The 2007-08 NBA Season - The Beautiful Game

I can't stop watching basketball. In the past weeks it's become a gripping addiction.

I found myself watching the Houston Chicago game last night, two teams that I almost despise watching. I think there are even some fans of the two who would agree that neither team plays a particularly exciting brand of basketball. But I had to watch.

How were Larry Hughes and Drew Gooden going to fit in Chicago? Can the Rockets keep their remarkable play going (no matter how many games they win, it's still not all that exciting to watch)? I was amazed by how quickly easily I could get sucked into this game, and a testament to just how good this NBA season is. To answer my previous questions, the Bulls new players fit in fairly well, and the Bulls as a team continued to play fairly not quite good (that's the only way I can describe it). Houston on the other hand is continuing it's streak of brilliant play by being the most boring western conference team to watch. I can't wait for the Rockets to drag out the first round to seven excruciating games so they can lose again. By game 5 every NBA fan in the country (outside of Houston) will be hoping for the series to just be over already. I can't wait!

I had to watch the Cavs play a mostly terrible Memphis team to find out how the new players would fit together and to begin to answer the burning question in Cleveland and Chicago, was Ben Wallace cartering it with the Bulls? (For those unfamiliar with the verb "cartering" it is defined as; losing interest, giving up, forfeiting effort, turning cities and countries against you. That's right ladies and gentlemen, Vince Carter is now a verb!)

The answer was a resounding "maybe."

I even had to watch the entirety of the blowout that was the Suns - Pistons game. Mostly to watch the results of this Shaq experiment unfold. Something that I'm slowly drawing conclusions upon that I'll touch on after I've watched a few more games. Partly to find out exactly how the Pistons are good. Everyone I ask about this looks at me like I'm crazy. Like it's just a given that the Detroit Pistons are a good basketball team. For some reason I'm still not sold, record, statistics and other objective measures be damned!

Then there was the Lakers - Sonics game. I don't care how loathed the Lakers may around many parts of the country. Any basketball fan should be watching them every chance they get because they are simply playing an exceedingly beautiful brand of basketball right now.

Jason Kidd has 32 assists in his last two games, grabbing 17 of them last night. To say that my interest has been piqued would be putting it mildly, even though I really didn't like the trade for Dallas, and still don't.

None of this even takes into account that the pre-trade deadline media darling, the Boston Celtics, were in action against an intriguing Portland team.

Just another night in the 2007-08 NBA regular season.