By Brendan Lynch

With the New Year upon us, NBA teams will be making adjustments in either their playoff runs for the championship, or their tanking plans for the #1 pick in the draft. I've taken it upon myself to suggest a few New Year's resolutions for the 29 teams, nice guy that I am. Since this is up there with the least-original ideas in human history, you'll just have to bear with me. Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee! Here we go, in reverse order of record as of December 27th:

#29, The Cavs: Cleveland probably should fire John Lucas, who's never seen an awful team he didn't like, hire a real coach, try to win a few games and forget about LeBron James. The worst team almost never gets the top pick. I'm still bitter about the Celts not only not getting Tim Duncan, but also drafting Chauncey Billups and Ron Mercer with the 3 and 6 in 1997. Thank you, M. L. Carr and Rick Pitino. Lucas will probably do everything he can to lose 67-plus games short of benching the starting lineup for the rest of the year, only to wind up with the 4th pick and have G. M. Jim Paxson blow it like he did with Chris Mihm or DeSagana Diop. Good thing they traded Andre Miller.

#28, The Nuggets: How about a mid-season trade for Juwan Howard? I want to see Kiki Vandeweigh field a team entirely composed of rookies, no-names and stiffs in the last year of their contracts. Jeff Bzdelik has to be excited about his long-term employment prospects.

#27, Memphis: The Grizzlies should resolve to change their name. I'll never understand the NBA's infatuation with franchise nicknames that make absolutely no sense. Other than that, they have nice young talent, and Jerry and Hubie running the show, so they should be all set.

#26, Toronto: The Raptors need to pawn Vince Carter off on some sucker of a G. M. and start over. He's more one-dimensional and overrated than Dominique Wilkins was. That'll never happen though; they'll keep him, he might play every now and again, he'll go to graduations and Nelly concerts and sell a ton of jerseys while the Raptors keep on losing.

#25, Miami: Pat Riley's resolution should be to give up his paranoid delusion that the referees are out to get him. The officiating is uniformly terrible league-wide, unless you happen to be a Laker fan, and the Heat are perfectly capable of losing games without help from anybody.

#24, Golden State: G.M. Garry St. Jean might want to consider a resolution to trade one of the 11 power forwards he has on the roster. Keeping Danny Fortson, a guy who could be leading the league in rebounds, on the bench and unhappy has worked out fabulously so far.

#23, The Knicks: New York should resolve to keep Antonio McDyess the hell away from a basketball court this season. What would the point of his rumored return be? A worse draft pick? A career-ending injury? Maybe he'll bring Ewing out of retirement for a playoff run.

#22, The Lakers: G.M. Mitch Kupchak should resolve to stop surrounding Shaq and Kobe with that total mess of a supporting cast, but I hope he doesn't. The Lakers' plummet is even more fun than the Knicks'.

#21, The Bulls: Chicago needs a new general manager for the New Year. The Ron Artest/Brad Miller trade makes less sense with every passing game, to say nothing of the Elton Brand trade. You think Jerry Krause could use Brand, Miller and Artest right about now? How did this guy build the 2 three-peat teams? Luck?

#20, Atlanta: The Hawks should resolve to play at the Y, or a high school gym, or something. How does a team with an all-star forward who's also a local (Shareef Abdur-Rahim) not fill the arena? As it stands, it looks like they'll be shelling out that $125 to their 4 season ticket holders. Somehow, I don't think Terry Stotts is the answer.

#19, The Clippers: It would be nice if owner Donald Sterling decided to keep the Clips talented young nucleus around for a few years in a devious surprise strategy to actually win something, but you know he won't sign anyone, as usual.

#18, D.C.: M. J. and Doug Collins may as well resolve to develop the young guys. The whole veterans vs. rookies debate becomes kind of moot when you're not that good either way.

#17, Milwaukee: These guys need more help than a New Year's Resolution can give. They're doomed to mediocrity with a great 2-guard, a perpetually cranky point guard and a point forward and a coach who are both completely insane. They need to blow that mess up, but I bet they'll keep on waiting on Tim Thomas.

#16, Seattle: Hmmmmmm...A ton of young talent, an MVP-candidate, 35-year-old point guard and a sub-.500 record. Think they should get as much for Gary Payton as they can ASAP?

#15, The T-Wolves: Two words for Kevin Garnett: Play center. Three words for Kevin McHale: No more cheating.

