Sources: The NBA Season Is Upon Us

Kobe & Phil are here to remind us the NBA tips off tonight.

Sources close to The Big Dead Sidebar tell us the NBA season begins tonight.  I was very hesitant to believe these sources until I received additional info that four (count 'em) four games kick off the 2009-10 season.

Huh?

And this is why I can't get excited about the National Basketball Association.  It's Opening Night and you have four games.  That's it.  Maybe I'm upset because I'm spoiled.  When the NFL kicks off, we get a full slate of Sunday games.  Same for the MLB, which sees every team in action on Opening Day.

I know The Association wants eyes fixated on TNT for its doubleheader featuring Boston vs. Cleveland and Lakers vs. Clippers ... but at what cost?  My beloved Bulls aren't slated to get underway until Thursday against San Antonio.  Sure, it gives me more time to prepare my Bulls preview blog, but if not for ESPN.com's front page, I would have assumed it was just another day between me and the beginning of the World Series.

And to be honest, the newsworthiness of the opening of another NBA season pales in comparison to the newsworthiness of the upcoming World Series ... or hell ... another week in the NFL.  But before you even argue that point, remember there are only four flippin' games on tonight.  Four.  Yes, the MLB and NFL each open with one single game, but there's glitz and glamour that surround that one game.  It's the only game in town for a reason.

Am I supposed to get pumped about the Lakers-Clippers game?  Even if Blake Griffin was 100 percent healthy.  That would be like opening the baseball season with a game between the Yankees and the Kansas City Royals.  Or an NFL opener starring the New England Patriots and Detroit Lions.

The NBA has done a lot recently to stir my juices ... whether it be allowing the SuperSonics to vanish into thin air without much of a fight, or handing its TV deal to ESPN and its set of buffoonish broadcasters and analysts.

And really, all I want is a full slate of games.  Instead, I find myself ready to countdown the days until the playoff season that somehow always finds a way to feel longer than the regular season that preceded it.