The state of the National Basketball Association seems to be just fine after a controversial and moving All-Star Weekend that recently concluded in Atlanta.One quick aside, though, before I start. Why are we, the Justice, covering the baseball offseason better than our own Brandeis winter sports? Pitchers and catchers haven't been reporting to camp and yet we continue to have weekly articles from nonsense beat writers about an alleged Hall of Fame induction fiasco that couldn't even garner headlines in Baseball Weekly. What's next, amateur draft coverage? Enough about that, though. On to the most important sports news of the week.

In case you've been living under a rock for the past week, Michael Jordan (who I still believe will play next year) was not selected as one of the five starters for the Eastern Conference All-Star squad. Instead, oft-injured Toronto Raptor Vince Carter was the leading vote-getter for the East. A few weeks ago, though, both Allen Iverson and Tracy McGrady (both assured starting nods by fan voting) offered their spot in the lineup to his Royal Airness as a toast to his greatness and legendary contributions to the game.

Vince Carter, though, wasn't as cordial with his playing time. He publicly stated that he would start to honor the fans who voted him in. Nice political move, unfortunately Vince forgot to "honor the fans" when he danced on stage at a concert of rapper Nelly when he should have been busy rehabbing.

Eventually, the situation was resolved. That is, it was resolved if you believe what Jordan said publicly during his interviews with the TNT broadcast crew. Jordan mentioned that Vince simply offered him the starting nod just before introductions and that he had to accept due to the "ill-fated" heat that Vince was taking for not offering up his spot.

Nice move, Michael, but be honest. You wanted that little North Carolina punk to say, "I have been following in the footsteps of Mr. Jordan my entire career from North Carolina to the NBA and there would be no greater honor to have His Airness start in my place."

Vincanity seems to have turned into Vincfluenza with all his time spent north of the border. Even the Canadian press was giving him a lot of slack about what was going on. You see, I was in Montreal attempting to find an English-based sports station akin to ESPN and was nearly out of luck. Then I came across some SportsCenter spinoff dubbed "SportsCentr" with bad accents and a ton of comments such as, "blah blah blah-aay."

One of my fondest memories of the trip is witnessing nearly 40 minutes of a one-hour show dedicated to NHL highlights. No, I am not talking about Colorado-Detroit or even recent battles for Canadian "Original Six" supremacy. The friggin' Atlanta Thrashers received the same face time as the NBA All-Star game. No wonder Brett Hull fought for American citizenship. They should tape their sports recap shows and send them south of the border. We would all get a kick out of the PGA golf highlights from Pebble Beach that merely centered on Candadian Mike Weir. It would be like ESPN just covering Tiger Woods (wait a minute, they already do that).

And as for other Canadian sports, curling should be outlawed. If hockey is a frozen version of soccer, then curling is a frozen shuffleboard. Yet instead of a grandfather and six year-old grandson playing in Florida, you have grown men frantically screaming and sweeping ice like Homer Simpson as Mr. Plow.

My final rant is about the coverage of the All-Star game stateside. It's ridiculous that your average family can't even afford to attend a game to see their local All-Stars compete in person. Now, some Americans can't even see them on the small screen. Why would ABC agree to grant TNT exclusive rights to broadcast the game?

Fortunately, I have cable or I would have really gone bananas. Next time the NBA is set to negotiate their broadcast rights, I just hope they don't put games on pay-per-view Oe la Lebron "King" James. Message to David Stern: Please make sure the NBA Finals will be available to all Americans and placed on a more fan-friendly channel, preferably BTV.