I'm Losing It

[GreenFaith1819]

I was talking to my friend who doesn't like the NBA and here were his major points:

-the players are all a bunch of overpaid prima donnas
-the players are all a bunch of thugs
-the refs are the worst in sports. several ref-related issues over the past decade including Donaghy and sketchy calls in playoff games put the credibility of the league in question
-regular season games are boring with few exceptions because the players don't give consistent effort
-the game gets incredibly slow at the worst time
-ncaa basketball puts the nba to shame

Now it's easy to take issue with bullet point number 2 and say that its veiled racism, but like it or not all of the points above are how most people perceive the NBA these days. I was actually going to start a thread on this issue, because my question is, how in the world could I counter-argue these points?

Yeah I agree with your point 2 about the veiled racism..that's unfortunate.

And I wouldn't agree with the NBA players being overpaid Prima Donnas - yes on the surface they make a LOT of money and live very comfortably, but the Vast majority of NBA players with this money also give a lot to Charitable organizations, and they do it in a way as to not bring attention to themselves, which is the way it is supposed to be.

I vaguely remember our own Kevin Garnett giving 1 million dollars to the Katrina Folks or an organization related to that tragedy once it happened. I also remember Tracy Mcgrady doing something similar.

And I'm sure many other players gave to that and other organizations all the time.

Look at Shaqtus paying for that poor little girls' funeral. Shaqtus buying toys for kids at Christmas. Pierce's Truth Foundation. Sheed has been known to have a soft spot for kids from what I've read. Many countless others that may not get the press.

Sure the bad stuff gets a lot of press, but there are many other good things that players are doing that fly under the radar all the time.

And yes the Refs are scary - at least when they come to Celtics Games.

[celts55]

I have to agree. Even the Celtics games are losing interest to me. Personally i think it's a few things.

1) just too many 3 point shoots. even when they're going in, it's just not that much fun to watch.

2) too much isolation. I'm not that interested in watching anyone (yeah that includes Pierce) dribble around the top of the key for 16-18 seconds than shoot the ball. I much prefer to watch ball movement.

3) this is the big one for me and it's already been said, but the ticky tack foul calls. My goodness, every time I see a guy get called for brush touching someone 30 feet from the basket, it hurts my stomach. I'm an old guy, but if the guys I play with at the Y ever made a quarter of the calls I see in NBA games, we would kick them out of the gym. PLEASE, PLEASE let them play.

I don't know exactly why or when, but not too long ago if the Celtics lost I was upset. Now I just turn off the TV and go to bed.

[wiley]

Fighting has never been allowed and never should be.   In the old days, let's say the Bird era, a player would get kicked out of the game that was in progress.  If it's the playoffs, that's a darned good incentive not to fight....

In the current N.B.A., they should not let the playoffs be ruined by penalizing anyone who steps over the line in front of the bench.  There is too much emotion to go that far with penalties.

As for the player(s) who is actually fighting on the court-throw them out of that game and give them a decent-sized suspension to be served the following year (for example, 5 games without pay, etc...depending on the severity of the action on the court, being the instigator, etc...)  Don't destroy the playoffs and put everyone on pins and needles.   

I actually think there's too much trash talking in the N.B.A., and it's gotten out of control because there are no consequences to it.  Fighting isn't a good thing, but when you ban it to the extent that they have (so-called zero tolerance) there is a cheapness about everything...maybe I'm the only one who feels it....it's just puts too much big brother in the atmosphere for my taste....which is a worse consequence than the occasional injury suffered during a fight.....

[Brickowski]

So, how did everyone like that quality tussle between the Celtics and the Nets tonight?

Ah, the NBA, where defense happens...  I guess the Nets didn't get the message.

These are the kind of games that over expansion produces. I hope that Russian billionaire who bought the Nets has a strong stomach.

[reggie35]

The league needs to do lots of things to improve:

- Fix officiating. Maybe the thing to do is just have video refs that review plays as they happen and assess penalties (award free throws, deduct points) at timeouts and the end of quarters. I agree that the flow of play is just way to choppy in most games. Get them off the floor and out of the fans eyes. with technology its possible that many violations could be called automatically.

- Fewer games. Have 60 games home and away round robin. This will make each game more meaningful and lead to fewer injuries.

- Get rid of back to backs

- Have a playoff system for the bottom half of the league to fight for draft position

[ChainSmokingLikeDino]

Brick,

Come on man, the NBA is a man's game and college is for kids.

Nah, the NBA used to be a man's league, but not any more.  Players like Wendell Ladner and Rickey Mahorn would laugh at today's 19 or 20 year old "superstars."  I can assure you that LeBron or DWade wouldn't be sashaying down the lane against Mahorn.  Mahorn would have beheaded them.  They would have to invent a new classification: "Flagrant 4."

If today's players were men, they wouldn't carry so many guns.  Real men don't need an extra penis.

