One of Those Years.

By MC

First off all, it's great to be back in this bubble in cyberspace after so long. Now, onto today's order of business.

In the NBA, there are some years when, no matter who's in the running for a title, no matter how high up in the stratosphere the league is in terms of notoriety, and no matter how invincible the purported, "world's greatest athletes" seem to be, the injury bug seems to creep up on everyone and unabashedly wipe some of the luster off of an otherwise stellar NBA fascade.

2008-2009 seems to be one of those cycles of 365.

Look at who's gone down with major injuries this year- Tracy McGrady (like we didn't see this coming), Al Jefferson, Amare Stoudemire, Michael Redd, Gilbert Arenas (like we didn't see this coming either), Carlos Boozer, Kevin Garnett, and Elton Brand, just to name a few.

Talk about sucking the league dry of its star power.

On the upside of this plague exists an opportunity for lesser known players (i.e. Paul Millsap, Ryan Gomes) to nab some of the spotlight from their more noteworthy compatriots towards having career years. The downside of losing this much starpower, though, is that, not only does the league tend to fill fewer seats, but, that the outcomes of certain matchups become more and more predictable.

For example...

Could you imagine Dallas getting past a San Antonio or LA should its Bird-esque star Dirk Nowitzki go down? Or, could you imagine Orlando being a lock for playoff glory sans Dwight Howard? Of course not. And while there are more compelling storylines in the NBA that a pundit like me could focus on, this seems to be something that has become more and more unnoticed, especially now that it seems so entrenched in both the Eastern and Western Conference power struggles already (there's LA and San Antonio, and everybody else in the West, and Boston, Orlando, and Cleveland, and everybody else, in the East). It's unavoidable for some teams to move ahead of the pack during any NBA season, however, the discrepancies are so glaring at this point that fans of lower wrung teams could very well be in for a "teen slasher flick" type ending to their season rather than one befitting a fit and fab Oscar winning picture.

Scenarios, like Kobe going down, or Paul Pierce and Ray Allen showing their ages, though, is a whole other ballgame. That would be having the injury bug's polarity getting reversed so as foster more balance rather than the fragmenting of Pangaea.

If this goes on, as it has been, we may even see Charlie Villanueva get into the running for MVP and Kevin Love become Rookie of the Year.

Stay tuned for the next set of casts coming on, and the next few coming off, over the next few weeks. The run up to the 2009 postseason could be the most thrilling, or predictable, denouements we're going to see in a very long time.

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