Quiet: NBA in progress.

• Author: Schley, Stewart
• Position: National Basketball Association

YOU MAY HAVE HEARD OF A MAN FROM WASHINGTON named Gordon Hempton. Check that. You may have read about Gordon Hempton. Chances are you haven't heard about Gordon Hempton because he doesn't make much noise. He avoids it. Avoids it like a sane man avoids the parking lot of the Park Meadows Mall in December.

You see, Gordon Hempton's life mission is to identify places where it's quiet. He is an acoustic ecologist. A fellow who travels deep into woods and forests and national parks to record sounds, or, if he gets lucky, the absence of sound. As of January 2006, Hempton has documented fewer than 10 places in the country that are truly quiet: places where you can hear for at least 15 minutes nothing except sounds of nature (airplanes passing overhead are the most common violators).

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My guess would be that Pepsi Center during a timeout within a Denver Nuggets game would not make Gordon Hempton's list. Still, there is at least the thinnest sliver of connective tissue between the solace Hempton seeks and the "silent night" idea floated recently by the commissioner of the National Basketball Association.

The proposition expressed by NBA boss David Stern during an online "chat" session was to experiment with cutting down the racket that normally ricochets from the walls of arenas in every city where the NBA plays ball. It's not the shrill squeak of Nike sneakers on polished wooden courts that Stern wants to silence. It's the amped-up, seat-shaking music that guarantees the most common expression voiced by fans during timeouts and possession-change intervals is the word "WHAT?"

Sample NBA conversation:

Fan 1: "Is that Camby's fourth foul?"

Fan 2: "What?"

Fan 1: "Is that Camby's fourth foul?"

Fan 2: "What?"

Fan 1: "IS THAT CAMBY'S FOURTH FOUL?"

Fan 2: "Is my Camry a Pall Mall?"

Fan 1: "What?"

You get the idea. Current league rules require home teams to keep music below 90 decibels when the opponent has possession of the ball. But that limitation goes out the door during timeouts and between periods.

Like the Nuggets' shooting percentage through the first 40 games this season (45.3), Stern's record for great ideas vs. flops lately is a mixed bag.

This one may not be so bad, though. One of the ironies of the modern NBA is its wholesale embrace of arena gimmickry and entertainment stunting as an extension (or is it an antidote?) to what goes on down on the court. For Generation-X marketers raised on MTV and Mountain Dew, staccato...