I love the NBA as much as anyone, but I've been needing to rant about its current state.
I've been thinking a lot lately about how bad of a league the NBA is at the moment and this past All-Star Weekend pretty much confirmed my thoughts and perhaps took my concerns to a whole new level.
All-Star Weekend, for all intents and purposes, was a dud.
The Rising Stars game on Friday night was just as bad as the celebrity game that came before it in terms of effort and defense. Then, Saturday night, The "Shooting Stars" competition was a waste of time, as usual, and the skills course was over before it began with Giannis Antetokounmpo and Demar DeRozan being eliminated in a heart beat. DeRozan pretty much lolligagged through the course while Giannis showed some competitive spirit. Giannis missed a couple times while trying to pass the ball through the hole but DD crawling through the course was really costly. Again, this shows a lack of effort.
I can't believe I'm going to say this, but the dunk contest has nearly jumped the shark entirely. The format this year was ridiculous and it seems to get more and more redundant each year. In the recent contestants' defense, some that have come before have set the bar so high, that it's tough to live up to some of these dunks (see Vince Carter below). There's only so much a human being can do, and a lot of it has been done.
Vinsanity in the 2000 Dunk Contest:
John Wall had a nifty dunk that won the competition but it was pretty boring. What needs to happen is the superstars of the NBA need to swallow their pride and enter the competition, I'm looking at you "King" James.
If the NBA could roll out a dunk contest with names like James, Blake Griffin and Dwight Howard, it would be a little more exciting. Back in the '80s and '90s, Michael Jordan, Julius Erving and Dominique Wilkins were dunk contest regulars. These days, we can say that Jeremy Evans, Gerald Green and Fred Jones have more dunk contest titles than LeBron James.
The three-point shootout might have been the coolest part of the weekend, having the largest presence of contestants that are actually known for this skill. Steph Curry, Damian Lillard and Kevin Love are all superstars who are known for their ability to shoot from deep. Marco Belinelli, of all people, ended up winning the contest but there was a bit of drama and guys wanted to compete.
Having said all that, I understand All-Star Weekend is basically a big party for everyone involved, but it was still disheartening and segways into what I really wanted to get into: everyone in the NBA is buddy-buddy.
I recently listened to a BS Report (the podcast hosted by ESPN's Bill Simmons) featuring Dominique Wilkins, the Human Highlight Film. Simmons asked him a series of questions about his playing days, among other things, and Wilkins said something that really stuck with me when asked about his relationship with other stars in the league.
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| The Human Highlight Film |
I'm paraphrasing here but it was something to the effect of:
"In the offseason, we'd go out to California to hang out with Magic Johnson and play but during the season, I didn't like those guys."
He just came across as your typical old school athlete and now, it's like NBA players are more concerned about their social status across the league and updating their Instagram account than they are with beating their opponents.
The collegiate product has become much more enjoyable for fans of the game of basketball, complete with passing, than the NBA game where it's almost encouraged to play hero ball and "swag" your way to 30 points on 9-28 shooting and several free throws on superstar treatment.
Speaking of "superstar treatment," this is another problem with today's NBA. It probably happened back in 'Nique's day as well but it truly is one of the more annoying things in the game. Guys who are much better than the guy guarding them, get anything and everything called in favor of them.
This phenomenon also typically applies to large market or more marketable teams, which drives fans of small market teams out of their minds. I've probably beaten this one to death but the easiest example of this was the Kings-Lakers 2002 Western Conference finals, when the Kings' big men were called for so many ticky-tack fouls and it took most of them out of the game with foul trouble. The Kings were left with Lawrence Funderburke (6'9" 230 pound PF) to guard Shaquille O'Neal (7'1" 325 pound C). In case you hadn't guessed, Shaq did well with that matchup.
I think that if guys get back to playing with some grit and determination for every minute of every game, we can get the product back to where it once was.
With David Stern stepping out of the NBA commissioner's office for good, things may have a better chance of balancing out.
Maybe I'm just jaded from a season where everyone is tanking because the 2014 Draft has been touted for several years as being one of the best in a while. This has watered down the product because no one wants to be on the mediocrity tread mill (right Herb?) to be the whipping boy for the Heat and Pacers, among others, in the first round of the playoffs. More often than not, a team has to bottom out before they can compete for a championship in the future.
