If you think baseball has umpiring problems, what are we going to do with the NBA? Specifically, the well-rested referees who will be calling Cleveland Cavalier games. How do you call both Shaq and LeBron when they are on the floor at the same time? With the additional step that the NBA has allowed this year, Bron will be able to skate through the lane with even greater of ease. And Shaq who gets to bully his way close enough to the rim so he can make his shot, will undoubtedly rewrite the offensive foul call. And that doesn’t even factor in the ticky-tack stuff that the NBA star system enables.

Any way you look at it, the NBA opens tonight and the experts are restating the obvious. The champion Lakers have added Ron Artest and are better. The Spurs have added to their star system with Richard Jefferson to go with Duncan, Parker and a repaired Ginobli. The rest of the west has shored up some or gotten a little more experienced. The east is braying about Rasheed Wallace joining the aged crew in Boston, Vince Carter hooking up with Dwight Howard in Orlando and of course, Shaq and LeBron.

For the experts it makes for easy pickins…Boston, Cleveland or Orlando in the east, Los Angeles or San Antonio in the west. Blake Griffin gets rookie of the year, despite a broken kneecap to start. LeBron or Kobe are MVP and Flip Saunders and Nate McMillan fight it out for coach of the year. Pretty easy for the experts, but they aren’t reading the signs, or thinking out of the box. It’s the first day of the season, so let’s show some real foresight.

Yao Ming will be the symbol of 2009-10 with his injury taking him out for the year and dropping the Rockets from contenders to pretenders. Watch out Boston and Kobe for some of the same treatment. It will get dreary on Lake Erie as the Cavs become the most surprising team in the NBA, in a negative way. And as sure as the midges off the lake, the talk will heat up and dominate about LeBron walking out of town. Shaq’s commentary about it is only a matter of time. The youth in Orlando and Atlanta will become a story as it will out west with Portland and Oklahoma City. Phoenix and Dallas will need to look to retool. Byron Scott will need to look for work. Utah and Denver will push with what they have, even though it’s short, and Memphis, Sacramento, the LA Clippers, Minneapolis and Golden State will pester and make progress.

Miami and Philadelphia will cause everyone some trouble. Chicago and Detroit will return to the 70s and fight it out for the last playoff spot. New York will be a black hole for basketball for another year, while Toronto and Washington will glimpse at contention until Bosh joins the LeBron club and Arenas hurts his knee.

Lionel Hollins will be coach of the year for somehow balancing Conley, Mayo and Iverson and bringing Memphis out of the development league. Tyreke Evans will have more freedom in Sacramento than Griffin will have in LA and will win the ROY. Dwight Howard is your MVP even before he makes Shaq look old and tops the Spurs for the title.