You have to love the insight of the 14 year-old who would rather play "NBA Live" than watch the real thing on TV. "I like to play [Kobe Bryant] because I can make him pass to the other guys," he says in this great article by Seth Schiesel in today's Times. "When I see him on TV, it's like he doesn't know how to pass."

It's not just a funny comment; it captures the important way in which personal videogaming lets fans overcome narcissistic NBA stars--using likenesses of the players themselves.

This would have been unthinkable when I grew up with my Atari 2600, and not because players' egos were less inflated. Take the Atari baseball game. The first version consisted of four tiny squares on the screen. The bat was a small rectangle. Intellivision broke new ground by actually featuring a baseball diamond; Atari answered with its "RealSports" line, elevating the art of sports video games a little beyond low-resolution pixels.

By the time 1994 rolled around and I had bought Sega Genesis after I finished my college thesis, "NBA Jam" was much better. Attend class, or beat the Pacers? It was often a close call.

Now, apparently, the games are so realistic that they are replacing the real thing instead of promoting it. There's finally a way for a basketball fan to survive in New York City.