NBA Playoff dullness...

This is going to open a can of worms, but I'm going to say it anyway. In my personal experience, when I come across a basketball fan who despises the NBA, race is almost always the underlying issue. I don't necessarily think you are a racist, but whenever someone just eviscerates the NBA, I think of how an old Bill Maher joke can be tweaked to fit the situation: Just because you hate the NBA doesn't make you a racist, but if you're a racist, you probably hate the NBA.

 

Please, go ahead and hate the NBA.
It matters not.
The worst thing NBA lovers can do is become touchy and defensive like soccer fans.
I love it, but I couldnt care less what anybody thinks about NBA.
And really, the issue isn't that folks call it shitty and terrible, it's that they'd call anything they didn't like shitty and terrible.
As though we don't yet comprehend (as 5-year-olds do) that some people like some things, and some people like other things.
Great, you don't like it.
What do you want already?
Do you feel like you're going to cause an epiphany in us where we're like, oh fuck, this asswipe is right, NBA sucks! What have I been thinking this whole time!!

 

Which is exactly what you just went and did, 30.

... Look, this is what spj is. We sports types put subjects on the table and discuss them. This one started with the OP questioning all the extra time off between games. Others weighed in. Others cracked jokes. LongTime called the NBA a "rigged sham." Michael_Gee suggested "script problems." I submitted my opinion on this version of the NBA, and my/our thoughts since have been referred to as "absurd," "ignorant," "reeking of stupidity" and, finally, I'm an "asswipe." I usually reserve opinions that negative to the crackhead who stole my vehicle a couple of years ago, or maybe someone who damn-near causes you to crash when he cuts you off on the freeway when your children are in the car with you, someone who steals the Christmas lights off your front lawn ... someone who really does something rotten to you personally. But some of y'all are getting all worked into a lather simply because some of us don't like your sport.

I've taken a particular interest in this thread for several reasons. One, I used to love the NBA and still love college and high school hoops (sorry, service, but you never should have gone there, but hey, you're entitled to your say, too). Two, my eyes began to see changes in the NBA game, notably with the officiating, in about the mid-1990s. Finally - again, in my eyes and, obviously, in the eyes of many others, too - I got sick of seeing preferential treatment for the "superstars," which you don't see on the ice, basic rules of the game no longer enforced, officials helping losing teams get back into games (you can count on a 20-point comeback every night in the NBA, and there's help involved there), and so forth and so on.

What makes it worse is that our business - sports journalism - has fallen in line and gone along with the program instead of addressing the issue and trying to do something about it, as we did in the good old days. Alleged crookedness in the NBA has been written about in books (Bill Simmons' book is marvelous, for those who haven't read it).

Why is it that football and baseball players, race car drivers, golfers, etc., move step by step up each rung of their sport's ladder by learning and continuing to grow into the game, while college and high school basketball coaches (many of whom despise the NBA game, at least many of those I know) feel the need to take X amount of days at the start of camp each season to break the NBA habits of some of their wanna-be players - "No, you can't carry your dribble above your head; that's carrying the ball."

The NBA is a billion-dollar industry - one of the "big three" sports - built and maintained on the public's wallet. Writers and talk-radio cats speak openly of a series guaranteed to be extended so as to squeeze another game's worth of money out of the fans, of certain players "not getting that call" because he isn't well-enough known yet in the league while established "stars" do "get that call."

This version of the NBA, which I believe to be tainted, continues to collect its billions during a horrible economy (I've been laid off twice myself in the last 2 1/2 years), but I'm the "asswipe" for saying I believe it's wrong.

If people are going to pump their money into a sport, any sport, they deserve the best possible product the sport can produce, and that includes you, too, den, 30, et al.

 

Probably true, but I think it goes deeper than that. It's not just race alone, it's the "ghetto culture" that seems to predominate the league. One step to make it more palatable would be to go to mid or long sleeve jerseys since it seems like just about every player nowadays is virtually covered in tattoos. I find that disgusting, regardless of the race.

 

Hit the nail on the head. It's the new culture that started in the late 90s. It's all the unnecessary tattoos, long baggy shorts and cheating husbands and, as you said, the "ghetto culture." There are players who are good people and good role models, but when your league's so-called best player exploits himself for an hour to make a show about his free agency destination, it just makes the whole league look bad. Plus, it seems like players bitch about fouls now more than I have ever seen (even with the new technical rules in place) ... and yes, I'm looking at you, Wade and Pierce and LeBron.

 

Kevin McHale just threw his hands up in disgust and wondered how the hell you could say that.

 

What in god's name do tattoos have to do with the quality of the game?

 

You have not offered any proof that the game is fixed.
Let's be clear- your suspicion does not make it so.

 

Absolutely nothing. It's just something for people to bitch about.

 

So, are you lumping LeBron into this ghetto culture, or are you just saying The Decision was bad for the league?

And is there such a thing as a necessary tattoo?

A former co-worker of mine said he wasn't a fan of LeBron when he came into the league because, "LeBron's a thug." I never saw that. If you're talking about the negative side to LeBron's image, he seems more childish or spoiled or the result of feeling entitled his entire life. But the thug or ghetto description doesn't fit. When people do that (such as my former co-worker, and what you might be saying) it looks like a race issue.

 

Nothing. But they may say something about the persons playing it.

 

Finally, no more beating around the bush.
We have our first roundabout racist remark on this thread.
Let me guess- you object to how these young men wear their hair, also.