While I agree with point #1, and I wish the NBA didn't call/enforce flagrent fouls like they do, there should be a place for handling business on the court and hard fouls should be part of the game, I have to take umbrage with point #2. Guess what, in the 70's and 80's players had guns too (look at some tales about the ABA) and players were doing cocaine, etc. It was just an entirely different media climate and things were not reported the same way they are now. To claim that this is just going on now is to say that it is covered in the media now in a way it never was. It is like those stories about reporters sitting on a train seeing a naked woman run through the train car, moments later a mostly naked Babe Ruth comes chasing after, the reporters look at each other, say "you see anything?" "nope" "me neither" and go back to their card games. Different eras.

NBA vs NCAA? Well, I don't really follow college ball outside of players I'm interested in, and that is largely in the context of the NBA and the draft, etc. I mean I watch it but on the whole I find the quality of basketball played, while exciting at times, to be so poor generally that I don't have that much interest in it. Most NCAA games feature such poor team defense, poor team offense, poor skills for the most part that I have a hard time being an avid fan (I also didn't go to a basketball school so outside of rooting for Michigan and Virginia which are my parents alumni and BC cause I grew up going to BC games - the Big East back when it was some pretty [dang] good basketball ((80's and early 90's Big East hoops was a much better quality college game than is around now)) I don't have any real attachments to the college game as a fan). And if your friend complains about too many 3's in the pros? Watch a college game. The way too close 3 point line makes that game something of a joke (they really need to move the line further back).

[Bahku]

I agree that certain factors have affected this league, not the least of which is the lack of good officiating and the lack of team loyalty by players. But I have faith that the necessary changes will be made, and I will NEVER lose my love for this game or this league. But that's just me, and everyone here knows how strange I am, and that I'm a "blind optimist."

[PosImpos]

These are the kind of games that over expansion produces. I hope that Russian billionaire who bought the Nets has a strong stomach.

Assuming the Nets are successfully sold to Prokhorov and get their new arena in Brooklyn I think they'll be pretty decent in a couple of years so I doubt his digestive fortitude will really be an issue.

Of course by then some other team will be absolutely dreadful....

[moiso]

The breaks in the action always seem to kill a game's momentum for me nowadays.  It's not just nba games, either.  Our whole country is bombarded with stimuli left and right so the breaks are more noticable nowadays.  Just went the game gets some flow, there are always several free throws, or a timeout.  I also hate on an inbounds play when the ref takes 30 seconds to give the ball to the player to inbound.
I don't know how to solve the free throw problem.  After all, you do want the teams to play defense.  And if the refs let a little more go, the players are going to try to get away with even more.

[wiley]

And to spread the blame around a little bit so that Davis Stern doesn't feel like a big loser:

Fans:  leave your cell phone in the car, turned off, etc.....the person next to you is really serious about basketball and wants to watch the game without your awesome connection to someone not in the building.....

Players:  resist the trend in current society that tells us "it's all about me".  It's partly that trend that leads you to get tatoos that look horrible in flourescent lighting.....that look just like everyone else's tatoos.....You already made it big time.  Be thankful.  Have fun and just play basketball.

[Brickowski]

I'm glad that some people can still love the league, and even tolerate Rick Kamla.

Alas, I cannot.

[Bahku]

I'm glad that some people can still love the league, and even tolerate Rick Kamla.

Alas, I cannot.

I don't love the league OR Rick Kamla ... but I do love the game. As long as it's being played, I'll be watching, but I'll also be praying that things improve.

[Schupac]

I'll still tune in to every Celtics game I can, but agreed I just don't watch many other games now.  Part of it is that I have a busy life, but I have free time I spend on other things.  I think the reason is two fold -

The televised games are typically a lot of the teams with big name players, and so there is terrible officiating.  The officiating in the league bothers me so much that people around me tell me to shutup and stop talking about it during the games.  I harp on it, and it ruins the games for me.

The other thing, and this has ruined most sports for me not just the NBA, are the incessant TV commercials and aggressive advertising.  I am one of those people that will walk into a store looking to buy something, but the second a sales person gets in my face and tries to sell me that very item, I walk out.  I don't like being advertised to or sold to, and the omnipresence of advertising in sports has turned me away.  (this is also why I don't watch TV).


modify - kind of an aside, but at the gym last night I was talking to an NCAA fan who provided the standard arguments for preferring NCAA (NBA players don't try, players are thugs).  He was an intelligent guy so we were just kind of debating on it when another fella interjected with the best point around.  He knows I am from Boston, and I guess he is from Jersey.  He just said it's a cultural thing, mostly.  In the Northeast we don't watch as many college sports, whereas in Ohio where I live now, people are bigger college fans than anything else. 

I think that's what does it for most NCAA fans vs. Pro fans.  They grew up watching NCAA and so that is what they like now.