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Old school vs. new school
By Nick Bakay
Page 2 columnist

No game keeps raising its style points like the NBA. And yet, in a world of entourages and $100 million deals, it's important to remember that the game's old-school roots were built on two-handed bounce passes and zero-air layups.

But are things really better now that we've traded peach baskets for Plexiglas?

Old school hoops versus the new school, let's see how they stack up at the tale of the tape ...

Tale of the tape
Category	Old school	New school	Advantage
Ball movement	Cycling the rock to the open man	An unfortunate side-effect of hugely oversized pants	Old school
Distinguishing marks	A unique cluster of head-scars where your brush-cut won't grow	A unique tattoo of Asian symbols, which, when translated into English, mean "Stupid, Dog, Porridge"	Push
The problem with superstars	Can we outbid that offer from the Globetrotters?	Will he make bail in time for tip-off?	Old school
Travel to the arena	Wagon to donkey	Charter to limo	New school
Courtside distractions	Hoping your wife and your girlfriend aren't seated in the same section	Spike Lee tonguing the ball	Old school
Closed-door meetings	A chance for players to air out their differences in private	A chance for players to air out their pants at a strip club in Atlanta	Push
You will be fined for that	Showing up late	Answering your pager in the timeout huddle	Old school
Communicating with the coach	Gaining possession and calling a timeout	Leaving purple finger marks on his throat	Push
Where the money goes	Food, rent	Child support, child support	Old school
Getting benched	A humiliating punishment	A chance to fire up the Palm Pilot and check out your bio-med stocks	New school
What the clubhouse attendant brings you every morning	An egg sandwich	A Fabergé egg	New school
Footwear	Regulation Chuck Taylors with a heaping dose of gym stank	Signature Nikes with state-of-the-art "stank-be-gone"' technology	New school
Acts of humiliation	Keeping your hands cocked in the shooting position three seconds after draining a shot	Hanging from the rim for the entire second half	Push -- there are no winners when taunting rears its ugly head. Let's just play the game, fellas.
Player introductions	The loud fart of the game horn	House lights down, lasers up	Push
The ugly side of owner-player relations	Second-hand cigar smoke	Bunking with Mark Cuban	Old school

So there you have it, it's so simple when you break things down scientifically. In a player mutiny, the advantage goes to the new school -- let's face it, at the end of the day they give guys like me more to rag on.

But hang in there old school, you get the dreaded vote of confidence. Until next time, I'm Nick Bakay reminding you the numbers never lie.

Humorist Nick Bakay, currently a writer for the CBS sitcom "King of Queens," is a regular contributor to ESPN The Magazine and Page 2. He has a Web site at http://nickbakay.com.

	ok to cheat

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