What's on HDTV today: Not the NBA

I woke up excited to check out the basketball games today. The stars are out:, Lebron James, Steve Nash, Tracy McGrady, Shaquille O'Neal, Dwyane Wade, Kobe Bryant, Chauncey Billups and more, but despite an excellent first game to the triple header, today is definitely a bust.

Three games: Cleveland vs. Phoenix, Houston at Miami, and Pistons vs. Lakers, but I'm only going to see one of them in high definition, and if you don't live near one of the home teams, you may not even get that. The Detroit Pistons game will be broadcast locally in 1080i by WB20, as many of their home games are, but it will also be available nationally on ESPN, however not in HD. Neither of the two earlier games were broadcast in high definition on ABC.

I don't know if this is due to local licensing agreements (what I suspect keeps ESPN from broadcasting the Pistons game in HD tonight) or what, but David Stern needs to take care of this. With no NFL on this weekend, the NBA is the only game in town. Sports fans love their high definition, but with none available my attention is wandering over to the X-Games and Arena League football. If I want to catch some HD sports, my best bet at the moment is probably Gotham TV on my Xbox 360.

With all the expenses paid to broadcast and view games in high definition, how professional basketball can simply ignore national high definition broadcasts is a mystery to me. It seems the NFL is taking a page from the NBA's book and broadcasting some games themselves, but maybe more is needed for professional basketball to continue to grow as HDTV adoption does.

Update: Apparently the NBA is more on the ball than I thought, the Miami game switched to HD later on, and the Pistons - Lakers game is available in high definition on both WB and ESPN, unlike games earlier in the season which were nationally broadcast only in SD. More later, I'm watching the game. (Go Pistons)