when baseball is so captivating, why should i write about the nba?
let us consider the following proposition:
three men enter a room. one is a gentleman, an educated man of the highest proportion who speaks thoughtfully and always considers others in his musings. he is dignified by age: his wisdom surpasses the others by many leaps.
his brother is a hard man. he is an enforcer, a large brute who is toughened by blue-collar labor and the fact that he has been in many a dire situation and has seen almost everything imaginable. credibility is built by sheer will, and he is respected for it.
these men share a nephew. he is brash and opinionated; gifted in every way, he knows not the meaning of hard work. he demands the limelight at will, and receives it easily.
in a pure sense, he will never have the respect that the others carry, because respect is always earned, but he will always have the relevant pizazz. he is capable of beauty and greatness that supercedes the others. he can be the apex: he can energize the masses.
friends, i present to you major league baseball, the NFL, and the NBA, most sequentially.
the reason that i pay attention to the nba in this crucial hour is as follows: at this moment, he is quite capable of great things. we are at the forefront: donovan has just committed to the magic, kobe wants out of la, and lebron has asserted has demonstrated that he is the next mj. it's not kobe, it's not d-wade, it's not penny, g-hill, t-mac, or any of the others. it is lebron, and we are all the better for seeing it.
the nba screams out at you: pay attention to me! feed my needs! i want the spotlight: it is mine alone!
friends, we should defer.
the nba is frequently chided by individuals who don't play basketball at a high enough level. self-sustaining, its beauty is rarely recognized outside its discipline. observe what i mean: anyone can appreciate a towering home run, a devastating fastball, or a bone-jarring hit. we like to see the dunks, but enough people can dunk consistently to make it that it doesn't register on us how much higher a level the nba is.
people who play in the pickup games every day know. they know that hitting the 14-18 foot jumper with regularity and being around to rebound and remembering to do everything else on the court in limited minutes is very hard. you are expected to come in and perform at the highest level, and unlike other levels of play, you are not forgiven for various mistakes: rather, you get to sit on the bench if you are uneffective.
we sort of appreciate the suns and the spurs and the pistons, but we frequently chide the nba for several things, which i will enumerate:
1. the isolation. people who dislike the nba claim that it is too much one-on-one; that four men stand around watching one guy dribble.
the counterpoint is this: help defense, it doesn't work as well as it does in college. do you want to double-team t-mac on every possession? who guards yao? battier? the jazz did it, to be sure, but they are at the apex and they just barely made it work.
no college coach in their right mind would have double-teamed corey brewer to leave horford open, but that is basically what every single person who knocks the nba wants coaches to do: double the star to leave a lottery pick open. how do you think kurt thomas has made a living?
would the nba be better with all sorts of awesome passing? yes, but not every team has steve nash, tony parker, or jason kidd, so this is the best that a lot of teams have. so they run the isolation, or maybe if we're lucky they run a pick and roll.
2. nba players are thugs.
correction: only a few nba players are thugs. potentially artest, most probably zach randolph, and ai and carmelo are the cusp. lbj, shaq, kobe, ray-ray, t-mac, these guys are more ghetto fabulous. further away: d-wade, td, stevie nash, dirk, the euros, mr. fantastic (tony parker), and the other guys. college basketball takes most people away long enough to make it work.
nba players are far less troublesome than nfl players. recall the analogy and how the nfl earns its respect. they are also more pure than baseball players (would steroids work in the nba? if so, HOW?) where do people get off? the answer: it's more disconcerting than we'd like to admit.
give to me, give to me.
WHY WON'T YOU LIVE FOR ME???
3. nba players can't shoot. well, the euros don't play much D, college players shoot much worse, so the windows are locked on this one.
and for the record, anyone who watched the warriors/mavs or suns/spurs should know that nba players can shoot. the frustrating damon jones hit the j's too before people figured out that he couldn't dribble.
taunt c-webb a lil' more, DJ.
4. nba games aren't exciting.
college games are exciting by artificiality. talent doesn't sort here, because everyone is stuck at a low level. thus, the press works, hitting threes is unnecessarily important, foul trouble rules all, and teams can consistently out-recruit each other to alter parity.
and i love watching it, but the players are not as good. i have often heard that the best college team could beat the worst nba team. is that true?
could florida have defeated the boston celtics or the memphis grizzlies? certainly not memphis with gasol, hakim warrick, and rudy gay, right? who guards gasol? for that matter, brewer vs. dahntay jones = tough call. maybe boston without pierce, but that's a reach: al jefferson is al horford's equal at this point, and there's just a small chance that the celtics guards would rock brewer and green's world.
i'm sure there are more criticisms that are out there, but people act like they pay these guys' salaries. i don't pay squat.
so nba: tell me a story, i know you're not boring.
