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" Led Zeppelin&amp;#039;s Physical Graffiti is an especially mind-expanding album. I like to listen to it whenever I&amp;#039;m sitting in the dark at three in the morning, which is something I did last night. However, I suppose my apartment wasn&amp;#039;t completely dark, because I was watching an ESPN Classic broadcast of the Boston Celtics battling the Atlanta Hawks in the 1988 playoffs. And something suddenly occurred to me during this experience: The reason I like Led Zeppelin is probably the same reason I like the &amp;#039;88 Celtics. They&amp;#039;re pretty much the same collection of people. Larry Bird was Jimmy Page, Kevin McHale was Robert Plant, Robert Parrish was John Bonham, and Dennis Johnson and Danny Ainge were John Paul Jones (because Jones played bass and keyboards).  I spent the next five hours thinking about this metaphor. Since rock bands usually have four or five members and basketball teams generally have four or five distinctive players, this relationship works with remarkable consistency. For example, the reason the Lakers collapsed last season is that they were like the 1970 &amp;quot;breaking up&amp;quot; Beatles, with Kobe as Paul McCartney and Shaq as John Lennon (and with Phil Jackson as a helpless George Martin). This also means that Dwyane Wade is Yoko Ono and that Lamar Odom and Caron Butler are essentially joining Wings. The high-scoring, no-defense 1982 Denver Nuggets seem akin to Yes (Kiki Vandeweghe as Steve Howe, Alex English as Jon Anderson, Dan Issel as Rick Wakeman, et cetera). Before the Bulls drafted Scottie Pippen, they were like Prince and the Revolution. (Charles Oakley and Brad Sellers were Wendy and Lisa.) By 1992, they were the Eagles (although M.J. was Don Henley and Joe Walsh, at least during the playoffs). Now, what does this mean? Well, let me just say this: Tracy McGrady reminds me of a drug-free Scott Weiland, and Yao Ming is something of a gigantic Asian Slash. As you may recall, Velvet Revolver sold two million albums last year, even though everyone thought they were going to suck. So watch out for the Houston Rockets in June. PHOTOGRAPH BY MEGAN MALOY Chuck Klosterman is the author of many fine books, including Chuck Klosterman IV which is available at your local bookstore or online, at BarnesAndNoble.com. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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