NBA - I love this...zzzzzzzz...snore...

I’ve lost interest in the NBA over the past few years. The league bores me. The one thing that i’m still remotely interested in is the Miami Heat. Shaq got the shaft by the Lakers, so i’m rooting for him. I also like seeing Dwyane Wade represent. 31 points, not bad. Go Heat.

Posted by chuck at May 10, 2005 11:55 PM

Comments

Bored! ???

I know it’s personal opinion and not up for argument, but most of the collective attitude towards the league in this country is at an all time low and I have no idea why. The NBA is great for so many reasons and I don’t know what’s causing this fan apathy and disinterest. It blows my mind

Here’s reasons why the NBA is great:

1. Best financial system in pro sports will alows true revenue sharing and allows small market teams like Milwaukee to compete and contend. Detroit won with the 19th highest payroll last year and team concept!
2. The Detroit Pistons. Mainstream media will tell you that the NBA is full of tattooed thugs and rappers, yet the champs are a star-free, hustling defense, team concept unit. Isn’t that what the mainstream media “white america” wants? why are ratings down then?
3. The arrival of Dwayne Wade, Amare Stoudamire, and Lebron James and a host of international bad-asses. Such a diverse, young, explosive cast of characters for the next ten years or so. Who could complain? C’mon, Dirk Nowitzki !!! He’s like a superman hybrid Tom Chambers/Larry Bird with a wild haircut who drops 40 on people. Insane!
4. Audience specific programming on narrower cable markets. Designed to target the true fan and taste of the league on TNT, and ESPN. Not just the Lakers on NBC each Sunday. Mainstream and MIlwaukee media complains of larger markets getting airplay all the time, but ESPN & TNT programs everybody and ratings are down.
5. Steve Nash is MVP. Speechless. So cool I don’t know what to say or do. Just a gift that this happened. What league would be ballsy enough to make that call ?
6. Scoring is up league-wide for the first time since 2000-01 season. Lots of bomb squads out there that run the ball and are exciting.
7. Attendance is up league-wide. Milwaukee on the other hand had the worst attendance drop in the NBA with a 7.7% decline. We went from the loudest to the biggest no-show in the league in 3 years. What’s up Milwaukee? Gutless fans have me pissed in the 414. No one would walk out on “The Pack” like that and I thought WI people prided themselves on being the best fans around.

Here’s why I think the NBA has dipped in the past decade in Fan perception:

1. More choices: The maturation of golf and Tiger woods on TV subdividing an already crowded piece of the average sports guy’s time and attention. The maturation of NASCAR on TV subdividing an already crowded piece of the average sports guy’s time and attention. The maturation of event television and things like HBO subdividing an already crowded piece of the average sports guy’s time and attention.
2. The malice in the palace, the mainstream media’s pointed commentaries against the league, (especially Milwaukee media) (There isn’t even a dedicated person that covers the Bucks! for the JS) and the race card.
3. The race card: the middle american high salary consumer sports dollar can’t identify with the teenaged, tattooed, hip hop athlete anymore. I think its just beacuse we can see their tattoos not hidden underneath an NFL uniform and we can see cornorows not hidden underneath a hat or helmet that the generalization of the NBA being punks comes out.
4. Marketing: Hank williams and Bon Jovi of the NFL speak to the dollar and the audience more than the Nelly-Beyonce infused NBA. Race card again. I don’t get it.
5. Double standard parity perception: In the NFL parity is great because anybody can beat anybody on any given night, the great NFL parity!!!! In the NBA parity is called “the Eastern conference sucks, I can’t watch it” Double standard.
6. Number of games for an average fan: Way too many, very long race, hard to schedule your time and sports budget into an 82 game schedule. Games on Wednesday night? I never hear Baseball pundits and fans complain at a schedule double that of the NBA, but for the average guy and non-junkie it seems way too long and hard to keep up with. It takes place during most of the national past time football season and the holidays. Too much going on, gets to be stepchild of people’s time.

