The NBA is not a sport
As the sun’s June heat nets us another exciting NBA finals, we’re spurred on to arrive at the foregone conclusion we all expected last July when LeBron decided to take all he offers to South Beach.
Fortunately I was out of the country that week so I missed the unprecedented sycophantic media jocksniffery surrounding this epic transfer of “talents”. The NBA (or N.B.A., if you’re a fan of the New York Times style guide) has been unwatchable for years, but these events take basketball suckery to a new high (or low). In what other sport can the best players in the league form an OPEC-like cabal and decide they want to play together for a certain team thereby disrupting the power balance of the league? Well, maybe the New York Yankees are guilty of this in baseball, but at least that’s management making that decision.
I’m not an NBA fan; never have been. But I do enjoy following sports, watching great displays of athletic talent, and witnessing superhuman feats that I was not capable of during my one season of playing high school tennis. These are all things you won’t find in the NBA. It’s my pleasure to share the top ten reasons the NBA sucks:
1) Basketball is an aerobic activity, not a sport.
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| Creating the next basket-ball |
Everyone knows the story: Dr. James Naismith – the Canadian, the peach baskets in Springfield, Mass., etc., etc. He tossed out a bouncy orb, and boom - basket-ball! What you may not know is that his creation was envisioned not as a ‘sport’, but rather as an ‘athletic distraction’ to keep athletes in shape during the harsh New England winter. Not unlike other ‘athletic distractions’ we enjoy today: kickball, tag, or jazzercise.
2) Scoring is too frequent and therefore trivial.
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| Only 13 minutes and we get to go home |
If a game ends with this score, 212 points will have been tallied. How exciting – or devastating – can it be when two points are scored by the ball falling through the hoop? Touchdowns in football, goals in hockey, and runs in baseball are exciting because they are rare – or at least they don’t happen every four seconds. The only impressive thing about too much scoring in the NBA is what Wilt Chamberlain did. Off the court.
3) No skill needed.
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| Everyone remembers the Birmingham Barons years |
Compared to what it takes to perform at a similar level in baseball, football, or hockey, little skill is required. Speed, reflexes, and accuracy are helpful in the NBA, but not needed or appreciated as much as in other sports. Michael Jordan, the ‘athlete of the century’ according to ESPN, quit b-ball to play baseball. After barely hitting .200 – in Double freakin’ A, MJ realized he could never make the bigs and went back to hoops. This, despite his ability to jump 47’ as depicted here (see caption, upper right). Do you think an NBA player could be fast enough to outrun DBs in the NFL? Throw blocks? How about carry the puck across the blue line on an odd-man rush? Ok, stand up on skates?
4) Sloppiness
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| Whachotalkin' about, Willis? |
Graceful passing has passed gracefully from the game. Every play ends up with a mass of sweaty, tattooed flesh and baggy shorts strewn about the hardwood, followed by finger pointing, accusations, and ultimately someone making an unavoidable trip to the foul line to attempt a free throw – the sporting equivalent of a quarterback tossing a football through a tire hanging from the goal post.
5) The regular season is meaningless. They play 82 games to narrow the field of playoff teams to 16. In reality, only two or four teams ever have a chance of winning the championship – the teams with the best players. There’s no such equivalent to a hot goalie in hockey or a pitcher in baseball dominating and winning a game for a team.
6) The trophy is lame.
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| Make mine strawberry |
7) It’s minor league.
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| I can see Arkansas from here |
What do Memphis, Orlando, Sacramento, San Antonio, and Oklahoma City all have in common? If you guessed that they’re the fourth or fifth most important cities in their respective states, you win!
But they also all have NBA teams, so they lose.
But they also all have NBA teams, so they lose.
8) On-court seating.
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| "Yeah, so two - no, make it three large pepperoni..." |
If there was ever an “ooo ooo – look at me” fan to go with an “ooo ooo – look at me sport”. You’ll find it here. A bunch of total d-bags sitting “courtside” paying five G’s to get man sweat dripped upon them. In no other sport can you sit so close to the action – save chess – because shit out of your control might actually come your way in those sports. Even first base coaches now wear batting helmets.
9) Coaching is irrelevant
Remember when waitress-banging all-star egoist Rick Pitino was lured from Kentucky to coach the cellar dwelling Celtics? He was so confident in his coaching methods back then that he actually wrote management books sharing his wisdom so we could all take his amazing skills and apply them to our lowly lines of work. Well, when he got to Boston, he sucked. Big time. He’s best known for saying that ‘Larry Bird’s not walking through that door’. Either he failed to read his own books, or maybe in the NBA – where you can’t “recruit” (sic) your players – you’ve got to play the hand you’re dealt and deal with it. His players sucked, and therefore, so did he. On the other side of the same coin, there’s current Celts coach, Doc Rivers. Doc sucked his way through several miserable seasons until ownership ponied up the dough to buy him the best players available at the time. And then – presto! A coveted NBA championship and a coach of the year award.
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| A management guru |
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| WNBA Cares. We don't. |
‘Nuff said!
