I mentioned this before it became official

The Southeastern Conference now officially the conference of tigers, three schools have tigers as their team mascot. They are the Auburn Tigers, LSU Tigers and now Missouri Tigers. I doubt seriously if there is conference in the country with even two of the same mascots. Interesting isn't it?

Father and son

There have been several father-son combos throughout sports history. 99% of the time father was the coach and the son a player. The next two combos are different, dad's broadcasting the game his son is playing. I'm unsure of the total combos, I was witness to Bill Walton who worked a game for ESPN, his son Luke Walton spent time on the floor. Last week another father and son were in action at Staples Center. Mychal Thompson the father works as a color analyst for Laker radio broadcast. Warriors Rookie Klay Thompson is a 6-7 shooting guard who played at Washington State. Interesting both sons apparently had no problem following in their father's footsteps.

Good for Mark

By the time you read this the visit will have been concluded. Mavs owner Mark Cuban is another NBA owner upset with the league. I had reported a couple of weeks back Rockets owner Leslie Alexander was also upset with the commissioner. The Lockout and condensed schedule meant no Mavs trip this year to play the Wizards. Mavs owner Mark Cuban was upset because his team wouldn't have the opportunity for photos and meeting with the president. This ceremony greeting the president and photos has existed for a number of years, the World Series, Super Bowl and NBA Champion always met with the president. Mr. Cuban made his own arrangements no thanks to the NBA, they had an east coast road trip which allowed them to stop in Washington D.C. to meet with President Obama.

“Well, isn't that SPE-CIAL?!”

Sorry church lady I borrowed your standard line.  My friends are asking me "what's wrong with the Lakers?" My statement is "nothing," they are referring to the slow start of the team. I knew this team could score that wasn't the problem, last season it seemed they couldn't stop anyone from scoring. I can see Mike Brown's influence already. The Lakers are in 3rd place among NBA teams giving up the fewest amount of points. Considering their middle of the pack standings last year this is great. They are giving up an average of 90.0 points per game. 

The NBA on television
NFL and major league baseball broadcast went over the television airways long before the NBA was even started. It's my belief television has been a key component to the NBA's growth since it was founded in 1947. Over the course of time the number of broadcast partners has changed significantly and the growth of cable and satellite has increased the number of partners. 1953-54 was the year of the NBA games being telecast nationally, the defunct Dumont Network broadcast 13 games and the NBA paid them a whopping $39,000. Over the next several years the broadcast partners changed from NBC to ABC and finally CBS. CBS held the rights from 1973-1990 and relinquished them to NBC which held them to the end of the 2002 season, Cable television made it's debut as a broadcast partner in 1979 with the USA Network. The cable side would later move to TBS/TNT and finally TNT. In the fall of 2002 ABC/ESPN came on board as broadcast partners. In the early '90's NBA League Pass came into existence, "NBA LEAGUE PASS is a regular season package that provides subscribers with games from outside their local viewing area." In the beginning League Pass was only available to satellite customers, later the service would be available to cable customers too. In March 1999 NBA TV was launched becoming the first network affiliated with a sport. Fan interest in the '50's was divided somewhat along these lines, baseball, college football, the NFL and college basketball. The NBA back then was barely on the radar of most fans that's certainly not true today. It will never surpass the NFL or baseball in popularity but it will never occupy a point of obscurity either. (Insidehoops.com, Wikipedia & NBA.com)