Big ups to my buddy Pat Somerville, who celebrated the release of his new novel, The Cradle last night at the Book Cellar. Colleen O’Brien, whose mini-book will be up on the featherproof site later this month read, and I had a ton of fun reading. My pal Eamon Daly lifted a bucket of rocks with his beard for charity, raising $155 for Chicago’s oldest Boys & Girls Club, the Off the Street Club. Just a blast in one of the country’s greatest bookstores. Check out Pat’s book, which the New York Times loved despite itself.

Last night was also crazy for basketball, with the Bulls and Heat hitting two overtimes, before Dwyane Wade stuck a ridiculous three at the buzzer. I checked the box scores last night, and was happy for my boy Ben Gordon, who went 8 for 11 from beyond the arc, racking up 43 points to D-Wade’s 48.

Then I watched the highlights on ESPN.com. Incredible. You would think that no one on the court had a good game except for Wade. It’s such an annoying ESPN move, the persistent need to create these mythical tales around a select few players. In a double-overtime game there are only two Bulls possessions featured. It’s hilarious. Check out ESPN’s highlights, then MaxaMillion711 (this YouTube genius who turns NBA games into NFL Films). Are they even taken from the same game?

While professional sports is the least of just about everyone’s concerns when it comes to what’s happening with the economy right now, I couldn’t help but find Dave Zirin’s thinking in this True Hoop post intriguing:

First and foremost, the NBA, with its high level of casual fans, is very susceptible to fluctuations in the economy. Second, the NBA doesn’t have the diverse revenue streams of baseball or certainly football. Not even close. The absence of personal cable television contracts or massive network agreements means that the NBA has always been more reliant on ticket sales and merchandise to fill its coffers. Its non-guaranteed revenue is tied to the disposable income of the typical fan. It will be interesting to see how this affects free agent positioning, the attractiveness of Europe, and the beginnings of serious saber rattling in advance of the next collective bargaining agreement.

A few things pop out to me here. The first is a lack of data on any of these points, which I don’t blame on Zirin, he was just answering a question. But I don’t see how “the attractiveness of Europe” is going to increase at all, since the problems in the economy are now obviously global.

But he makes a good point about the television contracts. I’ve never understood why the NBA hasn’t pushed this harder. They have the NBA on ABC on Sundays, but that doesn’t start up until the second half of the season (basically, when the NFL relinquishes the holy day). And even then, the NBA doesn’t allow itself the flexibility of scheduling the way the NFL does, so we were treated to the Kasib Powell–led Heat instead of, say, more than one Celtics game. This year’s schedule is the same deal. It’s no stretch to say that the most exciting team to watch this year will be the Hornets, who almost won the Western Conference last year, and they’re in for one game. Dallas, who probably won’t even make the playoffs this year, are in for five.

The NBA is stuck in a Jordan-era mindset: The only way fans will connect with the sport is to show superstars over and over (And, I guess, Nowitzki’s a superstar?). The NFL knows better, and gives its prime time slots to big-time match-ups. Great games will convert those casual fans, not a couple of pretty Kobe turn-around Js. I’ve believed this, basically since I stopped collecting cards: Sports is about the script, not the actors. Drama is what gets people to invest in sports. Admittedly, superstar personalities play into that, but the NBA relies to heavily on branding its players and not its game.

Ticket sales do seem to be an issue, and I can’t help but think the Bulls will finally see a marked downturn this year, despite drafting Derrick Rose. To my mind, the Bulls need to implement the sort of fanbase-building programs the White Sox have created, like half-price Mondays. I’ve steadily watched a large sector of my pals—who weren’t even big sports fans—gravitate toward the Sox because of half-price Mondays (and while the Cubs persistently raise ticket prices and add more “premium” games to the schedule). If the Sox can foster a base in a city still enthralled with the Cubs (despite the org’s anti-fan, classist ways), the Bulls could/should use the same methods to elevate its standing.

I just called the Cubs classist and anti-fan. I’ll just let that one sit, unsupported. It’s what blogs do!

I’m on record as both a Celtics and Bulls fan, but like all of my sports loyalties, Boston comes before Chicago. So I was interested in this story over at the Kane County Chronicle, which raises the question of whether John Paxson, GM of the disintegrating Bulls, could take a lesson from Danny Ainge’s transformation of the C’s during the last offseason. It made me wonder how often Ainge’s action will be trotted out as a best-case scenario option for fans of woebegone teams.

Trouble is, Ainge caught lightning in a bottle. I don’t think this sort of wholesale rejuvenation could happen again unless—and this of course is a possibility—the NBA is in as much disarray as it was in the summer of ‘07. The ingredients for the C’s were just too perfect. They had a high lottery pick in one of the deepest drafts in years (fifth). They had a productive player they could live without (Delonte West) and an often-injured, but valuable-when-healthy player with an outsized contract (Wally Szczerbiak). That’s not exactly a recipe for landing a star, but combine that with the mess going down in Seattle, where an impending move has ownership actively discouraging fan interest by letting loose marquee players and pleasing investors by cutting costs and going young. That’s the sort of environment you need to flip a fifth pick and two middle-of-the-road players to land a perennial All-Star like Ray Allen.

Then there’s Kevin Garnett. You have to have a guy like KG at the end of his rope, desperate to make a run for a championship, and see that something is suddenly happening with your team. Then, you have to have a marquee young player (Al Jefferson), another solid guy (Ryan Gomes), an enormous expiring contract to make the cap work (Theo Ratliff), and (this doesn’t seem essential, admittedly) two young players loaded with potential, who likely will never reach that potential but make for tantalizing bait (Sebastian Telfair and Gerald Green). It also seems necessary for the other team’s GM to be something of a modern-day miracle, in the sense that no one can figure out how he still has a job (Kevin McHale). This will bring you an MVP like Kevin Garnett.

Back on the homefront, it helps if that first acquisition (Allen) makes your team all that more desirable to the second pick-up (Garnett). But you should also have another mystery ingredient: A superstar who somehow hasn’t been traded in all of this (Paul Pierce). I still think Pierce is the lynchpin of the C’s, and is the main reason all of this worked. How many teams could trade for two superstars and not have to trade away their best player? Not only that, but your team needs to be deep enough in young talent to have young legs join with your vets. The Celtics didn’t have to trade a solid, young center (Kendrick Perkins) or an exciting, emerging point guard (Rajon Rondo). Yes, every GM stocks up young talent with the idea that, when it’s time to make a run, you can flip them for immediate help. But it seems impossible that you could trade away a ton of young talent, but retain key pieces and a superstar. The Bulls can’t do that.

So just to recap, here is what you need to remake a team the way the Celtics did: Cap flexibility, young talent, expiring contracts, a high lottery pick in a deep draft, serviceable role players you can live without, jerkface owners in another town summarily dismantling their team, an inept front office in yet another city, a superstar who wants to win badly and knows it won’t happen on the team he’s given his career to, more young talent you can somehow not trade in the process, a hometown hero to anchor the whole process, and the two acquisitions, along with that anchor, should be at the tail ends of their prime where they’re eager to lead, teach and win. Piece of cake, right?