NBA on Christmas: 10 Lumps of Coal from Opening Day Television Coverage

Yesterday's highly anticipated start to the 2011-12 NBA season brought as much Yuletide cheer to basketball fans watching the five-game marathon on TNT, ABC and ESPN as a shovel full of coal in a Christmas stocking hanging from the fireplace.  

Following an abbreviated preseason due to a protracted labor negotiation, yesterday's games were definitely not pretty. In a league touted as the place where "amazing happens," little if anything witnessed by TV viewers came close to qualifying as amazing.  

Let's face it. Teams weren't ready, play was sloppy, guys aren't in shape and pandering sportscasters made excuses for the lackluster play. The five games resembled lumps of coal in a Christmas stocking rather than glittering gifts basketball fans had eagerly anticipated.  

Here's my list of the top 10 lumps of Christmas coal from yesterday's day-long basketball coverage:   

Lump No. 1: The old, slow-footed, out-of-sync Boston Celtics playing without star Paul Pierce barely resembled a perennial NBA elite team.  

Lump No. 2: The older, slower-footed, more out-of-sync Dallas Mavericks, starting this season without stars Tyson Chandler and J.J. Barea from last year's championship squad, struggled and played poorly on the same day the team unfurled its 2010-11 NBA Championship banner before the game.  

Lump No. 3: The young, fleet-footed and anxiously anticipated new kids on the block in Southern California, the L.A. Clippers, should have appeared during prime time rather than nearing midnight, so East Coast viewers could enjoy "Lob City" before calling it a day.  

Lump No. 4: Lamar Odom, the NBA's "original Mrs. Kardashian" (sorry, Kris!) and normally mellow former Los Angeles Laker, got booted out of his first game as a Mav. Not even the cantankerous Mark Cuban could support such inexcusable behavior, Christmas Day or not.  

Lump No. 5: Kevin Garnett, always a trash-talking instigator but never a fighter, should get his comeuppance later this week via fine and possible suspension for foolishly swinging at New York Knicks' Billy Walker following KG's potential game-winner missed at Madison Square Garden.  

Lump No. 6: Lebron James' James Harden impersonation or whatever you call his new beard. Why would this extraordinarily talented, oft-maligned and misunderstood NBA superstar subject himself to future media lampooning and disparagement by sporting such unnecessary facial hair?

Lump No. 7: Dwight Howard, a major distraction to his very own team for pining to be traded out of Orlando as the new season starts, once again demonstrated little leadership and less offensive skill against a superior OKC Thunder squad.  

Lump No. 8: Shaq, an unmitigated disaster in his debut as TNT's new basketball talking head. Inarticulate and nervous behind the TNT desk, the Big Fella looked terribly uncomfortable in the broadcast booth and needs to be operating freestyle away from the set to best utilize his insight and talent.  

Lump No. 9: Kobe Bryant, arguably the game's best finisher, enjoyed an earlier-than-expected Christmas dinner when Chicago Bulls forward Luol Deng stuffed his potential game-winning shot down his throat following Kobe's eighth turnover that led to Derrick Rose's game winner with four seconds left.  

Lump No. 10: ABC and ESPN announcers constantly made excuses for yesterday's consistently below-average play while shamelessly pandering to an angry, agitated Kobe Bryant on Christmas Day. On a holiday when family and faithfulness were being collectively celebrated, the network could have easily interviewed and reported on a more deserving—and better behaved—family man.  

The overall play in the five-bill Christmas Day coverage fell way short of NBA fans' expectations yesterday. Kinda like when an adoring wife expects to be "amazed" by a diamond ring from Tiffany's jewelers and what "happens" instead is she's surprised by a cubic zirconia from Walmart.  

However, despite those Christmas clumps of coal we witnessed yesterday, what did arise for basketball fans is what should become this NBA season's glimmering diamond, the Miami Heat. 

Without the hype, minus the fanfare and missing last year's bravado, King James and company impressed all NBA viewers with their easy dismantling of the last year's champ, the Dallas Mavericks.  

Yes, the Heat should gleam as the NBA's diamond this year while causing fear and leaving lumps (though not necessarily of coal) in the throats of all would-be challengers for the 2012 NBA Championship in June.   

Straight talk. No static.