For the Love of God, Bring Back the "NBA on NBC"

Do you remember what the best part was of last year's Olympic Games?Sure, that gold medal game between the USA and Spain was one of the best contests in recent memory. Michael Phelps' accomplishments will be the signature of the Beijing games, and Usain Bolt also made a name for himself as an appropriately-named sprinter.But all of those pale in comparison to one thing about last summer's games:The NBA on NBC was back.Raise your hand if you're older than the age of 20 and grew up watching basketball on weekends. If so, tell me that the return of that glorious NBA on NBC theme, named "Roundball Rock" by John Tesh, didn't make your hair stand on end, and I'll call you a liar. It was only for a little bit, and it occurred at rare moments. But it was there. Watching today's stars like Kobe, LeBron, CP3, D-Wade, Chris Bosh, and Dwight Howard warming up before pregame introductions while that theme song played.If you're like me, it connects you to your childhood. It reminds you of your earlier days of being a sports fan. I grew up in the 90's, so that theme symbolizes my first impressions of basketball and the NBA. When you watch the playoffs and the Finals today and think of your earliest memories, this song is certainly the soundtrack to your walk down memory lane.And just think, there is an entire generation of kids and young sports fans out there today that is being robbed of these magical memories and things that we considered our birthright as sports fans. Instead of having double- and triple-headers every Sunday starting in January, we're lucky to get two games. ABC's theme doesn't define a generation of players, like the ones we're fortunate to watch today, like NBC did. The way you remember that theme when you remember Jordan's Bulls. Or Ewing's hard-fighting yet star-crossed Knicks. Or Hakeem's dream shake. Or Stockton and Malone. Or Shaq and Penny.We're subjected to watching today's playoffs and Finals be robbed of the glory NBC worked so hard to establish for the NBA a decade ago. Now, the conference finals are on cable TV instead of having every single damn game on network TV, including the last half of the series in prime time at 9 p.m. Eastern time. The tragedy is, we're never going to witness this heyday for the NBA again, which is such a shame. That's because according to the "NBA on ABC's" Wikipedia page, the league and the network extended their contract all the way through the 2015-16 season. That pretty much takes us through Kobe Bryant's entire career as well as the prime of the careers of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Dwight Howard, Chris Paul, and Carmelo Anthony.What's an even bigger shame is that ABC has done nothing to help define today's era quite like NBC did. The network doesn't even televise as many games during the regular season as NBC did, and unlike the '90s with NBC, most of the big playoff games are not on network TV like they should be.But the biggest shame? How about the fact that ESPN and ABC did get it right once, from 2003 to 2006? The following was ESPN's theme that was on ABC sometimes. It's a lot better than the crap they have now, a good mix of poetic drama and intense competition. Alas, the four-lettered network screwed things up again. And that's why many fans were robbed of witnessing LeBron's 48-point special at the Palace of Auburn Hills in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals. In years past, all games of both conference finals would be on NBC in prime time. Had LeBron's game occurred in 1997 instead of 2007, it would have been on NBC and not TNT.Speaking of TNT, despite their changes over the years, they remain the last link to the league's glory years. And with pieces like these, they're doing their best to leave a signature for today's stars: We can only hope for more pieces like those. But as the league makes its comeback and a newer generation -- a generation who itself grew up on "Roundball Rock" -- leads it to a new era, a glaring gap will always remain unfilled.