Wednesday, June 21, 2006
The NBA Has Lapped Itself
The NBA has been completely unwatchable for the last few years. But you know, for a while there, we were coming back around.
E.K. Nation is based in Portland, where in the last 16 years the Blazers have had two eras. The first era began in 1990, when the team made its way back to the NBA Finals for the first time in 13 years, was tops in the regular season in 1991 until running into Magic and the Lakers, and then again went back to the Finals in 1992. Things were really looking up for the franchise. It was one of the elite teams in the NBA. "Blazermania", after about a decade, had finally returned to Portland, and the city was proud of its team.
That era ended when, with four seconds left in the third quarter of Game 7 of the 2000 Western Conference Finals, the Lakers' Brian Shaw fired up a three-point shot with the Blazers ahead 71-55.
The second of two Blazers eras since 1990 began when Shaw's three-pointer banked off the glass and into the hoop.
It was uncanny how instantaneously recognizable that moment was. Just moments before, as the clock wound down in third quarter, we remember staring into the bathroom mirror, washing our hands and saying, "We're going to the Finals, baby." But after Shaw's prayer found the bottom of the net, no 13-point lead -- guaranteed -- had ever been so instantly tenuous as the one the Blazers held at that moment.
Yes, the Blazers lost that game. Couldn't shoot a barn with a shotgun if they were standing inside the barn. So on and so forth, and we don't want to re-live this game anymore. And we're also not going to go over all of the crimes and questionable social decisions various Blazers have made in the last few years. There just might not be room enough on the freakin' internet to list them all.
Since that horrific Game 7, the Blazers have accomplished virtually nothing. A two-decades-long playoff-appearances streak came to an end three years ago, and now the team is the worst in the NBA...and with its karma still can't even get the #1 draft pick.
So we haven't had much to enjoy about the game lately, on a favorite-team-success level. But that's just the start of it.
On an entertainment level, it hasn't been all that great either. Let's start with the traveling and double-dribble (palming) violations. There are at least four occurrences of both of the violations on every single possession in every single NBA game ever played, and they are never called. So it's not really the truest form of basketball to begin with.
Yes, we got to watch Michael Jordan and his insane talent in the 1990s. But we also got to see refs favor him. We watched him get every call. If you touched M.J., you were whistled. He invariably made a continuation basket and suddenly the play was worth three points. (If M.J. had the sniffles before a playoff game, the sideline reporters commented on it as though he had just sneezed into the World Trade Center, collapsing it.) And he got all the calls, and it wasn't really basketball after that.
Same for Shaq, more recently. Shaquille O'Neal travels almost every time he gets the ball (duh), pushes people on defense, slams into people when going up for shots, and usually has gotten the benefit of the doubt. Kobe Bryant, for all his skills, never fucking passes. He's a ball hog. He just shoots and shoots and shoots. The 81-point game was a marvel if only because of the number of points he was scoring. In a pick-up game, we'd all be crying, "Yo, Kobe, I'm open!" It's been a one-dimensional game for years now.
This year's playoffs started, though, and something happened. Games became interesting. They seemed to all be close, well-played games. We found ourselves riveted to the TV, if at least for the last half of fourth quarters. And we started to care a little bit about the outcome of the NBA championship.
And the Dwyane Wade thing has completely made the league crash right back down to ground zero. And by "the Dwyane Wade thing" we mean somebody and some team becoming the beneficiary of stupid, ridiculous calls that have a serious effect on the outcome of games.
Yes, Dwyane Wade is a spectacular player and is on his way to becoming an elite star. But for him to thread the needle, not get touched, and get to go to the free-throw line anyway late in a close game in the Finals, and for him to throw an elbow into the gut of Dirk Nowitzki and get to go the free-throw line late in a different close game in the Finals, well, suffice it to say, we're fucking frustrated as all fuck. Josh Howard doesn't call a timeout, but the referees lie when they say he did and call a timeout, when it is obvious that no NBA team would ever call a timeout in the situation it was whistled. We see it starting all over again. A bunch of fucking bullshit NBA shit.
And should the NBA be surprised to see accusations and allegations of fixing games? No, it shouldn't. The Miami Heat has (and yes, it is "has" -- "Heat" is singular) two marketable players (Shaq and Wade) and a classic, respectable, winning coach. The Mavericks have no marketable players and an owner that the league does not want to see holding a championship trophy. Who do you think they'd want to have as champions?
We're not going to accuse anyone of anything. But it's such bullshit. If the outcome NBA Finals games was determined by the players, we'd be more than happy with what went down this year. But Game 5 and Game 6 were quite lame.
