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Monday, April 7
 
A 14-0 start, and now a 14-0 finish?
By Marc Stein
ESPN.com

Editor's note: As part of "The Stein Line" every Monday, ESPN.com senior NBA writer Marc Stein gives his take on things in "Slams and Dunks."

Ben Wallace limped off and San Antonio sauntered to its ninth consecutive victory Sunday in Detroit, keeping alive an unexpected bid for a quirky bit of symmetry.

Should the Spurs win each of their five remaining games, they will have closed the season with a 14-game winning streak. Which would win the West and relegate the Dallas Mavericks to the third seed.

The same Dallas Mavericks who started the season with a 14-game winning streak.

Told you it was quirky.

Mark Cuban
The league wasn't amused by Mark Cuban's stunt.

  • More weirdness in Dallas: Mark Cuban has not been fined one penny this season, with 10 days left in the regular season. Commissioner David Stern was less than amused by Cuban's faux fight with a fake referee on April Fool's Day, but the league didn't want to come off as humorless by fining the Mavericks' owner for a prank. The Mavs' only fines this season resulted from overseas scouting infractions by coach Don Nelson and son Donnie -- nothing that can directly attributed to Cuban.

  • By all accounts, even though Stern is the one who suggested that the NBA switch to the six-division format used in all the other major sports leagues, the league is apparently just as willing to hold off and simply add the New Orleans Hornets to the Western Conference as the Midwest Division's eighth team.

    Nevertheless ...

    Here's an updated (and unofficial) stab at how we'd configure a six-division NBA, based on ESPN.com's report Friday that the league has selected the Hornets to move to the West to make room for the Charlotte expansion franchise scheduled to begin play in 2004-05:

    Stein's Eastern Conference realignment
    Northeast Southeast Central
    Boston Atlanta Chicago
    New Jersey Charlotte Cleveland
    New York Miami Detroit
    Philadelphia Orlando Indiana
    Toronto Washington Milwaukee

    Stein's Western Conference realignment
    Northwest Southwest Pacific
    Denver Dallas Golden State
    Minnesota Houston L.A. Clippers
    Portland Memphis L.A. Lakers
    Seattle New Orleans Phoenix
    Utah San Antonio Sacramento

  • If Blazers coach Maurice Cheeks is truly concerned about tensions between Zach Randolph and Ruben Patterson lingering into the postseason, he could punish Randolph further -- in addition to the two-game suspension and whopping $100,000 fine -- by omitting the second-year power forward from the playoff roster.

    Don't expect that to happen, though, not even after Cheeks questioned his own ability to keep the Blazers united in the wake of Randolph slugging Patterson.

    The problem: Randolph might be the best low-post scorer Portland has, because Rasheed Wallace prefers the perimeter and Cheeks' replacement options don't promise any offense. Those replacements: Ruben Boumtje-Boumtje and Chris Dudley.

    Chick Hearn
    Chick Hearn should be a first-ballot Hall of Famer.

  • This is the one time of year we wish we were just like baseball writers. Baseball scribes do the Hall of Fame voting in their sport and basketball scribes are merely left to hope that the selection committee in their sport gets it right.

    We'll find out if it did Monday, when the Class of 2003 inductees is announced. There are 21 finalists for Springfield, the largest group in history, and some deserving names are sure to be omitted.

    Yet we can accept just about any outcome so long as Francis Dale Hearn's nomination is in the refrigerator. It's still hard to believe Chick hasn't been here all season, and you could only be left speechless if the greatest voice the game has ever known wasn't a first-ballot Hall of Famer.

    Marc Stein is the senior NBA writer for ESPN.com. To e-mail him, click here. Also, send Stein a question for possible use on ESPNEWS.



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