Columnist defends state of NBA

By Andrew Neumann
Collegian Staff
February 28, 2007

In the last five years, a disturbing trend has emerged: people seem to love bashing the NBA. Far from its perch 15 years ago as the hottest league in the world, the National Basketball Association has seen its stock fall since the turn of the century. There have been a lot of reasons offered for this, and I’ve never once heard a fully coherent one put together.

I know the league has some problems, but every other major American professional sport has issues that could be considered significantly worse. So, why the criticisms? Let’s take a look at some of these arguments, why they are fallacious and what I believe is the real basis for each claim.

The season is too long. This is the most reasonable argument that I’ve heard, but it’s still got a lot of flaws. Yes, the NBA season’s 82-game schedule does seem to be about 15 games too many, especially considering how long the playoffs are after that. But the NHL season is also 82 games long, and the argument that the NHL season is too long is never presented. Baseball has a 162-game schedule, twice as long as the NBA’s, and no one ever complains that its season goes on too long.

The regular season doesn’t matter. Like I mentioned, the season is too long. But, when people claim that it doesn’t matter, then the position becomes indefensible. This argument almost always comes from big college basketball fans who prefer a shorter season, meaning each individual game means more. In reality, the college basketball regular season is much less important than the NBA regular season. Most conferences put their automatic bid on the line in a conference tournament, which almost every team makes. This means the 12th seeded team in a 13-team league can theoretically win the conference tournament and be going to the NCAA tournament. When you look at it this way, most college teams don’t begin playing meaningful basketball until the conference tournament.

The college game is just better basketball. This has always been my favorite one. It has become chic to criticize the NBA for what people call “bad basketball.” Most of the time, the person who is saying this will be unable to give you an explanation of what constitutes “bad basketball,” except for the fact that the college game is purer. I’ve never heard someone elaborate with something along the lines of: “The isolation offense has created stagnant drives while killing any opportunity to fast-break and have exciting transitional play.” This is never given as an explanation because most people who make this claim have no clue what they’re talking about. It’s the kind of thing someone hears on ESPN and then decides to pawn off as his or her own opinion. The reason that NBA basketball looks less exciting is because the players are such phenomenal athletes that they do not need to do the things college teams do to generate offense.

The real reason people criticize the NBA is more complicated than three or four word phrases. I do think it definitely has something to do with the fact that most of the players are young African-Americans who often times have corn rows and tattoos. This is too often associated with thuggery. The truth is, the NBA has always been a reflection of the young African-American culture. Walt Frazier used to wear wide-brimmed hats and shoes with live goldfish in them, because it was the style at the time. No one called him a thug. Michael Jordan wore baggy shorts and made the bald-headed look cool among young people. No one called him a punk. But today, anyone who sports a little bit of an urban look is automatically considered a criminal.

Also, I think that it has something to do with the impatience of the average sports fan. The NBA requires a great deal of patience in watching it. There are 82 games, meaning things just don’t play out over the course of a few games. There’s a game usually three times a week, so it takes diligence to keep up with a team throughout a year.

The NFL, on the other hand, is the kind of pursuit one can put on the shelf during the week, enjoy it for three hours on Sunday and then go on with normal life. Baseball’s beauty is in the length of its season, and the NHL is a niche sport at this point with only die-hard fans left.

People can enjoy bashing the NBA, but if they really took a look at the product on the floor, they might think twice the next time they decide to open their mouths and make uninformed criticisms of the sport.

neumanna1@lasalle.edu