The Eastern Conference is horrific and the conference finals are all but decided. I honestly think that everyone in the East, outside of the Pacers and Heat (and Knicks and Nets because they don't have a first round pick), will try to lose as many games as possible for draft positioning. Luckily for us, the Bucks are so bad that they are pretty much going to finish with the worst record no matter what, guaranteeing them a top four pick.
I'm hoping next year can be the start of a new competitive NBA but I really have no reason to believe that will be the case.
There are some guys that you can tell are ultra-competitive. Guys like Kevin Durant, Kobe Bryant and even LeBron, to some extent, have a cutthroat mentality and a killer instinct. Giannis even shows his desire to win and an emotional competitiveness that the Bucks have been missing probably since Andrew Bogut was traded two years ago.
Obviously, the team isn't winning as much as he'd like but you can just tell, he can be the emotional leader of this team as they grow. However, the league as a whole has lost a lot of that competitive spirit and I want nothing more than to get it back.
Adam Silver wants the NBA to compete with the NFL in popularity. He's got a long way to go but to get anywhere near it, he needs to find a way to get as much competitive balance as he can. The "Big 3" in Miami has hurt the Association, in my opinion. They're (were) a super team that most teams have no chance to beat because of the Heat's sheer talent.
The NBA in general has five to seven teams that are really competing for a championship and the rest of the league are nothing more than the Washington Generals, if you will, and just fodder for the great teams.
To fix this, I think something needs to be done with both the playoff format and the draft format, more so the playoff format. If they could go to a six team format, like the NFL, more of the teams that actually make the playoffs have a chance of advancing. Having over half the league make the playoffs is pretty pointless and in a horrible Eastern conference, you end up with teams under the .500 in the postseason.
They've got to find a way to make the draft have a little less incentive for tanking. I don't think you can ever fully eliminate tanking because one guy can change a team's fortunes so much so you'll always get a team or two looking for that kind of impact in the draft. I can't think of anything that could truly work off the top of my head that I really believe would help as everything I do dream up, I can also shoot down.
Guys that get paid (a lot) to think about this should be able to figure it out. In the meantime, we have to suffer with 38-44 teams like the '12-'13 Milwaukee Bucks taking on the indestructible Miami Heat that never even let the Bucks have a lead in the brief four game series.
I'll stop there. I'm sure I'll revisit a lot of these ideas over time.
There are some guys that you can tell are ultra-competitive. Guys like Kevin Durant, Kobe Bryant and even LeBron, to some extent, have a cutthroat mentality and a killer instinct. Giannis even shows his desire to win and an emotional competitiveness that the Bucks have been missing probably since Andrew Bogut was traded two years ago.
Obviously, the team isn't winning as much as he'd like but you can just tell, he can be the emotional leader of this team as they grow. However, the league as a whole has lost a lot of that competitive spirit and I want nothing more than to get it back.
Adam Silver wants the NBA to compete with the NFL in popularity. He's got a long way to go but to get anywhere near it, he needs to find a way to get as much competitive balance as he can. The "Big 3" in Miami has hurt the Association, in my opinion. They're (were) a super team that most teams have no chance to beat because of the Heat's sheer talent.
The NBA in general has five to seven teams that are really competing for a championship and the rest of the league are nothing more than the Washington Generals, if you will, and just fodder for the great teams.
To fix this, I think something needs to be done with both the playoff format and the draft format, more so the playoff format. If they could go to a six team format, like the NFL, more of the teams that actually make the playoffs have a chance of advancing. Having over half the league make the playoffs is pretty pointless and in a horrible Eastern conference, you end up with teams under the .500 in the postseason.
They've got to find a way to make the draft have a little less incentive for tanking. I don't think you can ever fully eliminate tanking because one guy can change a team's fortunes so much so you'll always get a team or two looking for that kind of impact in the draft. I can't think of anything that could truly work off the top of my head that I really believe would help as everything I do dream up, I can also shoot down.
Guys that get paid (a lot) to think about this should be able to figure it out. In the meantime, we have to suffer with 38-44 teams like the '12-'13 Milwaukee Bucks taking on the indestructible Miami Heat that never even let the Bucks have a lead in the brief four game series.
I'll stop there. I'm sure I'll revisit a lot of these ideas over time.
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