The NBA has announced it's marquee matchups for the first half of season.
My assumption is that the same teams would be in rotation for the entire season. Leaving much of the schedule pretty predictable. Annnnndddddd...I was absolutely right.
NBA Opening Night will feature the Miami Heat at the Boston Celtics. The assumed soon-to-be Eastern Conference champs versus the current Eastern Conference champs. David Stern had to be salivating at the opportunity to get this matchup on opening day. This gurantees ratings. This is also the first test for the virtually new Heat team. If they win, people will say it's because they are stacked (Well, at least the starters are stacked), and if they lose the media will act like the world has ended. (Mark my words.) Game two will feature the L.A. Lakers and the Houston Rockets. I find this second game to be the stepchild to the first game. I know Kobe will be present, but I was hoping they would play the Oklahoma City Thunder, or another team that would keep the East Coasters up for a couple of hours. I think the NBA is hoping that the injury stricken Yao Ming will be 100% by opening day.
Christmas features five games. I can't lie. I think this is entirely too many games, and I would probably stuck to the middle three games that seem (as of today) more compelling. The Celtics versus the Orlando Magic is the second game of the day, followed by the Heat at the Lakers and the Denver Nuggets at the Thunder. These three games will bring the majority of the average NBA audience. The other two games (Chicago Bulls at the New York Knicks at noon and the Portland Trail Blazers at the Golden State Warriors at 10:30pm) feature younger and in the Knicks case, incomplete teams. I will probably end up watching portions of all the games, but after all, it is Christmas, so I'll have other things to do.
The rest of the schedule features all the teams that I've listed, with a few young teams in the mix. To see the rest of the schedule check it out: http://www.nba.com/2010/news/08/03/2010schedule/index.html?ls=iref:nbahpt1
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