#14, Orlando: The Magic's New Year should revolve around figuring out what to do with 2 all-star swingmen, another up and coming swingman, and not much else. Tracy McGrady may well be the best player in the league, but it doesn't mean much with Shawn Kemp, Pat Garrity and Darrell Armstrong on the roster, especially if (when?) Grant Hill's ankle acts up.

#13, Houston: The Rockets should resolve to change those idiotic uniforms. I'd imagine this is almost guaranteed to happen since they've made a killing selling Yao Ming jerseys in China, and if they change the uniform, would probably do so again next year.

#12, The Jazz: Malone, Stockton and Co. will also need to find new uniforms this year. The current ones make them look like walking cans of Busch Light, and Greg Ostertag looks and plays like he cannibalized the rest of his 30-pack tribe.

#11, Portland: This one's tough. What could they possibly do, other than fire G. M. Bob Whittsitt? Put Prozac or Paxil in the Gatorade?

#10, New Orleans: The Hornets always baffle me. They should be one of the best teams in the league, but they usually end up underachieving for some reason or other. They should just pray that Baron Davis' back stays healthy.

#9, Phoenix: On the other hand, the Suns pulled an anti-Whittsitt and traded Jason Kidd and Uncle Cliffy after legal problems, and look what it did for them. They're getting better, and Stephon Marbury is having what is probably his best season.

#8, The Celts: In a perfect world, the C's would make a resolution to trade Vin Baker. But since that's impossible, and since Walker and Pierce are the only guys with trade value, let's just hope that Kedrick Brown starts to contribute, and they don't screw up the draft this year. No Joe Johnsons, no Jerome Moisos, no Joe Fortes. And I like G. M. Chris "the Notorious B. I. G." Wallace, but the new owners might want to try to bring Larry in to run the show. I'd also like to see Tommy Heinsohn get into a fistfight with a ref one of these days, but that probably won't happen.

#7, Philly: The Sixers might want to keep this basic group around for a while. Other than maybe booting Derrick Coleman, Larry Brown should relax, not make any major off-season moves and see what Allen Iverson, Keith Van Horn, Aaron McKie, Eric Snow, Todd MacCulloch and new addition Kenny Thomas can do if they can stick together for few years.

#6, San Antonio: The Spurs should resolve to tamper as much as possible during the year, sign Elton Brand or Jason Kidd in the off-season, and enjoy winning the next 5 or so championships.

#5, Detroit: This one doesn't have much to do with basketball. The Pistons should give Mary Waddell, Communications and Supply Manager at the Palace of Auburn Hills, a big raise or promotion or bonus or something. She gave me and a friend of mine a tour of the Palace before Game 5 of the Pistons/Celts series last year, and she turned what started out as a lousy road trip around. After the game we met Pistons Coach and ex-Celtic Rick Carlisle at a pub called Hoops, and he was nice enough to talk to 2 C's fans after getting bounced from the playoffs and take a picture. Some nice people they have working up there. It's hard to jive that with memories of Bill Laimbeer, Dennis Rodman and Rick Mahorn.

#4, Jersey: The Nets should keep Dikembe Mutombo on the bench even when he comes back. The guy's 65, he's not that good anymore and they play better without him. They also need Kenyon Martin to resolve not to emasculate teammates after a bad playoff series. The Dikembe/Van Horn/MacCulloch trade looks pretty bad now. What would you rather have, an ancient stiff of a center who couldn't hit the ocean from a boat in his glory days, or some quality depth at forward and center?

#3, The Pacers: They should give Donnie Walsh a lifetime contract, and then put a statue of him up in front of the Conseco Fieldhouse. It was only 3 years ago that they lost to L. A. in the Finals with an almost totally different team. Everything this guy touches turns to gold. Even Isiah Thomas suddenly seems like he knows what he's doing.

#2, Sacramento: Hire Johnny Cochoran to defend Chris Webber against the perjury charges in the summer. Other than that, they're fine.

#1, Dallas: Not much need for a New Year's resolution here, either. The rest of the league should all make a resolution to run their franchises like the Pacers, Kings and Mavs.

That should just about do it. It's a long year, and we'll see what happens, but I 'm guessing I'll be a good ways off in all of my suggestions. I just hope we're not stuck with the Lakers in June again. Happy New Year.

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