Ask any pro athlete what league they would want to be in if they couldn’t be in their own: The answer is the NBA Check the stands for celebs at an NFL game or a hockey game,…nothing. Check the stands at an NBA game and it’s littered with Salma Hayek and hot celebrity broads. It’s young, fast, diverse, exciting, it has parity, it has a great financial model that keeps players and salaries in check, I can actually think of Milwaukee winning a title and its not ludicrous thought, pluse Michael Redd, earl Boykins, Steve Nash, Ron Artest, Crazy ass van Gundy(mirroring some of Jim’s taste in PR in English soccer), The suns, The mavs, the Euros!, Manu Ginobili, Dwayne Wade is a new mega force, fubky ass uniforms, great announcers, the TNT Barkley-Kenny Smith-Ernie is sportsworld’s greatest most candid announce team!, Big Dog!, Ther lakers demise!, signature shoes, energee! dance team!, Zaza!

…..The NBA: I love this game!

Why can’t you America?

p.s. Chuck, you can now have BBuchs block me from posting on any of these sites, I’m a maniac, sorry.

Posted by: Andy G at May 11, 2005 1:05 PM

Thanks for your thoughts, Andy. Good points. Where are you on the age restriction issue? I don’t follow the game as closely as you do, but it seems that is one of the bigger problems. Wouldn’t it help the league to have their all of their players mature (and get hyped, from the marketing perspective) in college before going pro?

Posted by: chuck at May 11, 2005 1:30 PM

I am against the age restriction but I hate what some teams are into in the current set up. It’s hard because the league doen’t have a fully mature internally subsidized minor league system and NBA teams and rosters are basically using cap space and roster spots for paid internships for players coming up. If you can play or you think you can, come on out! I never hear this argument about tennis or pro baseball signing 18 year olds, but the NBA doesn’t have a system in place and the fallcy of college basketball is being diminished by the player population because why play for free and get used so some college can make money off of you.

The NBA needs a true minor league where people have contracts and are on payroll and will get weeded out just the same on a different level and then we can kiss college basketball goodbye. Apply the state of development in the NBA to the baseball model and it doesn’t even make sense because of the lifelong sysytem we’ve had in place in our heads with college hoops. Why even pump an exploitative system like college just for pre-marketing of stars, the NBA needs to re-invest in itself and have a real minor system in place and maybe even put it overseas. Teams could develop guys until they are ready, why would Lebron want to be in college? Look what Carmelo did as a freshman, they need to be in a system with NBA coaching and better talent, Where would Mo Williams develop? burning guys like Travis Diener each week or taking his lumps in a true NBA minor system with a clone of an NBA level schedule with travel aagainst true NBA prospect from around teh world. People would get weeded out real quick.

My big question is, who watches college baseball?

The NBA needs to step it up and make a real minor league system happen. Imagine the sattelite Bucks team in Barcelona Spain deveopling a monster like Zaza or prospect Fran Vasquez? Call ups and demotions, you could manage the injured list better and guys would get shots a couple times a season, put it on espn 2 and promote the hell out of it like college hoops. It could work. But then again, Major league baseball doesn’t pre-develop stars, one day you wake up and there’s Albert Pujols and you don’t know where he comes from or you haven’t seen him in the minors on TV for 3 years and no one cares. He just rocks. I don’t see a problem with that. Guys get weeded out and the stars rise to the top. Fans don’t care, I didn’t see Pujols in college or on some AAU team, I don’t care where he comes from. The only challenge I see is that the NBA has teams subsidizing development on active rosters, But how can you argue when you have Kobe, T-Mac, KG, Lebron, Yao, Carmelo, Jermaine Oneal, JR Smith, Shaun livingston, and unheard of Euros tearing it up without advance marketing in college TV games? Those guys are the backbone right now and are all early entries…….

It’s just not served up on the platter that was in place for the average casual fan with the college basketball star system and TV and they are not catching on to the way things are now.

The hustle and the TV show tournament of college hoops is fun and cool, but the talent in college is pretty awful.

Posted by: Andy G at May 11, 2005 1:57 PM

Somebody get this guy a weblog.

Posted by: Bryan Buchs at May 11, 2005 4:41 PM

sorry sorry, I know I spewed and spewed I don’t know how the blog would be, NBA musings, movie shit-talking and reviews of my hair products. Would get dull quick, the anti-NBA is a sore spot for me.

Posted by: Andy G at May 11, 2005 4:44 PM

Andy, you should have a blog.

Posted by: chuck at May 12, 2005 12:38 PM

Not true about celebrities at NHL games! I sat 5 seats down from John Cusack at a Wings game last year, and there was enough latina heat to melt the ice!

And yes Andy you should have a blog.

Posted by: Dan at May 12, 2005 3:50 PM