When is the NBA Going to Stop Making Love to Lebron James and Dwayne Wade?

Attention fans of the National Basketball Association- your favorite league is cheating on you. Listen, I know you've been a big fan of the league ever since you and your dad watched games together when you were little. I know you have devoted countless Saturday afternoons to matinee games and endless nights staying up to cheer on your team while they were away on the West coast. I know you have bought the jerseys, the programs, the Nike shoes and all the memorabilia your paycheck or wife allows you to. I know that you are in love with the NBA, and that's why it is so hard for me to break this news to you. Whether you like it or not, your passion for the league doesn't matter- it is sleeping in another bed. The NBA is involved in an incestuous love affair with two of its own, one that has become more and more obvious in the last two seasons. Your league is making sweet, sweaty man love to Lebron James and Dwayne Wade.

I first noticed that maybe the NBA was spending too much time away from us in the playoffs last season. Yeah, the league claimed to be on a business trip, but we all knew better. Our sweetheart was arranging special lunch-dates and dinner/movie combos with some kid in Miami and another punk in Cleveland. You were in denial at first; we all were. We saw the commercials on TV, we saw the post game coverage, we heard the analysts talk about these two young guns like they were the second coming of Christ (or at least the second coming of Kareem). We didn't want to think that the NBA was showing obvious preference to two players in a league of over 350, it just wouldn't make sense.

You had seen this happening before, with some superstar straight out of high school named Kobe Bryant. He won some championships and looked like he was going to make quite the career for himself, and our league began to casually show affection towards him. Just some light touching at first, then some heavy petting and eventually kissing with tongue. But Bryant decided to let his guard down and he was accused of raping a teenager, and it scared the NBA away from any chance of a great love affair.

The NBA swore off all men, and played the field for a season or two, trying to show appreciation for all players, big and small, talented and untalented. But we all knew deep down inside that the league was just looking for its next partner, its next sweetheart, its next muscular young man to devote all its time to. Then Lebron and Dwayne came around. Lebron was supposed to be the next "chosen one," and every time he accomplished anything on the hardwood his statistics would be compared to the likes of Bird, Jordan, Magic, and Wilt. When Lebron so much as took an unusually high number of breaths in a game, ESPN and TNT were right there with a full-screen to show how that number of breaths compared to how many the hall-of-famers took on average. As the league began to pursue Lebron, another man-child came out of the wood work and caught the eye of the NBA. Dwayne Wade wasn't expected to amount to much immediately out of college, but boy did he ever. Suddenly these two young men were the best players ever to lace up a Nike, and before you could say "overrated," the two of them were infallible. Every time something went wrong for Cleveland or Miami, it was because James and Wade didn't have enough help. They were never at fault, and soon the NBA was completely oblivious to every other player in its league.

Perennial all stars with names like Duncan, Arenas, Nowitzki, Billups, and Nash were being forgotten in lieu of the lust for James and Wade. Every game, even if it was between Golden State and Atlanta, focused on Lebron's recent achievements or how much a player like Wade would benefit either team. And as soon as the game would cut to commercial, you'd see a new Sprite ad featuring King James, or maybe a Reebok advertisement with Wade playing hoops with children. And you, the fans, were hung out to dry. Your favorite league didn't care about your hometown teams or players anymore. Unless you lived in Miami or Cleveland you could consider yourself forgotten.

And that brings us to today. You are still alone. You sometimes cheat on the NBA with some hockey on the Versus channel, just to see if your former love is still paying any attention. You know deep down inside that it isn't. The league is still all about two specific superstars, no matter what player is succeeding and what team is winning. In this year's playoffs, the Heat have already been eliminated and the Cavaliers will be soon to follow, and this will leave the NBA longing for their incestuous relationship. Live shots in the NBA Finals will cut back and forth from game play to the living rooms of Wade and James, just to see if they are enjoying the action. And you, the fan, must face the reality that you have been left behind by a league all about overrated superstars, inflated egos, and advertising dollars. You would give anything for just one more game from the 80's between the Celtics and the Knicks in Madison Square Garden... and so would I.