There's more to LeBron James' game than high-flying dunks. David Liam Kyle/Getty Images

The NBA is dead. It's broke, busted, messed up, such a horrible mess that it's not even worth our valuable time or attention.

At least, that's what the New York Times is telling us. This story from Sunday's New York Times Magazine, titled "Clang!," used the same tired lines of thought other writers have exploited for the last four years or so. The writer, Michael Sokolove, begins by complaining about the slam dunk, saying, "When you see the shoes in the 30-second spot, what is the wearer of those shoes always doing?" (Always? He doesn't mention the recent Richard Jefferson ad in which he does nothing but work on improving his jump shot, or the current ad with Kevin Garnett, Tim Duncan and Tracy McGrady standing around not dunking, nor the ad in which LeBron James calmly sinks a jumper to vanquish evil dudes, or the ad with Chauncey Billups nailing a mid-range shot. Always?)

He tries to draw a loose corollary between NBA teams and social interaction, saying the teams that succeed play as if they care for each other. I'd point out here that Kobe and Shaq won three titles while barely speaking to one another, but I guess that wouldn't bolster his point.

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He writes about how poorly the U.S. Olympic team played, despite the coaching of "noted basketball teacher" Larry Brown. He doesn't mention how Brown kept Amare Stoudemire and LeBron, two of the NBA's brightest players this season, chained to the bench throughout the games.

And he says that the NBA needs, above all else, for its players to "get older."

I don't know Sokolove. He could be a great, thoughtful guy. This column is not meant to be an indictment of him as much as it is of this same story, which we keep hearing over and over and over: What happened to the NBA? Publications that don't understand sports love to fall back on this line of thought. They'll find a player or coach from an older era and let him rant about how the kids today are too sloppy (see this month's interview with Larry Bird in GQ) or lack fundamentals (stick a microphone in front of John Wooden or Red Auerbach and you'll get an earful).

So what did happen to the NBA? Well, basically, it grew up and grew out. Michael, Magic, Larry, they got gray and moved on. They made the League money, and the League got greedy and wanted more and added more teams. Which meant more jobs, and this meant more players. This begat younger players.

As for kids in the League, it's about the contracts. A few years ago, I talked to Player's Association president Billy Hunter about this, and he pointed out that with the way the League currently has guaranteed contracts for six years, the younger you are when you "get on the clock," the more contracts (and cash) you can squeeze into your career. (When I asked David Stern about this, he said, "I assure you, if that was ever the issue, we'd negotiate around that as we negotiate around everything. That's not even a driving issue.")