No longer America’s sport [1] wails ESPN. Trouble is, anyone with brains larger than the average doorknob could have seen the writing on the wall well prior to the recent defeat of the US team by PuertoRico. All they had to do was look at the quality of play within the NBA these last 15 years or so. The NBA has become a sham.
How do you go 3 for 24 from the 3-point circle? simple… Too many show-offs trying to go it alone, and not enough teamwork.
Look, let’s be honest enough to say that the last real team in the NBA was the early to mid-80’s Boston Celtics. Yes, there’s been other phenom, but these invariably ended up being one person shows… MJ, or Shaq, for example. Good as Byrd was in his day, he never overshadowed the remainder of his team… and they PLAYED like a team. Not so all the rest, then, and since. Basketball outside the NBA… as the NBA has devoled these last few years, at least… is a team sport. That’s a point the US squad got a reminder of just recently.
Even Alan Iverson knew it, coming off the floor, and commenting on PuertoRico’s winning effort…
“They play the game the way it’s supposed to be played,” Iverson said. “It’s not about athletics. That’s the game the way Karl Malone and John Stockton play it. It’s good for kids to see how the game is supposed to be played.”
Question is, is the NBA listening? Is the US Olympic BB program?
I doubt it.
The sad part is, Basketball fans and the NBA have nobody but themselves to blame. The fire inside has gone out… drowned by financial excess. The entire NBA has become nothing but a show-off session for kids… thugs mostly… chasing ‘bling bling’ and not giving a tinker’s cuss for the game itself, nor of the fans.
The sad fact is, we’re letting them do it to us. We’ve known for years we’re getting screwed, here. We know full well these thugs are exactly that… thugs… .. the drugs, the sex, the 120 in a 30mph zone Porches, the gun fights, the assults on wives and girlfreinds, the lot… And yet the fans, dumb as they are keep showing up, paying $25 bucks a person for stale popcorn, and Coke syrup with no fizz… to say nothing of the $75 bucks per person ticket prices. Who the hell can afford these prices? Imagine my family of four for a night out. All of this to watch a level of play that most high schoolers could blow out with a little coaching.
And yet we treat these idiots like heros. We wonder why this ugliness has become so prevelant in our society…. and the reason’s right there on the tube every night there’s a game on… WE GLORIFY THESE PEOPLE, thereby encouraging the behavior. We pay them super human numbers, and then wonder why those on the street want to be just as thuggish as our ‘heros’.
Back to basics, guys. It’s time. One million dollars per year maximum per player is a place to start. Perhaps then we’d get to a point where player would actually work toward a team effort, and fans could actually afford a ticket to see them play.. and the teams would get a gate to draw again. I doubt the league has the testicular fortitde.
And in a larger sense… one wonders what this mindset has to say to a nation that has such problems doing what needs to be done to defend freedom. We can’t even properly define ‘hero’, if our pro sports culture is any indication. No wonder the rest of our culture goes wanting, as well.