And the NBA has lapped itself. It's unwatchable again. But pro basketball was never our favorite sport anyway, so we really don't care. We'll always have the college game.
E.K. Nation is based in Portland, where in the last 16 years the Blazers have had two eras. The first era began in 1990, when the team made its way back to the NBA Finals for the first time in 13 years, was tops in the regular season in 1991 until running into Magic and the Lakers, and then again went back to the Finals in 1992. Things were really looking up for the franchise. It was one of the elite teams in the NBA. "Blazermania", after about a decade, had finally returned to Portland, and the city was proud of its team.
That era ended when, with four seconds left in the third quarter of Game 7 of the 2000 Western Conference Finals, the Lakers' Brian Shaw fired up a three-point shot with the Blazers ahead 71-55.
The second of two Blazers eras since 1990 began when Shaw's three-pointer banked off the glass and into the hoop.
It was uncanny how instantaneously recognizable that moment was. Just moments before, as the clock wound down in third quarter, we remember staring into the bathroom mirror, washing our hands and saying, "We're going to the Finals, baby." But after Shaw's prayer found the bottom of the net, no 13-point lead -- guaranteed -- had ever been so instantly tenuous as the one the Blazers held at that moment.
Yes, the Blazers lost that game. Couldn't shoot a barn with a shotgun if they were standing inside the barn. So on and so forth, and we don't want to re-live this game anymore. And we're also not going to go over all of the crimes and questionable social decisions various Blazers have made in the last few years. There just might not be room enough on the freakin' internet to list them all.
Since that horrific Game 7, the Blazers have accomplished virtually nothing. A two-decades-long playoff-appearances streak came to an end three years ago, and now the team is the worst in the NBA...and with its karma still can't even get the #1 draft pick.
So we haven't had much to enjoy about the game lately, on a favorite-team-success level. But that's just the start of it.
On an entertainment level, it hasn't been all that great either. Let's start with the traveling and double-dribble (palming) violations. There are at least four occurrences of both of the violations on every single possession in every single NBA game ever played, and they are never called. So it's not really the truest form of basketball to begin with.
Yes, we got to watch Michael Jordan and his insane talent in the 1990s. But we also got to see refs favor him. We watched him get every call. If you touched M.J., you were whistled. He invariably made a continuation basket and suddenly the play was worth three points. (If M.J. had the sniffles before a playoff game, the sideline reporters commented on it as though he had just sneezed into the World Trade Center, collapsing it.) And he got all the calls, and it wasn't really basketball after that.
Same for Shaq, more recently. Shaquille O'Neal travels almost every time he gets the ball (duh), pushes people on defense, slams into people when going up for shots, and usually has gotten the benefit of the doubt. Kobe Bryant, for all his skills, never fucking passes. He's a ball hog. He just shoots and shoots and shoots. The 81-point game was a marvel if only because of the number of points he was scoring. In a pick-up game, we'd all be crying, "Yo, Kobe, I'm open!" It's been a one-dimensional game for years now.
This year's playoffs started, though, and something happened. Games became interesting. They seemed to all be close, well-played games. We found ourselves riveted to the TV, if at least for the last half of fourth quarters. And we started to care a little bit about the outcome of the NBA championship.
And the Dwyane Wade thing has completely made the league crash right back down to ground zero. And by "the Dwyane Wade thing" we mean somebody and some team becoming the beneficiary of stupid, ridiculous calls that have a serious effect on the outcome of games.
Yes, Dwyane Wade is a spectacular player and is on his way to becoming an elite star. But for him to thread the needle, not get touched, and get to go to the free-throw line anyway late in a close game in the Finals, and for him to throw an elbow into the gut of Dirk Nowitzki and get to go the free-throw line late in a different close game in the Finals, well, suffice it to say, we're fucking frustrated as all fuck. Josh Howard doesn't call a timeout, but the referees lie when they say he did and call a timeout, when it is obvious that no NBA team would ever call a timeout in the situation it was whistled. We see it starting all over again. A bunch of fucking bullshit NBA shit.
And should the NBA be surprised to see accusations and allegations of fixing games? No, it shouldn't. The Miami Heat has (and yes, it is "has" -- "Heat" is singular) two marketable players (Shaq and Wade) and a classic, respectable, winning coach. The Mavericks have no marketable players and an owner that the league does not want to see holding a championship trophy. Who do you think they'd want to have as champions?
We're not going to accuse anyone of anything. But it's such bullshit. If the outcome NBA Finals games was determined by the players, we'd be more than happy with what went down this year. But Game 5 and Game 6 were quite lame.
And the NBA has lapped itself. It's unwatchable again. But pro basketball was never our favorite sport anyway, so we really don't care. We'll always have the college game.
