Boring............

The National Basketball League sucks.  Plain and simple.  No offense to a fellow blogger, but it’s boring, selfish basketball.  ESPN is cluttered with NBA trade news, “the decision” and salary news .  Rewind twenty years and that’s when basketball was at it’s finest.  With the likes of Jordan , Johnson, Ewing, and Bird it was fun to watch.  There was real offense, real defense, and it was about the game. 

I was bored on All-Star weekend and ESPN Classic had the 1992 All-Star game playing.  I actually sat and watched half the game.  I don’t remember the last time I sat and watched a professional basketball game.  The game was fun to watch.  Even though it was an All-Star game, there was offense and even defense.  It had all the flair of an All-Star game but it had pick-and-rolls that ended in alley-oops, give-and-goes with a Jordan reverse lay-up. 

Compare this to the most recent All-Star game.  Their offense was LeBron against the West and Kobe against the East.  There weren’t enough basketballs to go around that night.  Kobe Bryant finished the game with 37 points and was basically a black hole.  He wasn’t gonna give the ball up. 

This is basically the story of every NBA game.  It’s one-on-one, go to the hole even when there are three guys standing wide open waiting for a chance to prove he’s worth playing in the NBA, or pull up bombs from 30 feet.  I was no Kobe, but I woulda sat my ass on the bench if I pulled up for three off the first pass.  I was also taught that in a basketball offense, you needed to move without the basketball-set screens, cut to the basket, get some one else open.  I’m no NBA coach, but I think this philosophy would still apply in the league, but apparently not.  Whenever Kobe, LeBron, or Carmelo have the ball, the other four players are frozen.  They could just as well find an empty seat , spend $30 on a couple beers and hotdogs and enjoy the show. 

 Another thing the NBA is lacking is defense.  There is none.  I see better defense watching sweaty old men trying to re-live their glory days.  They at least have a little bit of shame when someone blows by them for a lay-up. 

Back in the good ol’ days even the stars played defense.  In the last ten years, the only “star” players to win the Defensive Player of the Year were Kevin Garnett and Dwight Howard.  If you go farther back, Jordan won one, David Robinson won one, and even Payton.  LeBron doesn’t have any, Kobe-none, Wade-zero.  Even the stars realized that they have other players on their team.  Jordan knew that Pippen was a deadly weapon and that Steve Kerr could bury three’s from anywhere on the court.  While Jordan averaged 30 points per game, he also averaged 5.3 assists.  Larry Bird averaged 24 points and 6.3 assists.  Carmelo Anthony averages 24 points and 3 assists a game. 

The NBA blows.  It’s boring and hard to watch even in the playoffs.  The greats cared about winning not how much they money they made.  They let their championships do the talking, not their endorsements.  It was fun to watch.  They cared, they hustled, and they made the extra pass.  It was when basketball was at it’s greatest.