What I'd like to see, Arenas' birthday bash and more

	Hopefully, more celebrities will take Eva Longoria's cue and start dating NBA players. AP

If you told me a year ago that 2006 would include a new type of basketball (for a while, anyway), an 81-point scorer, an Italian picked first overall in the draft and Isiah Thomas turning the Knicks into a laughingstock, I'd say you were absurd on all but one of them. 

But that's the great thing about the NBA -- it never gets stale. Nobody knows what 2007 will bring, but today we're going to deviate from our normal format of three bullet points to present five small things we'd like to see in the next year:

• More celebrity-NBA relationships:  As much as we love the NBA, it's still a bunch of sweaty, skimpily attired men running around. But if one of these sweaty men is good enough for Eva Longoria, it must be good enough for other celebrities. Hopefully, Hollywood will take its cue and follow the trend that this Desperate Housewife started. In a perfect world (re: both parties unattached), I'd recommend these celebrity-NBA couplings: Tayshaun Prince and Queen Latifah, 4-foot-11 Lil' Kim and 5-5 Earl Boykins; and an Anderson Varejao-Pam Anderson union (with former UNLV star Anderson Hunt as the best man at the wedding).

• Charles Barkley in the booth: If the NBA is all about entertainment, why not use the league's most entertaining personality as a game analyst for the playoffs instead of keeping him in the TNT studio all season? The "Round Mound of Rebound" made a rare broadcast appearance last Thursday night when he filled in for Steve Kerr on the Detroit-New Orleans game with Marv Albert. In one tangent, he castigated 67-year-old Dick Bavetta for being too old to referee and then complained that attending the game was forcing him to miss Grey's Anatomy. Those five minutes were more entertaining then 17 weeks of Tony Kornheiser. Why not make it a permanent gig?

We support headbands like the one Quentin Richardson (right) is wearing, but the thin style worn by Mike Miller (left) has gotta go. AP

• "Certain" headbands are eliminated: I'm looking at you, Mike Dunleavy and Mike Miller. Those girly, thin-string, headband-type things that hold back your hair are an embarrassment to NBA fans everywhere.

• An NBA player releases a non-rap album:  I don't care if it's Brad Miller singing his favorite Waylon Jennings songs or Zaza Pachulia putting out a polka album. It's time for the NBA to associate itself with a form of music that isn't hip-hop, for humor's sake if nothing else. Where's Wayman Tisdale and his jazz bass guitar when you need him?

• The Christies airs on a good network: No offense to BET J, but even the show's Web site boasts that their marriage is a "romantic train wreck" in which Jackie Christie is "omnipresent, controlling and clearly in charge." But BET J? That's the worst programming decision since the NHL went to OLN, excuse me, Versus. If a network is willing to give David Spade and Putty (a.k.a. Patrick Warburton) their own sitcom, they should be able to find room for Doug and Jackie.