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http://www.eriklove.com/blog/2006/11/nba-sucks.htmlFriday, November 10, 2006 at 9:36 PM.
So I'm watching the Detroit Pistons mop the Staples Center with the Lakers right now. But this might very well be the last NBA game I watch all year. Eff this league. The Pistons - the greatest basketball franchise the world has ever known - deserve better than this league. The rule changes instituted in the last two years have been absolutely terrible for the sport, for the fans, and for America. Dammit. Let me count the ways that this league stinks.
The NBA in 2006 is a conservative Republican league - just as John Sally said on Fox Sports the other day. I guess they didn't get the news that Republicans aren't popular any more. There was the whole NBA Dress code last year, which requires players to wear nice clothes even in their off hours. And this year there's this new draconian rule that you can't even look at the ref funny after a call or you've got a technical foul. All of which serve to make the black players more palatable to the white, upper-middle class, Republicans audience that the league so wants to attract. Eff this league.
Speaking of the rule changes to the game in the last few years - they have all clearly been designed to stop the Detroit Defensive style of basketball. (By the way, this is why it's good that the Pistons let Ben Wallace go - Joe Dumars, in his genius, saw the writing on the wall that defense is out.) The NBA's theory is that basketball fans want dunks and offense, not the X's and O's of basketball strategy. So, there's an arc around the goal where defensive players aren't allowed to touch the offensive player. As of last year, you can't swat at the ball when attempting to steal. (I guess you're just supposed to magnetically attract the ball away.) They changed the ball so that it's more friendly to offense (harder to lose possession, easier to control your shot, etc.). While zone defense is OK, stopping anyone in the paint from driving to the basket is completely not OK (especially if the player stopped is D Wade, Kobe, or LeBron). Anyone who watched the playoffs last year knows that the superstars were allowed to do whatever they wanted whenever they wanted. Terrible. The results of the new rules were clear - last year, scores went up, foul calls went up, phantom fouls went up, and complaining from the players went up. The two best defensive teams - the Pistons and the San Antonio Spurs - both dropped out early in the playoffs. And this year, the NBA saw an easy way to make their new anti-defense rules more invisible and palatable - shut the players up after they face a phantom foul call.
Yeah, that new "no complaining rule" makes watching the NBA an even worse experience than it was before.
This sucks. And the new rule is so obviously anti-Pistons that it's called the "'Sheed rule" after Detroit forward Rasheed Wallace. Now, there's no denying that Rasheed and many other NBA players whine too much after foul calls.
But there's also no denying that the NBA refs are pathetic. The NBA in 2006 is a sham - not real basketball. Plus, now these BS refs will have a valid way to take out personal beefs on players they don't like - like Rasheed Wallace. They'll just get T'd up and ejected.
Ever since 2004 when the Pistons' slow and defensive style of basketball from the #10 media market beat the fast-paced, star-studded, offensive juggernaut style of basketball from LA, the #2 media market, the NBA has pulled out all the stops to make sure that no defensive team ever again can "ruin" their product.
Eff you, NBA. Joe Dumars built a basketball team that could compete if the NBA were actually playing basketball. Now that the NBA is the XFL of basketball, we're screwed. The new rules are bad for the NBA in the long run, and bad for basketball, bad for the fans, and bad for America. That's why NBA-trained American players can't play in international competition. Eff this league.
