A Look Inside The NBA: 1999-2000 Season

The NBA season is well underway and fans have vastly differing opinions of it so far. Some still miss Michael Jordan and feel that the league will never be as exciting as when he was playing. Others will also miss MJ, but like the opportunity of seeing something other than a Bulls game on Sunday. They like the crop of exciting new teams that they have emerged since Jordan left the game. Others think that the quality of play in the NBA has and will continued to pale in comparison to that of the NCAA Championship Tournament. All fans, however, love the game of basketball in whatever their personal way may be.

Last year's NBA finals, while lacking the dominant presence and magical play of Michael Jordan, certainly contained more exciting series and close games than the Jordan era ever did. The Portland Trailblazers, one of the deepest teams in the league, who played Rascheed Wallace off the bench, provided many fans with an exciting run to their Confrence's finals before falling to the dominant San Antonio Spurs. The Spurs, in turn, showed those who felt that they were never going to win a championship how wrong they were.

Jordan is gone, he decided to retire at the ripe age of 35, spending his time cutting a few 1-800-COLLECT commercials to add to his already enormous income and coming up with his own male fragrance line. When Michael Jordan left the Chicago Bulls and the NBA, many in the Windy City wondered whether it was the end of an era for the Chicago Bulls team. With the Bulls performance last season, it seems as though the greatest fears of Chicago fans came true with the team's roster literally crumbling with veteran players such as Scottie Pippen leaving the team after Jordan split. Jordan was Chicago and without the respect which Jordan's play demands and deserves, the Bulls are just another NBA team, no better and no worse than the Milwaukee Bucks. With the departure of Jordan, a new generation of talent in the NBA has found room to emerge into the spotlight. Among that generation are Spurs' power forward Tim Duncan, L.A Clippers' Lamar Odom, Houston Rockets' Steve Francis and perhaps the player most Jordan-esque, Toronto Raptors' small forward Vince Carter.

These players have arrived at a time in which players like Charles Barkley, Karl Malone, John Stockton- for that matter most of the original Dream Team- face the end of their careers. They have injected the league with a burst of youth and athleticism greatly needed as these old greats fade fromt he league. The league will lose the career leader for assists in John Stockeon, but it has Sacramento's Jason Williams, one of the most exciting passers in the game, and Jason Kidd a constant triple-double threat.

Fans love a dynasty. Every generation loves to be able to tell the one which came before that they saw a great athlete play and they were sitting on their couch when a great team won the title. Howevever, a season is made more interesting when fans have the option of seeing a myriad of entertaining teams. One must wonder if this new generation of potential basketball greats can truly fill the shoes of their predecessors. This trend has occured throuhgout multiple generations inside the world of the NBA, yet with many calling Michael Jordan the greatest basketball player of all-time, the shoes which this "new generation" must fill seem a little too big.

What makes a legend? It's more than just breaking records and posting outstanding numbers throughout a long and solid career. A legend has a prescence that surrounds him on and off the court. He brings it with him wherever he goes: practices, press conferences, charity events and especially in the public eye. Michael Jordan is a legend. Larry Bird is a legend. They have earned this status somehow without even being formally named a "legend". It's hard to tell who dubs these great players as legends, whether it is the fans, the media, or the players themselves. Will Duncan and Iverson be the next legends? We'll see.