The Rockets have won 19 in a row. Why don't you care?

Convenient to not quote the part of my post that "flies in the face" of your screed.

I guess maybe I should have prefaced by saying that "entertaining" = "well played basketball."

:

 

I don't think anyone here has gone "on and on" about any of the stuff you listed, but OK.

As for the scheduling of cream puffs, etc., not every college team is Duke or Syracuse. Go tell Carolina it's playing nothing but cake. Or Gonzaga. Or Arizona. Or Memphis. Or Southern Illinois. Or Tennesse. Or...I could go for awhile here. The schedules of those teams in relative comparison to the schedule of an Eastern Conference is much, much more demanding. (Notice I said "relative," meaning "good or bad in its field of competition").

 

But 7 < 82. You can apply the same logic to the NBA Playoffs as the NCAA Tournament. The Warriors, in this argument, need to be better than whomever they are playing four times out of seven, a tiny sampling in comparison to the 82-game season. How is that any different than having to be better than your opponent once out of a 35-game season?

 

And now I am just post-padding.

 

It's in the name of a good cause, though, so it's allowed. As for me, I think the NBA has gotten better over the last 5 years but the Tournament is still my favorite part of the sports year.

 

Personally, haven't cared about the NBA since ... eh, probably the end of the first Bush administration.

 

I'm a big NBA guy over NCAA, simply because the quality of play is so much better. I definitely love college basketball as well, as I could watch pretty much any level of ball all day. My waning interest in the NFL probably compares to what many people have gone through with the NBA.

So I do have to defend the pro game in one regard. Pressing is a faux-pas because it does not work in the NBA. It just doesn't, at least not on any type of consistent basis. A couple of reasons: first, the season is 82 games. How many teams are going to do 48 minutes of hell when they face that kind of schedule?

But the biggest reason is that the players are simply too good for pressing to work. What level do presses work best? Probably the most effective full-court press I ever saw was in an 8th grade game. One team had two guards who stole the ball on every possession and the team won 70-2. High school teams can have really good presses. The higher up you go, though, the less-effective full-court presses are, as the ballhandling and passing get better and better. And in the NBA, the guys are too good to be pressed beyond some token pressure every once in awhile. If you're looking for negatives about the league, I wouldn't pick something that's actually a reflection on how talented the players are.

No help-side defense? I mean come on. if defenses in the NBA are really so bad, why do so many guys who are great scorers in college struggle to make any kind of impact in the pros? Lots of teams do still run too much 2-man offense, but check out a team like the Lakers with the triangle. It's about passing. Give me that any day over the 3-pointathon that the college game has become, which makes every game look exactly the same, no matter if it's the ACC or some two-bit conference final. And the hustle thing...again, lesser talented players "hustle" more because the more talented the player, the easier they make the game look. Doesn't mean they're not hustling (think how much high school girls basketball teams "hustle" because they're running around like maniacs and falling on the floor a lot). Is LeBron loafing because he can glide down the length of the court in a matter of seconds for a dunk and doesn't break a sweat? And if it's so easy to strategize in the NBA, why do college coaches fail so miserably? Certainly a lot of it has to do with handling the egos, but a lot of times it's also been because they don't have a clue as to how to actually coach the x's and o's at the highest level.

I definitely love March Madness, but these days it's more because of the pageantry and that first weekend of action, not the game. What my ramblings have to do with the Rockets, I don't know. I said in a previous post, I think it's because they're still so so far behind the record. I mean, they'd have to win 15 in a row still to break it.

Now I'm off to watch Seattle and Indiana on League Pass.

 

You're going to watch the Pacers? Good lord, you do love the NBA.

 

If 8th grade basketball is where a press works best, someone might want to notify 1990 UNLV and 1994 Arkansas. I'm sure they would disagree. Your point that a press can't be run because of the 82-game schedule solidifies my thought that the NBA season is too long, and that lends to some of the decline of the game. Players hold back during the regular season. This year's West is a notable exception, but quite often that's the case.

You're right about the <i>talent</i> level being so high that it keeps some college players from being great in the pros. Someone like J.J. Redick can't be a great pro because his game was predicated on running off numerous screens, his teammates moving the ball, and him getting an open jumper. That doesn't work in the pros, but that is another thought I have on the NBA. It's more on the raw skill of a player than the team strategy in the pros. The rules even limit much of the game's strategy at the pro level. Not so much on offense - J.J. Redick would never be a pro star because of his talent level - but definitely on defense. The NBA's idea of zone is sagging man-to-man.

Since you brought up Indiana (seriously, Pacers-Sonics? Sounds like televised waterboarding) a great example is Danny Granger (someone in that shitshow I would actually enjoy watching). He was a good college player, but is becoming a great pro. Does that mean his comp was better in the Mountain West? Hell no. But he has the kind of game and talent that translates well to the NBA, sort of the polar opposite to Redick. You'll see it again soon in another New Mexico player, J.R. Giddens. I feel confident Giddens will have a better pro career than college.

 

We put the Rockets on our front page today. Also put the story on the web and it was the least read stroy of our web (all of our web...including news and obits) stories.

And we aren't that far from Houston.
It's a good story, but really the novelty is just this: Streak hits 20, or whatever. The actual game isn't important.

 

What "level of care" is acceptable? Do I have to watch all the Rockets games until they lose? Or is seeing their highlights on ESPN (and their highlights are all over ESPN) acceptable enough? Must I also read all the front-page articles in whatever newspapers print them, or is it only acceptable if I do that AND demand SI put the Rockets on the front cover?

Please advise me on the appropriate level of caring I must show in order to not be accused of being disinterested.

 

FWIW, I've heard and read "Rockets" more in the last 24 hours than I have "George Mason," "San Diego" or "Siena."