By Mike Kahn
CBS SportsLine Executive Editor
Oct. 29, 1998

Maybe it doesn't have the same drama as the dewy smell of spring training and the crack of the bat, or the leaves changing colors with a chill in the air as the first growls of the NFL ring in your ears.

But

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for the past 14 years, squeaking sneakers and the shrill whistles of the NBA have dominated my every November.

So much for that.

If you haven't noticed, the NBA has canceled all of its games for November as negotiations over a new labor agreement remain in gridlock, and a large portion of the best referees in the NBA are out of the game for at least this season, paying huge sums of money for an airline ticket scam they attempted to hide from the IRS.

There have been better times in the NBA.

This is no time to change theories. Again, it will be the Christmas Day doubleheader that will unveil the 1998-99 version of the NBA. Everyone will be in a good mood. Commissioner David Stern will have the obligatory extensive interview with Bob Costas, and the fruits of the NBA spin doctors' labor will be on exhibit for all.

Word on the streets is, the NBA will have figured out a way to replace the games of November by the middle of the month. We can only hope they don't extend the regular season beyond April -- because the NBA Finals in July will do nothing but aggravate everybody further.

MEANWHILE, WE CONSIDER THE alternatives of November. It will be great for the home life. No basketball games chasing me out of the house on week nights, and no tough decisions regarding NBA vs. NFL or college football on the weekend.

Actually, this is beginning to sound intriguing . . . like maybe the game shouldn't start until the end of December or early January, anyway.

But that would be a lie from deep in my soul. For all the quirks and foibles of my person, one thing is certain.

I'll always be funky, because I'm a basketball junkie.

There have been too many great early season basketball games to consider blowing it off. I'll never forget that Celtics-Pacers game in 1984 when Clark Kellogg tipped in a missed shot for the Pacers at the buzzer for an unlikely victory. In the elevator after the game, Celtics star Dennis Johnson derided fans for being so happy, "Because it's just a regular-season game and your guys ain't goin' anywhere anyhow."

It was a fun game and told me everything I ever needed to know about DJ . . . and will answer any questions you might have as to why he isn't coaching in the NBA.

NOT COVERING THE PACERS ON A DAILY basis, limited the number of memories from Naptown. But covering 95 percent of the Sonics games for nine years made for plenty of interesting times. And we won't even count the two games in Yokohama, Japan with the Rockets to open the 1992-93 season, if only because that was a separate story by itself.

There was the opener in the Forum against the Lakers in 1987, when the Sonics overcame nearly all off a 22-point deficit in the final five minutes of the game and Olden Polynice went to the free-throw line with the Sonics trailing by two. He then proceeded to unfurl the worst free throw anyone in the crowd of 17,505 and the media had ever seen. It hit the padding under the right side of the backboard, then his second attempt was exceedingly hard and he made sure it hit the rim (and nearly broke it).

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar got the rebound, fired an outlet pass to Magic Johnson who was fouled by Nate McMillan. Magic, sank both free throws for the 113-109 victory. Afterward, Polynice took it like a man, and talked about the embarrassment, although the peanut butter crackers spewing out of his mouth as he talked were actually funnier than the free throw.

The next season's opener was special for another reason. In Salt Lake City to meet the Jazz, I had planned on a brief sit down with coach Frank Layden. Always the funny man, joking about being vastly overweight which he no longer is, ("I was wearing a yellow suit the other day and for some reason a car drove by and dropped film in my pocket."), Layden broke into an almost desperate diatribe.

The media is supposed to be clear of the locker room 45 minutes before tipoff, but Layden wouldn't let me leave until it was 15 minutes before hand. Twice assistant Jerry Sloan came in to get him. He had begun to hate the expectations and the intensity of crowds breathing down his neck.

"It's like being in a cage and I can't take it anymore, I may resign after tonight's game," he said.

I didn't believe he would retire that night, but I knew he wouldn't last more than a month and wrote the story that way. The Sonics won the game 104-97, and Dale Ellis put on one of the greatest perimeter-shooting exhibitions I'd ever seen, scoring 46 points. As for Layden, he retired from coaching 17 games into the 1988-89 season, giving way to Sloan, who now has the longest continuous tenure with one team of any coach in the NBA.

No NBA retrospective of the past 15 years would be complete without Larry Bird or Michael Jordan. Since they are obviously in the opposite conference, the Sonics didn't always play either the Celtics or Bulls early in the season. But on one particular night in Boston, the second week of December in 1989, the underachieving Sonics were leading the Celtics midway through the third quarter in the Boston Garden. Bird, who had been taken out for a breather, returned and immediately got the ball on the left wing in front of the visiting writers. Derrick McKey, an exceptional defensive player for the Sonics at the time, smiled at Bird and swiped at the ball before uttering, "show me what you've got."

BIRD STUCK A 20-FOOTER RIGHT IN HIS face, and scored the ensuing four trips down the floor as well ... 12 points, including two 3-pointers, in that span of less than three minutes. A five-point deficit turned into a seven-point lead. The Sonics called timeout and Bird walked right into McKey on the way off the floor -- again in front of the media -- nudged him and said, "That's what I got." Needless to say, the Celtics won going away. Ironically, Bird is now McKey's coach on the Pacers, and leans on McKey as his defensive stopper.

And lastly, a similar mouthy scenario unfolded after the Sonics had beaten the Bulls in the preseason of the 1990-91 season in Vancouver, during Gary Payton's rookie year. Jordan wasn't particularly into the game, the Sonics won and it was no big deal. At least it wasn't until some writers gathered around Payton, whose mouth preceded his game as an All-Star performer. He went on and on about what a great defender he was and Jordan couldn't do to him what he does to everybody else.

When the Bulls showed up in the Seattle Center Coliseum a few weeks later in the regular season, Payton retained that cocky veneer to the point the media was just dying for the game to start. Jordan stripped Payton of the ball the first two trips down the floor and five minutes into the game, the Bulls were up 16-2. Jordan had 12. Payton was on the bench (or should we say hiding underneath it), and the Bulls won by 21.

So remember earlier in this column, which essentially said the first two months don't matter anyway? Don't believe it. That's total recall from five games spread over 14 years of games that happened in just the first five weeks of the season.

There are plenty more where those came from. You'll have to excuse me, I really do miss the squeaky sneakers and shrill whistles of the NBA. It's just easier to deny it.