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:
I like the NBA... but it's boring at least 50% of the time when players are on cruise control during the regular season. Cut back the season.
Is uneffective a word?
How can 'roids help an NBA player? Ask Ben Wallace... I'm not making any claims about Ben, but they make you stronger and faster while not perhaps helping ball handling and shooting - but that's the same argument people make about 'roids not helping Bonds hit a curveball. I suppose coke and mary j are the drugs of choice for the NBA, but 'roids not helping athletes?! That's got to be the most way off base comment you've ever made. It may not have the problems in that area that NBA and MLB have, but that's only because David Stern has a secret clause in the players association agreement that anyone caught doing steroids will be castrates.
Steroids helped me pass my classes with flying colors last semester.
That shit really works!
i think that your point about season length is valid.
now two counterpoints:
1) uneffective is a word.
2) i didn't claim that steroids don't help athletes. i claimed that they would not work in the nba, or at the least, would not work well. i will stand by that.
the nba is dominated by cardio, not necessarily power. it may be undesirable to take steroids because the seasons can be eight months long, in which case you would have to be taking steroids at least eight months of the year. that is undesirable under most circumstances.
the main reason why steroids are so effective in baseball is that, while they do not help bonds hit the curveball better, they sure do help him hit it farther. as hitting the ball farther is a nice way to score runs and make the bling, it is desirable to take them. it is also a distinct advantage in football: strength and whatnot. but what would be the nba strength equivalent? ben wallace is a possibility, but as cardio, shooting and ball handling are so key (cue the suns) it would surely be a much higher risk/reward ratio than in other sports.
my basic argument is that, while strength is important in the nba, cardio is more important and thus it would be an unnecessarily high risk to take steroids.
With the length of the season it would certainly help things like endurance - stronger, less tired legs would only improve shoot. Steroids don't necessarily have to be about bulking up (see cycling, tennis, track and field, etc.).
And why just throw steroids under the clean/unclean rules? What about amphetamines, EPO (speaking of cardio...), etc.? These will also get you just as banned from other sports and would obviously help in basketball?
If shooting and dribbling is hitting the curve ball, then running fast and jumping are hitting the ball far. You don't think someone might take something that will let them jump as high as Dwight Howard?
Just because the NBA hasn't drank the juice doesn't mean it wouldn't taste good.
(I don't think uneffective is in most modern dictionaries and is perhaps considered anachronistic? But then again, I'm not an etymologist.)
fine, fine, fine, i don't have the requisite steroid knowledge to argue this one. uneffective is not in most dictionaries, but was in the first one i googled, which may or may not be of good quality. ah, the perils of the internet.
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