Time and time again, I hear so called basketball fans complain about the NBA. Spouting such idiocy as "I used to be a big NBA fan", "The players are too thuggish", "The players are paid too much", "I like the college game better". To hear these 'fans' irks my nerves but I typically bite my tongue. Nevermore.
In fact, this post on sportsbybrooks.com is what inspired this post. I couldn't remember my login/password for that site and since I rarely visit it, I didn't care to create a new one. In short, the post is entitled 'When did the NBA die for you?' His basic premise is that he doesn't know anyone who watches a full game anymore and he wants to pinpoint when the league died. Let's attack his points one by friggin' one
- The product is unwatchable. When making such a vague statement, please reinforce with some details of why you personally find it unwatchable. I find baseball and hockey unwatchable but I wouldn't call them dead. I would simply say I don't like either sport.
- I don'tknow anyone who has (or could) watched an entire game in the past 4-5 years. This is simple on two fronts. A) You don't go to games because those people attending games have seen entire games, and B) Folks of a feather flock together. If your friends don't like basketball, even though you claim to be a fan (a player fan at best but more on that later), the chances of you catching a game are less. You tend to do what your friends do. We are all products of our environments.
- He then asks a series of questions suggestion the time of death of the NBA. Magic announcing he had HIV, the last strike, Jordan suspended for gambling or retiring, or high school kids going straight to the NBA. 2 out of his 4 questions relate to a specific player. This suggests to me that this person is probably not a team fan (whom in my opinion are much more loyal to the sport, as well as more knowledgeable even if their knowledge is concentrated on a specific team). He also mentions the last strike as a possible road to NBA rigor mortis. My issue here is that he implies that his interest has waned in the last 4 - 5 years yet there hasn't been a strike in the last 4-5 years. Lastly, jumping on a media bandwagon, he brings up high school kids going straight to the NBA. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Nobody has a problem with high school kids jumping straight to the minor leagues. Nobody has a problem with giving a 19 year old a gun, sending him to a foreign country, and saying fight this war because 'your country need you to'. But let a high school kid, jump into a league, make some bank, and maybe rise, maybe fall in the NBA and it's an atrocity. Too many underprivileged kids becoming privileged too fast is playing in the background here.
There were only two responses to his post. One was an obvious Celtics fan who disapproved of Rick Pitino as coach. No qualms with that as I have admittedly said I follow the Lakers obsessively and note other teams only as they relate to the Lakers.
The second response is what got my jock strap in a wedgie. The reply was (the NBA died) 'When the players started packing pieces and travelling in posses'. I just want to get this straight, there are 32 teams with 15 players each (not including practice squads or the NBDL) which equates to 480 players in the league. I dare anyone making these generalizations about players being too thuggish, packing pieces, etc to name 10% of the league that can be considered guilty of that behaviour. Yeah, name 48 players that have demonstrated thug mentality, that have been arrested on gun charges...or any charges. Bet it won't happen....but you know where the 'NBA players are thugs' idea comes from....hate to say it but it is simply ignorance. You see a league that is 90% black and add a couple of well, if not over publicized, incidents and you can apply the image of 10 players to a league of 432 players (taking out the 10% of white players because they are rarely seen in that light).
Oddly enough, the word thug is only used in reference to players in sports dominated by black athletes. Baseball has a bench clearing brawl and I guarantee you not a single player will be looked at as having thug behaviour. Even though the next pitch is an intended bean. Hockey specializes in fights and does everything but market them as part of the sport. Not considered thugs. In fact, they are revered for their injuries resulting from their thug behaviour. Why is that? If the fighting is part of the sport, why are they put in the penalty box? Simply stated, the race of the players of any sport still play a huge part in determining the image that sport.
The NBA isn't dead, just the bandwagon player fans and fairweather fools aren't paying attention anymore. Which is actually good.....
#24 was Bryant's first high school number, before he switched to #33. Kobe has said that he wanted #24 as a rookie, but it was unavailable, as was #33, retired with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
