With my picks for this season's playoffs down the drain and things all screwed up (I did better in the past), it's time to continue the rant against the NBA.
The first thing that I'm going to start with is a comment from someone named "ok" in my last article. Ok said, "So what…without the NBA you won't have a job right now." Well, that's not entirely true because writing for sports websites isn't quite my job just yet. I don't get paid to do this even though I would love to, so without the NBA, I most definitely do still have a job. On that note, also, even if I were getting paid for this, there is a multitude of sports that are more entertaining than the NBA that I could watch and write about considering this is only the second piece I've written on the subject, but thanks for the comments.
Now, on to business. One thing that really grinds my gears about the NBA (see the "Family Guy" movie) goes back to the relationship of NBA players with their coaches. Aside from the fact that a team would much rather let go of their coach than a star player, even if he is a disruption, the media puts these people unjustly up on pedestals. I live in the suburban New York area, so when I drive home from my non-sports writing job, I listen to Michael K on 1050 ESPN Radio and he talks left and right about the Knicks and what's wrong with the team, and finally someone has gotten it right.
Stephon Marbury thinks that he is God's gift to New York basketball and he walks around acting like it. He has been praised his entire career for being a "superstar" when he hasn't been able to do much of anything in NYC. I'm going to give all of the readers of this a hint as to why he hasn't been able to do much of anything this season in New York, though, and it's because of Larry Brown. It's not the fact that Larry Brown can't coach, though, as we've seen in other cities, but it's because Marbury is apparently too good to listen to his coach. Oh, I'm sorry, Steph, I didn't realize that a career 20.5 points per game, three rebounds per game, and eight assists per game while shooting under .500 from the field with a career .318 three-point percentage made you invincible.
Players have been praised way too much by the media and by the public in general. Kobe Bryant had a public feud with Shaquille O'Neal that arguably ruins the season for the Lakers in which they were built to win a championship along with Gary Payton and Karl Malone, and does anyone get in trouble? No, not really. Sure, they shipped Shaq out of town, but it's not like that was against his wishes or anything.
The NFL is getting out of hand, as well, but look at what happened when T.O. started being a detriment to his team, he got suspended and then put on the inactive list. Keyshawn Johnson was deactivated a couple years ago because he was acting out in a way that was harmful to his team.
That's what people don't seem to realize in the NBA, basketball was meant as a team game. There are five players that are supposed to play the game, not just one or two superstars. Rookie Chris Paul for the Hornets played on Tuesday night against the Pistons with a torn ligament in his hand, which is a commendable feat, but he got the headline on ESPN.com in the loss while shooting 4-of-14 with 3 rebounds and 5 assists for 13 points. What about Richard Hamilton scoring 30 on 57% shooting, or even what about David West, on Paul's own team, going for 20 points with 6 rebounds?
ESPN and Sports Illustrated and a lot of media don't care about what actually happens in basketball, but more about the hype surrounding a player. It has even gotten to the point where a player's potential is more valuable on draft day that what he can actually do. Excuse me, but I didn't know that NBA teams employed psychics to know how a player is going to do fresh out of high school against no competition. Sure, they get it right sometimes, like LeBron James and Jermaine O'Neal, but it's sad to see how many Kwame Browns had to get drafted before the league realized that they needed these kids to actually realize some of their potential before trying them out against real basketball players.
Now my last little beef for now has to do with TNT and other stations that air basketball playoff games is the way that they advertise the playoffs. Their advertisements on TV typically go along with a player or a 12-year-old saying something along the lines of, "Win ... or go home." Oh, I'm sorry — I didn't realize that the whole seven-game-series thing wasn't taking place. Win or go home should be changed to something like, "Win ... or win four out of your last remaining games or go home." You don't see baseball playoff ads being plugged like that.
I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with having a seven-game format, but there are two sports that come to mind that have playoffs where it's win or go home: NCAA basketball (you know, the real kind of basketball), and the NFL. I know that's not really a flaw of the NBA, but more of TNT itself, but it's just another NBA-related thing that annoys me, so I thought it deserved to go in there.
Stay tuned to an eventual part three (I wrote an eight-page paper in college on why the NCAA was better than the NBA).
Notes
* Kentucky was ranked in the top 10 by both polls this preseason, how the hell did they just lose to Vanderbilt on their home court? Good luck to Tubby Smith trying to get this team out of the proverbial gutter.
* Dave Andreychuk was just placed on waivers by the Tampa Bay Lightning, essentially ending his career since he's not fast enough to keep up. Too bad it had to end this way, the guy's been a great player and had a great career.
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