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A new zone for MJ Jordan should come back, but not with the Wizards
It is revealing of the popular difficulties the National Basketball Association is having that, even as its regular season approaches its conclusion, with a tremendous race in the powerful Western Conference, most of the attention is being devoted to what might happen next year. The NBA has voted in significant rule changes, while Michael Jordan continues to let his candidacy for a return to action be teased, in a campaign of coquetry that we have not seen since the antebellum Scarlett O'Hara was leading on the Tarleton twins, as they sat on the porch at Tara. Ah, but first the rules changes. By far the most serious -- and provocative -- is the legalization of the zone defense, which has been prohibited since the league's inception more than a half-century ago. Allowing the zone defense is potentially the most important rule change in sports since baseball let in the designated hitter. The change has been made in hopes of creating more of a team game and less of the stand-around isolation play, where, in succession, one player from each team has been appointed to camp on one side of the court, feinting and diddling, one-on-one with his defender, while the other eight players bivouac in the distance. Will the zone restore movement and charm to what has become such a static exercise? Who really knows? Myself, I think that just a variety of defenses will stir things up. And the Lakers have shifted into a zone! Hey, I like the sound of that. Good for the NBA. Of course, most of the players and coaches -- who are ex-players -- have, predictably, lamented that the admission of the zone will destroy intelligent life as we know it. Listen to other critics, but pay no attention to the athletes. In all sports, players tend to be loose and liberal in their thinking -- except that they become the most hidebound of cultural conservatives whenever it comes to any change in their own little game. As for the peerless Mr. Jordan, it would be both an artistic and romantic tragedy were he to return to the NBA as a member of the Washington Wizards, a woeful franchise he partially owns and occasionally operates. No. The moving body has dunked and, having dunketh, moved on. However, if Jordan is in search of one last basketball challenge, may I suggest that he reassemble much of his 1992 Dream Team, take on board a couple other elders, and petition the United States basketball pooh-bahs to let him lead a squad composed of 40-year-olds in the 2004 Olympics. Now wouldn't that be wonderful fun, to see if a team of our best American graybeards could still beat the rest of the world's top players in their prime? Along with Jordan, the most prominent of others in their fifth decade who could make up the team would be Charles Barkley, who would play Sancho Panza to Jordan's Don Quixote. Hey, Karl Malone, John Stockton, Patrick Ewing and Chris Mullin remain active in the NBA. So does Hakeem Olajuwon, from the '96 U.S. team. Magic Johnson still plays exhibitions. And from the likes of Clyde Drexler, Isiah Thomas, Rolando Blackman, Dominique Wilkins, Joe Dumars, Ron Harper and Charles Oakley, we could find enough able-bodied 40-year-olds to round out the roster. Even give Dennis Rodman the last spot. Oh, sure, the stodgy bureaucrats who run USA Basketball would have a fit, but public pressure, the world over (not to mention from Nike), would force our federation to hand the 2004 teamto the 40-year-olds. Michael, please, forget Washington in the fall of 2001. Come back in Athens during the summer of 2004. And don't forget: They play zone defense in the Olympics. These commentaries, which appear each Wednesday on National Public Radio's Morning Edition, are posted weekly by CNNSI.com. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.
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