Programming note: Season Previews?

Not sure if you've noticed, the whole thing kind of took me by surprise, but the NBA season has started. And yet, we're still publishing season previews. Huh?

Well, not sure if you've noticed, the whole thing kind of took me by surprise, but we lost our editor right before the season preview-season started. So, as opposed to last season, when four different writers all contributed to season previews that made it out just before the 2009-10 run tipped off, this season's previews were dependent on two guys that, right up to the point where the previews were to have started, didn't know that they'd have to be constructing previews to this degree.

On top of that one of the guys -- the guy that's writing this, who looks a lot like the guy pictured on the right -- already contributed 56,000 words to the Yahoo! Sports NBA preview mag, which is currently on sale.

So he has to parse his words and find a way to say something new and informative without making all that work (and it was a lot of work) redundant. Then posting it on this site so you can read it for free. Think of the first 10 things you'd write about a team to preview their season, and then dump that 10 and move onto things 11-through-15, because you've already written that 10, you don't want any magazine editors getting angry at you, and because you kind of want to keep the magazine gig because it paid for your wedding last summer.

Then there's that other guy, our man Dan Devine, that is working and writing up at 5 a.m. before he heads off to his 9-to-5 job, and then again on his lunch break, and then again over the weekend to provide content for the previews. So we can post them, for free. No magazine to buy, no Insider pay wall.

So, we can stop now. Judging by all the complaints, this is apparently what you'd prefer. Or, if there is some unheard faction out there that would like to see the previews continue apace, we could keep going. It's a threadbare operation here, for the time being, but your new BDL editor is currently working 16-hour days (between posting and scouting games) for this site, and he wouldn't mind calling it quits on the previews if the commenters continue to complain.

But I wouldn't mind sticking with them, as well as the five remaining pieces on my A-through-Z countdown. That's up to you. I'd like to keep writing, but I also wouldn't mind having time for more than two meals per day.

Your call. Let me hear it.

Dave Cowens Billy Cunningham Dave DeBusschere Clyde Drexler Julius Erving