Remember that 49-point catastrophe put on display by the Chicago Bulls a few years back, the one that made you think Jerry Krause was the starting point guard instead of the GM?

Since nobody wants to give away exactly what they are going to do, it is unlikely we are going to see a great deal of zone defenses -- or the offenses designed to combat them -- in the preseason.

Well, better get used to it -- at least during the first part of this NBA season. The new rules are going to make scoring go down quicker than Penny Hardaway in a real live NBA practice.

In case you forgot what the new rules are while taking in the shocking news that Isaiah Rider was late to his very first practice in Denver -- perhaps he thought it was a different time zone because of the altitude -- this is what they are:

A) Illegal defense guidelines will be eliminated.

B) A defensive three-second rule will prohibit a defender from remaining in the lane without closely guarding an offensive player.

C) A team has to get the ball past midcourt in eight seconds instead of 10.

D) Brief contact initiated by a defender will be allowed if it does not impede the progress of the player with the ball.

That last rule reminds me of a conversation I had recently with a friend who is afraid of dogs.

"I hate when somebody asks, 'Does that dog bite?'" my friend said. "What do they mean does the dog bite? All dogs bite. How do you think they eat?"

Good point.

Which makes me wonder, how can a player not impede the progress of the offensive player if he touches him? What, if he puts his arm around him and escorts him to the basket, it is not a foul? Talk about subjectivity.

In any case, that is not the rule that is going to have the dramatic effect on the league. It is the first, the one that eliminates the illegal defense guidelines.

In short, Z-O-N-E. Perhaps for the first half of the season, NBA arenas should eliminate that stupid music they play and introduce the theme from the Twilight Zone.

Here's the thing: Nobody really knows what the other teams are going to do, so every team is heading into the season blind. Braille Basketball, if you will, and the ball is one big dot.

Half the coaches are guessing that teams are going to use zone defenses sparingly, and the other half are thinking they are going to be used a lot. The third half thinks they won't be used at all.

And since nobody wants to give away exactly what they are going to do, it is unlikely we are going to see a great deal of zone defenses -- or the offenses designed to combat them -- in the preseason.

So we head into the first game of the season, all of a sudden every coach in the league is pulling out a gimmick defense, and players are so confused that scoring is going to look like it was invented by Marty "John, Jacob" Shottenheimer Schmidt.

This does not even take into account that for years the league has been complaining that it has no outside shooting -- or at least it doesn't have any consistent scoring from 10 to 20 feet out.

And let me tell you, one training camp is not going to make a bunch of slashers suddenly turn into shooters. It's going to take a lot of time and a lot of patience for players to understand that they had better become good outside shooters, or they had better start ordering some of those comfy chairs that Mark Cuban has stocked on his sideline.

In talking with people who are trying to design offenses to go against these zone defenses, two things are becoming clear.

We are going to see a great increase in scoring on the weak side of the floor, from players who heretofore had done nothing but run up and down the floor and screw up their points-per-minute ratios. For instance, in Utah, with Karl Malone and John Stockton running the bulk of the offense on the weak side, teams are simply going to stack the strong side and make either Bryon Russell or John Starks beat them with long-range jumpers.

Or, you are going to see teams design offenses where their best players are put on the weak side so they can do their thing when the ball is swung to them.

What that means is that Kobe Bryant is not going to handle the ball a great deal initially in the offense, but he is going to be free to roam on the weak side and can exploit that part of the court when the ball finally comes his way.

In Seattle, they are changing their entire offensive system to deal with what they think they are going to see. They are stealing the offensive sets that Dick Motta used in his Dallas days, giving them more options in case they see a 1-2-2 zone, a box-and-one or a 2-3 zone, where a center like Shaq will stay in the lane for 2.999999999 seconds, "cleanse" himself by stepping out for 0.0000000001 seconds, and step right back in. (On the offensive end, of course, Shaq will stay in the lane for 7.65894773 seconds.)

Right now, it all sounds like so much technical mumbo jumbo, but it is going to be more realistic when the Bulls actually win a game scoring 49 points this year.

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