Whether Chris Paul Stays or Goes, NBA Is Losing Integrity

Waaaah!

I want to play with my buddies.

If you don't let me, I'll take my ball and go home. Then I'll kick and scream until I get more millions for my millions while saying it's really about trying to win world championships.

What a joke. Actually, it isn't funny that the NBA is just another one of these big babies with fat wallets away from vanishing off the face of the earth. And here's the biggest reason you should hold the chuckles: The forming of Miami's Big Three has triggered an attitude that is destroying the competitiveness of teams through selfishness and greed.

Which brings us to integrity, because integrity is huge.

You lose integrity, and you lose what counts the most, not only in life but in sports.

For instance: Fans hug their favorite teams -- financially, emotionally or both -- because they believe the integrity is there courtesy of competitiveness without selfishness and greed.



Fans also believe that, if one of their players is having a bad game, it's because that player is just having a bad game, and not because he lacks integrity by doing something such as dribbling for your team while thinking about playing elsewhere with his buddies.

No more integrity, no more fans.

No more league.

So this isn't good: The NBA's integrity was dragged toward the edge of a cliff this summer by the egos of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh after they conspired to create their Big Three for the Miami Heat weeks, months, years ago.

Worse, the NBA's integrity continues to dangle by a Chris Paul shoestring just shy of a free fall, and that's because the New Orleans Hornets splendid guard spent days flaunting his desire to have his team trade him elsewhere to form something like his own Big Three.

The Paul thing also is scarier, because it tells you that NBA players now feel they have the power to pout until they get their wish to share a locker room with their buddies anywhere at any time.I know. Paul claimed after he huddled on Monday with his new bosses that he likes the "direction" of the Hornets. But with the whole world watching, what else could he say? You just know Paul will try to bolt again. If he isn't gone from New Orleans before the season, he will be by the trading deadline in February. And while he's still with the Hornets, who knows if he's really being all that he can be, or just saving it for his Big Three?

We're in a different place in the NBA, and it's an ugly one.

Air Jordan weighed in on the subject.

So did that Magic guy of yore.

That's why I wasn't surprised when the Human Highlight Film joined the aforementioned Michael Jordan and Earvin Johnson by telling me that he also couldn't imagine maneuvering during his playing days to leave his original team to create a super NBA squad.

"Those other guys would have been great to play with, but from a competition level, man, we just enjoyed competing against each other," said Dominique Wilkins, that highlight player, who had legendary scoring battles during the 1980s with

Jordan, for instance, when Wilkins was with the Hawks, and Jordan was with the Chicago Bulls.

There also was Wilkins' shot-for-shot showdown with Larry Bird in a classic Game 7 between the Hawks and the Boston Celtics.

But Bird, Jordan and Wilkins on the same team?

Wilkins chuckled, saying, "The competitive level was so high that, when you beat guys like Michael, guys like Bird, guys like Magic, that was bragging rights. We were into the competition between ourselves."

As for now, when future generations ask whatever happened to that pro basketball league that once had all of those players in short pants and long hair who helped orchestrate the true meaning of "teams," folks will blow the dust from the history books and turn to the chapter entitled "The NBA summer of 2010: The loss of integrity."

There's that fading word again.

Integrity involves trust, and fans trust that most of the players on their team are giving every millisecond for their city, for their teammates -- and for their fans.

Otherwise, you have the ongoing LeBrongate.

I mean, if you're a disciple of the Cleveland Cavaliers or Toronto Raptors, you have every right to glance back over the years and wonder if James and Bosh, respectively, were giving less than their best at times with thoughts of joining Wade someday in South Beach.

This Paul thing is scarier.

While James, Wade and Bosh were free agents with the freedom to leave to wherever they wished this summer, Paul has two years remaining on his Hornets contract. Before he backtracked on Monday for political reasons, he repeatedly said he wanted out, and he also was preparing to whine his way to the team of his choice with that tired mantra about wishing to play for a championship team.

Paul and Anthony have talked about becoming the next version of Miami's superteam

Orlando. Dallas. Portland.

There even were reports that, when Paul attended Carmelo Anthony's wedding a few weeks ago, he told those present that he wouldn't mind getting shipped to New York and having the Denver Nuggets send Carmelo Anthony that way to form the Knicks' version of the Big Three with Amare Stoudemire.

They're all buddies, you know.

The Paul thing also is scarier, because it tells you that NBA players now feel they have the power to pout until they get their wish to share a locker room with their buddies anywhere at any time.

Which goes back to another problem: As is also the case in other professional sports, most current NBA players are highly visible buddies off the court and on the court. That's opposed to what Wilkins was to Bird and Bird was to Magic and Magic was to Michael.

"During the season, we were never chummy with each other, because we were searching for an edge against that person," said Wilkins, who retired in the late 1990s. "Now during the off-season, yeah, we were sort of a close-knit family as far respecting each other's ability. But at the same time, if it was during the season, if I played my brother, Gerald, it was like he was no kin to me. I was trying to kill him.

"That's just the way it was in those days."

These days in the NBA?

Don't ask.

It's too depressing.