three men enter a room. one is a gentleman, an educated man of the highest proportion who speaks thoughtfully and always considers others in his musings. he is dignified by age: his wisdom surpasses the others by many leaps.
his brother is a hard man. he is an enforcer, a large brute who is toughened by blue-collar labor and the fact that he has been in many a dire situation and has seen almost everything imaginable. credibility is built by sheer will, and he is respected for it.
these men share a nephew. he is brash and opinionated; gifted in every way, he knows not the meaning of hard work. he demands the limelight at will, and receives it easily.
in a pure sense, he will never have the respect that the others carry, because respect is always earned, but he will always have the relevant pizazz. he is capable of beauty and greatness that supercedes the others. he can be the apex: he can energize the masses.
friends, i present to you major league baseball, the NFL, and the NBA, most sequentially.
the reason that i pay attention to the nba in this crucial hour is as follows: at this moment, he is quite capable of great things. we are at the forefront: donovan has just committed to the magic, kobe wants out of la, and lebron has asserted has demonstrated that he is the next mj. it's not kobe, it's not d-wade, it's not penny, g-hill, t-mac, or any of the others. it is lebron, and we are all the better for seeing it.
the nba screams out at you: pay attention to me! feed my needs! i want the spotlight: it is mine alone!
friends, we should defer.
the nba is frequently chided by individuals who don't play basketball at a high enough level. self-sustaining, its beauty is rarely recognized outside its discipline. observe what i mean: anyone can appreciate a towering home run, a devastating fastball, or a bone-jarring hit. we like to see the dunks, but enough people can dunk consistently to make it that it doesn't register on us how much higher a level the nba is.
people who play in the pickup games every day know. they know that hitting the 14-18 foot jumper with regularity and being around to rebound and remembering to do everything else on the court in limited minutes is very hard. you are expected to come in and perform at the highest level, and unlike other levels of play, you are not forgiven for various mistakes: rather, you get to sit on the bench if you are uneffective.
we sort of appreciate the suns and the spurs and the pistons, but we frequently chide the nba for several things, which i will enumerate:
1. the isolation. people who dislike the nba claim that it is too much one-on-one; that four men stand around watching one guy dribble.
the counterpoint is this: help defense, it doesn't work as well as it does in college. do you want to double-team t-mac on every possession? who guards yao? battier? the jazz did it, to be sure, but they are at the apex and they just barely made it work.
no college coach in their right mind would have double-teamed corey brewer to leave horford open, but that is basically what every single person who knocks the nba wants coaches to do: double the star to leave a lottery pick open. how do you think kurt thomas has made a living?
would the nba be better with all sorts of awesome passing? yes, but not every team has steve nash, tony parker, or jason kidd, so this is the best that a lot of teams have. so they run the isolation, or maybe if we're lucky they run a pick and roll.
2. nba players are thugs.
correction: only a few nba players are thugs. potentially artest, most probably zach randolph, and ai and carmelo are the cusp. lbj, shaq, kobe, ray-ray, t-mac, these guys are more ghetto fabulous. further away: d-wade, td, stevie nash, dirk, the euros, mr. fantastic (tony parker), and the other guys. college basketball takes most people away long enough to make it work.
nba players are far less troublesome than nfl players. recall the analogy and how the nfl earns its respect. they are also more pure than baseball players (would steroids work in the nba? if so, HOW?) where do people get off? the answer: it's more disconcerting than we'd like to admit.
give to me, give to me.
WHY WON'T YOU LIVE FOR ME???
3. nba players can't shoot. well, the euros don't play much D, college players shoot much worse, so the windows are locked on this one.
and for the record, anyone who watched the warriors/mavs or suns/spurs should know that nba players can shoot. the frustrating damon jones hit the j's too before people figured out that he couldn't dribble.
taunt c-webb a lil' more, DJ.
4. nba games aren't exciting.
college games are exciting by artificiality. talent doesn't sort here, because everyone is stuck at a low level. thus, the press works, hitting threes is unnecessarily important, foul trouble rules all, and teams can consistently out-recruit each other to alter parity.
and i love watching it, but the players are not as good. i have often heard that the best college team could beat the worst nba team. is that true?
could florida have defeated the boston celtics or the memphis grizzlies? certainly not memphis with gasol, hakim warrick, and rudy gay, right? who guards gasol? for that matter, brewer vs. dahntay jones = tough call. maybe boston without pierce, but that's a reach: al jefferson is al horford's equal at this point, and there's just a small chance that the celtics guards would rock brewer and green's world.
i'm sure there are more criticisms that are out there, but people act like they pay these guys' salaries. i don't pay squat.
so nba: tell me a story, i know you're not boring.
posted by mike at 11:27 AM
5 comments
