Want intrigue? Look to the postseason -- NHL, not NBA

As the San Jose Sharks were moping disconsolately through the reception line for the end of their season Monday morning, a thought struck.

Not a great thought, we grant you. Four overtimes of hockey will cause even the mightiest brain to blister.

Mike Modano and the Stars still had enough energy to celebrate Monday morning. (Getty Images)

But with the end of the first round of both the NBA and NHL playoffs, two things became clear. One, the NBA may still have Kobe, CP3, the PGA and Chuck Barkley, but its games have been defined more by negatives than positives. And two, the NHL has been just the opposite.

Now this is not a statement about one being better. That's one of those arguments that starts off stupid and ends worse, and we're not trying to convince you of anything. In other words, if you have a comment along those lines, go waste it on your kids. One, they won't listen any more than we will, and two, you don't have to be hooked up to make it.

But this much is true: The NBA playoffs so far have been defined more by what didn't happen than by what did, and in those areas where something did happen, it was in signaling the end of that something.

Exhibit A: The concept of the Phoenix Suns. Dead, dead and dead, at the hands most immediately of the San Antonio Spurs and by extension Phoenix GM Steve Kerr and owner Robert Sarver. The Suns are now stripped of what made them intriguing and special, all in the name of losing in the first round of the playoffs again.

Exhibit B: The shelf life of the Dallas Mavericks. Eradicated by New Orleans, the slow-to-be-appreciated phenomenon defined by the real next big thing, Chris Paul, they came utterly undone in slow motion, first by tanking the wrong game last year so they could play the Golden State Warriors instead of the Los Angeles Clippers, then by undoing its internal wiring by trading for Jason Kidd and the disintegration of Josh Howard's game, and then by getting dusted again anyway ... that's a heap'o'failure, that is. Hard to watch, harder still to contemplate next year.

Exhibit C: The romance of the Atlanta Hawks. So close to being the new Warriors, they instead were crushed flat and then backed over repeatedly by Boston in Game 7 Sunday, thereby undoing at least part of what made them so charming, let alone riveting. We're now not sure what they are, and as much as you want to believe that they are on the come, the size of their losses and the 45 defeats make you wonder in ways you didn't wonder about with the Warriors.

Exhibit D: The Washington Wizards. In a word, feh. It two words, neck beard. Don't talk it until you can walk it, kids.

Exhibit E: Tracy McGrady. Didn't even notice him, let alone the team he plays on. Maybe if Yao Ming had been healthy, but ... oh, but nothing. No buyers here.

What the NBA still has is its marquee names, its fantasy Celtics-Lakers final (although anything would be at least decently appealing), and, well, Barkley. The league is transitioning from old stars to new, and while rebirth is always fascinating, the old growth has not yet been cleared out, making this a playoff season of goodbyes first, and goodbyes often tend to suck.

The NHL, on the other hand, got a four-overtime game in Dallas on Sunday night, and four overtimes by definition have a mutant beauty that validates it even if the hockey itself is a bit sterile.

It also has two longshots in Dallas and Philadelphia (the NBA went essentially according to Hoyle), it has a delightfully elegant old-school team in Detroit and the hot new thing in Pittsburgh still in play. That would be the NHL's Celtics-Lakers, if you're looking for a parallel, and might even be enough to hook a casual fan or six.

And while it doesn't have a Canadian team still alive for the first time in five years, their dollar still makes ours like a place mat, and they still will have plenty of fun making pointed and bitter light of their teams anyway for their obvious lack of patriotism, dignity and pride. You think your team has haters? Be a Toronto Maple Leaf and find out how an entire nation is sickened by your very presence.

In other words, the NHL will take its annual ratings beating, but it has as much to offer potentially as the NBA in terms of story lines that don't make you spit on the dog. Then again, at least the NBA got its tragidramas out of the way quickly, and that acknowledgement alone suggests that it can fix what has been a pretty pedestrian beginning.

But a three- or four-overtime game wouldn't kill them either.