Dan Le Batard apparently thinks market size and a national fan base dictate whether an NBA team can compete with his God-blessed Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference.
On Monday’s episode of Pardon the Interruption, Le Batard continued a time honored ESPN tradition of ignorance towards small markets by claiming the Milwaukee Bucks would be no match for the Heat during the regular season.
By Jake McCormick
Le Batard can laugh all he wants at the legitimate prospects of the Milwaukee Bucks contributing a loss or two to Miami’s quest to become the New York Yankees of the NBA regular season, and he most likely will given the atmosphere in South Beach right now.
Ultimately, Le Batard’s opinion matters about as much as the bunches of analysts that predicted Milwaukee would win 23 games a year ago, and I’m sure the Bucks and their fans wouldn’t have it any other way.
The original PTI issue concerned Jeff Van Gundy’s declaration that the 2010-11 Miami Heat should beat the 1998-99 Chicago Bulls regular season record of 72 wins and give the 1971-72 Lakers NBA record 33 game winning streak a run for its money. At that point, Le Batard asked regular co-host Michael Wilbon if he agreed or disagreed, as per the show’s format.
Wilbon disagreed, as any NBA aficionado with a historical perspective should, and ran down a list of Eastern Conference teams that had improved significantly, despite supposedly losing out on the rigged LeBron Sweepstakes. This list included the Chicago Bulls, Boston Celtics, Orlando Magic, and of course, the Milwaukee Bucks.
Wilbon’s point was that a conference that has been perceived as fairly weak for a decade saw many teams improve on successful (or mediocre) 2009-10 campaigns through free agency and overall player development. That fact should be more than enough to come to a logical conclusion that only 10 losses in a stronger, deeper conference is a pretty lofty prediction to make.
This is when Le Batard could contain his amusement no longer, and began harping on Wilbon including the Bucks in that group, apparently mistaking them for a team not coming off a 46 win season with a reigning Rookie of the Year candidate, NBA Executive of the Year, NBA Coach of the Year runner-up, and an increase in talented veterans on the roster. What’s funny is that a few moments before, Le Batard said that he’s not going to rush to jump on Van Gundy’s bandwagon before the season starts.
Quite a few Milwaukee Bucks fans gave Le Batard’s Twitter account some justifiable heat (pun intended) after PTI yesterday, and there’s little doubt this will stay in the back of their minds as the season wears on. After all, Milwaukee made it their business to play the “nobody believes in us” card as often as possible last year, and it obviously worked.
If there already wasn’t extra incentive to root for the Miami Heat experiment to crash and burn (it won’t, but they are the NBA’s Yankees/Red Sox now), an arrogant ESPN commentator solidifies the target on their backs when they make their two trips to the Bradley Center on December 6, 2010, and January 7, 2011.