, but there have never been fewer fights, and the ones they have are laughable. The definition of fight has been stretched beyond recognition. In the '70s, fights often included real punches.

Sports fans who frequent the Second Life virtual world on the Internet already can place bets at a sports book, join an online fan booster club and play a game of two-on-two basketball. And, as of today, they will be able to watch NBA broadband video clips, outfit their online personas in virtual NBA jerseys and be pitched by such real-world NBA corporate sponsors as Toyota and T-Mobile.

Walt Disney Co.'s ABC and ESPN and Time Warner Inc.'s TNT agreed Wednesday to pay the National Basketball Assn. $7.4 billion over eight years for rights to televise its games and, in one of the first deals of its kind, stream action on the Internet and mobile devices. The deal, which begins in 2008 and runs through the 2015-16 season, works out to an average of about $930 million a year. That's a 22% increase over the $765-million average under the current agreement, industry sources said.

Irvine Mayor Christina Shea received a curious telephone call last fall. The caller told Shea he represented an NBA team interested in moving to the city, though he declined to identify himself or the team. That unsolicited call, sketchy as it was, resuscitated spirits in the offices of the Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim. Tony Guanci, a Newport Beach resident and a sports industry consultant, was the mystery caller.

Terence Stansbury never won anything. He scored only 1,200 points in his three-year NBA career, and his most memorable shots didn't count for any of them. Either you remember him or you don't. He was a brief comet that flashed through the NBA's celestial gatherings many years ago, an asterisk to All-Star weekend. Terence Stansbury? The name is put to Shaquille O'Neal. He starts singing. "We don't have to take our clothes off." "Oh," he says. "That was Terrence Trent D'Arby."

As the first decade of the New Millenium runs out, I'd like to say, on behalf of the NBA: That was only 10 years? It seemed longer, like the Hundred Years War. The NBA has had a dramatic rise from its arrival as the bumpkin of major league sports, but also has had setbacks that were like Columbus finding the world was flat, after all, and sailing off it, before its 21st century adventure. The 1970s were supposed to be the NBA decade after the New York Knicks won two titles and Madison Avenue flipped for Walt Frazier and Willis Reed (and Greenwich Village, at least, for house hippie Phil Jackson)

The NBA player was only 2 inches tall, but he left quite an impression on Memphis Grizzlies guard Mike Conley. Conley was playing the popular video game NBA2K9 when a virtual Rajon Rondo appeared to go in for a layup. Instead, he pushed back off his left foot, deftly landed on his right and then made a short jumper from the paint. So Conley added the move, dubbed the Euro Step, to his personal repertoire of shots last season. "I hadn't really thought about it until it happened in the video game," Conley said.

In arguably the greatest finish to an exhibition game in world history -- taking into account that even conducting such an argument would indicate lunacy or at least acute boredom -- a basketball hovered on a high arc as a rapt crowd inhaled. Then, as if it mattered, that ball dropped cleanly through the hoop and the O2 Arena roared, especially the Chicago Bulls, who acted like they'd won something with their court-corner love-in of group hugs and gaping grins and slaps of the formidable back of the rookie James Johnson.

Clippers guard Baron Davis arrived last month at Mumbai Airport in India and stepped into a taxicab. He immediately noticed how India's driving habits hinge more on aggressiveness and efficiency than conventional traffic signs. "A dog was walking across the street and the driver was going 70 [miles per hour] and not looking," Davis said. "The closer it gets, I'm in the back of the car screaming like 'Aghhhhh'! Then he goes right past the dog, laughs and says, 'stupid American.

This was supposed to be the appetizer for the highly awaited main course of NBA free agency next summer. But if it wasn't already obvious to interested parties, it became painfully clear on Thursday that the eventful last nine days around the league have expanded well beyond a mere first course. And if you want to keep the food analogy going -- and no, this has absolutely nothing to do with Shaquille O'Neal's draft-day trade to Cleveland -- just look at the latest bloated deal.

Blame it on the economy. Or that so few NBA teams are far enough under the salary cap to sign an impact free agent. Or that many more big names -- LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh among them -- could be available next summer. Whatever the reason, free agency won't be a free-for-all when it starts Wednesday, even though Lakers fans might expect otherwise since forwards Lamar Odom and Trevor Ariza are able to sign with any team that winks back at them.

Where insanity happens. Trying to judge the impact of last summer's Tim Donaghy scandal, I recently called around to assess the reaction of the congenitally suspicious core audience . . . the gamblers. It turned out there was no impact. The Donaghy blockbuster, the latest story that seemed to presage The Death of the NBA, quickly faded away in what turned out to be a great season for the league.

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Basketball already is a job for Kevin Love. His schedule before this week proves it. He's awake and eating breakfast by 6:30 a.m. He has made the trip from his Westwood apartment to the Home Depot Center in Carson by 8:15 a.m. There he joins UCLA teammate Luc Richard Mbah a Moute and Arizona's Chase Budinger in a weight room where the three players spend 90 minutes doing workouts tailored for their particular needs by Joe Abunassar, founder and owner of Impact Basketball.

Not that DeMar DeRozan is an expert on the city of Toronto, but a recent visit left him impressed. "I was up there about a day and a half, great town, ate, saw the city and it was beautiful," he said. "It reminded me of a mini-New York." Now he'll get a chance to know it a lot better.

Jimmy Fallon executed a neat spin move in the bustling hallway outside the various green rooms at his show at NBC and looked up at the future of a basketball franchise. "Oh my God, you're the tallest dude," Fallon said, craning his head to see Blake Griffin. That established, he moved on to another physical point. They compared the size of their hands, at Fallon's request.