Just Above Defrosting My Freezer

Always keeping in mind that this is my blog and, therefore, what I say here is what goes, I have a brief list of what I consider to be completely unwatchable sports. Excluding the more obscure sports that not even ESPN2 will show anymore (although they did show the National Jump Rope Championship yesterday), my list includes hockey, auto racing and soccer. Please don't misunderstand me, I am not merely buying into some stereotype, I have legitimately tried to watch and enjoy all three of these sports.
Much to my chagrin, I have enjoyed none of them.
Hockey is too Canadian, auto racing - NASCAR specifically - still carries with it the persona of being geared (pun intended) to the type of crowd that doesn’t know what “persona” means and soccer is the entertainment equivalent of watching paint dry, grass grow, snails move and so forth.

So now that I have completely alienated half of those that read my blog (I think I’m up to five or six people now), let me underscore again that this is how I feel. And why I do think that it’s also how you should feel, I can still maintain an open mind about differing opinions.
Plus, I’m realistic: NASCAR has a huge audience, soccer is the world’s most popular sport and somebody somewhere is still watching hockey – I think.
But right there with hockey, auto racing and soccer is another sport that, for many different reasons, I have an extremely hard time watching as well. Regular-season NBA basketball is an over-hyped, cacophony of show-boating, rule-breaking and me-first hoops that perpetually exhibits a complete disregard for the fundamentals that are at the heart of an otherwise beautiful sport.

Whatever happened to referees actually blowing the whistle on walking, traveling or palming violations? Whatever happened to team-oriented offense? Whatever happened to defense?

Now, I am all for one-hundred point games – just not by one person. Kobe Bryant’s eighty-one point performance last year was celebrated as a monumental achievement, the likes of which had not been seen since, well, the last time the Lakers’ superstar hogged the ball for a full forty-eight minutes.
And while I don’t mean to blame one player for all the ills of the NBA, guys like Bryant tend to be the flag-bearers for most of what epitomizes the problems the sport has. You could actually insert any number of names in Byrant’s place: Iverson, McGrady, Anthony, Pierce, James; the list of guys whose contributions to the betterment of the game itself are basically null and void goes on and on (please excuse my failure to mention Ron Artest in this list; I’m trying to create debate here, not completely close the case. To bring that guy into the conversation would not be fair to those who think the NBA does not have an image problem).

However, it isn’t just this self-promoting style of anything-goes-basketball that has left me disgruntled with the league. For me at least, there is a paradox that exists. See, I can watch playoff NBA basketball - not the first round variety where almost half the league somehow finds a way into the league’s tournament, but the second round and following – and especially the Finals. But the regular season is almost nauseating. Eighty-two games of selfish offense and non-existent defense is just way too much for me to handle. The playoffs, on the other hand, are turned up a few extra notches. Defense suddenly appears – from seemingly out of nowhere – and teams quickly find at least some semblance of an offense.
Now I realize that this disparity between regular and post-season effort and intensity exists in almost every major sport, but not to the extent that it does in the NBA.
Major League pitchers can’t fudge a fastball in June or more men will round the bases on them than Heidi Fleiss at a post-Oscar party. NFL linebackers can’t take a couple of downs off in early September or some four-hundred pound behemoth of an offensive lineman will give him the rest of the season off. Pitchers and linebackers have to maintain a high level of focus and intensity throughout the season in order to perform at an even higher level when October and January comes around. Again, the intensity disparity exists, but not like it does in the NBA.

Still, there is hope. Players like Dwyane Wade in Miami, Steve Nash in Phoenix, Tim Duncan in San Antonio, Kevin Garnett in Minnesota and even Allen Iverson in Denver (yes, I know I called him out earlier; but he rarely takes nights off) seem to bring their intensity and effort to the court each night – regular or post-season. But this type of player is rather difficult to spot in today’s NBA. Most guys seem to believe that entertaining, rather than being a good teammate, is what’s really important.
I have heard it said many times that in college basketball, the name on the front of the jersey is what’s important. In pro basketball, the name on the back of the jersey is what’s important. And therein lies the problem.
No, I am not naïve enough to think that NFL and Major League players aren’t selfish or egotistical. But the game of basketball inherently provides numerous opportunities for players on a game-by-game basis to either be self-centered or team-oriented. You do need the Michael Jordans or the Kobe Bryants to step up in the final minute and be willing to take the game-winning shot, but there are forty-seven other minutes in which the four other players on the team can be and should be involved.

The University of Florida won the 2007 Men’s Basketball National Championship with five starters that each averaged scoring at least ten points a game, with none averaging more than fourteen. Yes, the college game is different – much different. But basketball is basketball is basketball and until the NBA moves away from this seeming obsession with thirty, forty or fifty point scorers and into a direction that incorporates more of a team concept, the regular season will continue to fade into anonymity and, as I have stated before, be ranked somewhere on my priority list just above defrosting my freezer.