Back on opening night, the NBA had planned a fabulous scene in San Antonio. The commissioner had come to pass out championship rings to the Spurs, and Greg Oden would be watching with the Portland Trail Blazers, waiting on Tim Duncan and thinking about the chance he had to be a champion someday.

Yet Oden would go down for the season before training camp, undergo microfracture surgery and never make the trip. Suddenly, one of the best young minds in the sport, Kevin Pritchard, had a touch of tarnish to his brief, golden run as Portland GM. He had made every bright move possible in restoring this wretched franchise, but there harbored a belief that true judgment wouldn't come until Oden had proven that he wasn't a broken-down mistake.

"That's the least of my worries," Pritchard said. "He's on our team. He's our guy. We're going to do the best we can to make him successful. I worry about a lot of things, but Greg Oden is not one of them."

Just two weeks ago, most of us were conditioned to

So, Stephon Marbury walked out on the New York Knicks. He just packed his bags and bailed on Tuesday, catching a flight out of Phoenix for Planet Starbury. This is what happens to a franchise when it’s turned over to knuckleheads and con men. From within, it implodes.

Today, Marbury.

Tomorrow, Isiah Thomas.

“I have one thing to say and that’s I got permission to leave,” Marbury countered in a text message Tuesday afternoon to the New York Post’s Marc Berman. “I would never leave my team on my own. What I’m telling you is that I got permission to leave from Isiah. He said I could go home.”

Soon, there were reports that these two had it out on the team’s flight to Phoenix on Monday, and again at the Knicks hotel before Marbury fled for a flight to New York.

As much as ever, Thomas and Marbury deserve one another. Once, these two turned together on Larry Brown and Anucha Browne Sanders, the former Knicks employee who sued the team for sexual harassment. It was just a matter of time until

Maybe it was Carmelo Anthony's time with Team USA over the summer that started him thinking about the way people perceived him as a player. He had seen Kobe Bryant go to his coach in the FIBA Americas tournament and ask to be assigned to every opponent's top scorer. Anthony understood this was Bryant's way of taking leadership for the Americans, that it was his way of challenging his teammates to rise with him.

Until then, Anthony thought no one had ever considered his own talent beyond a peerless ability to make baskets.

"I never want anyone to just limit me as one of the best offensive players in the game," Anthony said. "When you think of me, I want you to think of the total package."

So, Anthony has returned to the Denver Nuggets insisting that the franchise's fresh resolve to defense begins with him. These days, the Nuggets are desperate for that transformation. They swaggered into the season promising Western Conference contention, and suddenly they've lost three straight games,

NEW YORK – Isiah Thomas clenched his fist and pumped it for a fleeting moment, the most maligned man in Madison Square Garden looking like he had been delivered a dose of vindication. In his own way, he had thrown everything back in George Karl's face and you knew, just knew, the Knicks coach would've loved to tell Karl to go bleep himself.

These days, Thomas doesn't dare indulge himself in such moments of hubris. He is muted, humbled and downright lucky to still have this job. Deep down, Thomas is dying for a chance to be his old, cocksure self, but that'll take time and it'll take these Knicks turning into his professional salvation.

There could've been no parting words on Tuesday night, because Karl was long gone when the buzzer sounded, leaving with one-tenth of a second left and the Knicks shooting free throws to punctuate a 119-112 victory over Denver.

Just a year ago, these Nuggets and Knicks had been co-conspirators in a night of sucker punches, suspensions and damaged public

BOSTON – Everything started with the craggy voice of Red Auerbach on the video screen above the floor, that cocksure sermon straight out of Boston Celtics heaven. Down below, they peeled back a covering and the parquet had been named for the patriarch.

Kevin Garnett let the rumble roll down out of the rafters, out of a yesterday that had been awaiting his arrival. His eyes took it all in, and his heart, broken over basketball for so long, was beating through his jersey.

The Red Sox had paraded the World Series trophy around the floor, and the Patriots were filing into courtside seats. Finally, Garnett was the show here. Finally, his time. This was the beginning of everything. Garnett stepped out of Minnesota, where he was the franchise’s history, and into the middle of the most blessed time that’s ever washed over a sports town.

Old times in the Olde Towne.

“This place was rockin',” Garnett said Friday night, sitting in the interview room next to Paul Pierce. Together, they were

Kobe Bryant is always talking about how no one wants to win more than him, about how all his angst and acrimony comes out of an unparalleled devotion to victory. Well, three years ago, he had a chance to make it so the Los Angeles Lakers wouldn't have to choose between paying Shaquille O'Neal or paying him to keep the championship core together. He never did open his mind to a creative solution.

What Bryant wanted is what he has: All the money and all the shots.

The San Antonio Spurs' Tim Duncan passed Bryant with his fourth title last season, and he could catch Michael Jordan's six championships before his career is over. Now, Duncan has taken a two-year contract extension for $40 million, leaving $11 million more on the table. This assures the Spurs some salary cap room in the summer of 2010 when Duncan will be closing on his 35th birthday.

WATCH VIDEO: Highlights of Spurs vs. Blazers.

SAN ANTONIO – Before the San Antonio Spurs' championship ring ceremony on Tuesday night, Gregg Popovich stood in the hallway outside his office, clutching a cartoon strip that's been framed on his desk for years. There's a superstar player sitting behind the big desk, and a sad-sack coach waiting for an appointment to meet with him.

"The franchise will see you now, Coach," the secretary says in the caption.

Oh, how Popovich's eyes glistened when he was showing it off, how one of the greatest coaches in the history of basketball understands about the reality of the genius assigned to him.

"That's how we work around here, if anybody wants to know the truth," he said.

His superstar, Tim Duncan, had left $11 million on the negotiating table with his contract extension, passing on max-out money so the Spurs could surround him with championship talent well into his mid-30s. This was a Brady-esque move for the New England Patriots of the NBA,

Watch video: Y! Sports experts discuss what Lakers should do with Kobe. (Getty)

Back in the spring, league executives could tell Mitch Kupchak had no intention of trading Kobe Bryant. The Lakers GM called, asked for your two best players, multiple No. 1 picks and never seemed too troubled when those conversations ended abruptly. This way, Kupchak could tell Bryant, “Hey, I tried,” even though he hadn’t at all.

That’s how sources described Kupchak’s deliberately insincere stance months ago, but no longer. At the time, the franchise believed they could get Bryant to calm down and understand that his life, his legacy, was with the Lakers. It never did happen. For a time, the Lakers believed the fact that the Buss family stood by him through his rape trial, tolerated his dalliances with the Clippers, paid him his max-out money and afforded him the league’s only no-trade contract would ultimately cause him to pull back on his trade demand.

But some executives now believe, as one Eastern