Cumbersome

This LeBron in 2010 talk is quite cumbersome.

As they do daily, the NBA sends a digest of team and player news from the night before. Below the main story, they have a section devoted to stories from local and national media outlets.

You would think that the league would try not to add on to or at least curtail the swarms of misinformation and speculation, yet, lo and behold...

The title of the email is actually "Lakers on a Roll, Knicks Await LeBron, Power Rankings and More!‏"

If you're a fan of the NBA and you have no investment in either LeBron James, the New York Knicks or even the Cleveland Cavailiers, you must be feeling like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day right about now.

Even though there is a post drafted that basically questions the logic of both the New York Knicks' current regime and the league at large for fanning the flames of this discussion... it's just exhausting to even finish at this point.

However, one of the most insightful writings about this subject comes from Kelly Dwyer, veteran blogger for Ball Don't Lie. Dwyer asks the one question that only the coveted player himself seems to be asking these days; Can we let him play?

He asserts:

"This thing is so far away from even getting to the point of developing a part of a picture that we can observe and then ably guess at that it is borderline ridiculous to offer anything more than a shrug of the shoulders and a "could happen" between now and the latter part of the 2009-10 season."

While Dwyer hits the nail on the head with each point, he misses one completely that even the most ardent NBA fan doesn't think about very often. One of the worst aspects about the NBA is trade speculation, especially when it comes to this very metropolis this Scribe calls the hometown. Every superstar player save for the late George Mikan - and who knows, this may be true of him as well - has been rumored to be traded to or sign as a free agent to the Knicks. Very few of these rumors have ever come true (Latrell Sprewell's trade to New York after his suspension was at least five years after early whispers) or come within a whisker to fruition (apparently, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was almost a Knick back in 1975). Yet, the rumors persist because someone has a jonesing for the Five Boroughs or a disdain for everyone else outside of them (New Jersey, included).

And now, you have twenty months to tell yourself that after years of Michael Jordan-to-the-Knicks rumors from Peter Vescey that number 23 will blaze on the Madison Square Garden hardwood after all.

Don't you think the Knicks should figure out who is going to be the starting shooting guard for the next twenty months without Jamal Crawford?

Don't you think the media around here should pay attention to the current roster as it tries to salvage any semblance of order for the next five months?

Don't you think that LeBron should tell everyone to back off until the time comes? Or, to borrow Dwyer's eloquence: "So chill. Please, everyone, just cool out. COOL OUT!"