One of my favorite Seinfeld episodes of all time is “The Opposite.” George decides that every instinct that he’s ever had was wrong and that’s the reason for his sorry little life. Instead of tuna on toast, he has chicken on rye, untoasted. He picks up a lady telling her that he’s unemployed and living with his parents. The climax of the episode is when he’s hired by the New York Yankees as the assistant to traveling secretary by telling off George Steinbrenner instead of kissing up to him.

When he’s telling Jerry about his new job, he states, “I’m busting Jerry, I’m busting.” Jerry says, “Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Mantle … Costanza?”

Well I have to echo George’s sentiment, I’m busting. That’s because I’ve been writing this blog for a little over a year now and never really expected much to come of it. But that’s about to change.

ESPN and the NBA are starting up a new basketball blogging network which I’ve been chosen to be a part of. Many will remember when Henry Abbott, of TrueHoop.com, was hired by ESPN to be their full-time NBA blogger. It turns out that that was just the beginning.

Under Henry’s direction, 30 other NBA bloggers will be team-specific bloggers for ESPN and the NBA. All of our stuff now will be on ESPN.com and NBA.com. This really gives new media (blogging) some much-needed credibility. The NBA now sees that more and more fans are moving to blogs for their information on their favorite teams.

So starting with the playoffs, I’ll be working the Jazz home games. I’ll have deadlines, article requirements, etc. But it will still be the same Basketball John that you’ve always read. It will just be on a different site.

Which leads me to my next topic. It’s crazy that you get attached to something as silly as a domain name. But as a result of this new opportunity, I won’t be able to maintain basketballjohn.com. It kind of takes on a life of its own. I haven’t decided if I’ll keep it and just let it expire, or if I’ll hand the reins over to someone else. If you’re at all interested in taking over BBJ, please email me and let me know. I can’t say that’s what I’ll be doing for sure, but I think I’m leaning that way.

More details to follow. Once I get a URL for the new site, I’ll get it up.