Say what you want, but I fucking hate the NBA

[LostInAnomie]

Here is why:
1. It is all a bunch of way overpaid crybabies.
2. Somehow most of the players forgot somewhere between college and the NBA that you are supposed to dribble the fucking ball of the approach to the basket. The rule about traveling has been forgotten completely.
3. Defense is a thing of the past unless it comes in the form of a "blocked shot" which is really just a code word for clubbing the other player.
4. The whole game has broken down into a joke of a one on one game where one player take about 40 shots a game essentially unopposed.
5. Team styled play has been done away with for the idea of a star player.
6. Shaq. He is nothing but a big hacking, clubbing, piece of shit who does nothing but run other players over until he can get close enough to basically drop the ball in the basket. I also hate the fact that they had to change to fucking rules of the game and make the "hack a shaq" rule just so he wouldn't get exploited for the no talent fuck he is.
7. How they refuse to admit the because of how they have broken down and corrupted basketball that USA basketball is a joke around the world. The only reason we even stay close in international competition is that the refs cannot call every rule we break.

I could go on, and on, and on but I won't. I love basketball but the NBA as far as I am concerned is not basketball anymore. Instead, I will gladly watch NCAA ball.

[Ruffhowse]

1. Absolutely correct on all points. I, too, will now only watch college

basketball. The pros are nothing but over paid prima donnas. I live in Portland, Oregon, and our team has been a spectacular failure as a role model for kids in our area, with team members getting arrested for drugs and driving violations regularly. The games are nothing but slam dunk contests and the flagrant fouling and traveling are incredible. Thank God for the NCAA and the wonderful playoff season for them every year. It's too bad that the best of the NCAA has to go into the NBA and become spoiled goods.

[DarkSim]

2. Agreed. Even the CBA is better

China Basketball Association (CBA) is far superior to hte NBA. I mean, you watch the NBA and all it is, is just one guy taking a stroll down the court unstopped. The only defense you see in NBA is man to man. In the CBA you can see like 7 different types of zone defenses, HUNDREDS of play, more dunks and tricks and the game actually looks like a team sport!

[qazplm]

3. well

Travelling has been a part of the NBA for a long time (Cf. Patrick Ewing's infamous 4 steps across the lane patented move).

I dont know that the problem is the NBA, I would say it goes much deeper than that.

I think the problem is AAU teams that run and gun, dunk or shoot threes with no midrange game, play no defense, and these are the teams that everyone gets noticed on by college and pro teams.

Used to be coaches watched high school games, but now its AAU Summer Leagues.

Defense, midrange shooting, ability to play zone defense is a premium at the high school and college levels too...it isnt just the NBA.

[Abelman]

4. Team ball

That was the Pistons last year, and that's why they won.

I'm not a huge fan of basketball, anyway, especially the NBA. Charging pisses me off. "Oh, you tapped me! I was fouled, I'm going to fall over." If you can't stand up, get out of the way!

Shaq is good at one thing. Being big. That's what he gets paid for.

[Swamp Rat]

5. I will never watch basketball ever again nor will I purchase any products

advertised or associated with it. That goes for all professional sports. I'd rather go cycling with my friends to the park and play soccer, etc.

[Gryffindor_Bookworm]

6. THANK YOU!!!

I agree on all points, but *especially* on Shaq. He is not a ballplayer -- not anywhere CLOSE to a ballplayer. He is an overgrown boy who sticks his ass into people and slam dunks. That is his ONLY basketball skill - the ass and the skillful :eyes: use of his freakish height.

That's it. Period. And for this, he is a multi-gazillionaire, while my brother the cop and my sister-in-law the teacher will not, TOGETHER, in their whole LIFETIMES, make what he earns in one MONTH.

What. The. Fuck.

[H2O Man]

7. Interesting points

I am hoping that the addition of players from outside the USA might help improve the NBA. I do enjoy it, but have to agree with all of the points you make. I'm beginning to prefer local high school b-ball.

[ikojo]

8. Is NBA's close relationship to hip hop to blame

for its current problems?

A couple of weeks ago a columnist in the St Louis Post Dispatch said that the NBAs very close relationship with hip hop culture was causing it to lose fans. Incidentally this columnist is African American so before you flame away I thought you might like to know that. I cannot locate the original article but in googling the topic I came across this from MSNBC

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/sports/columnists.nsf/bryanburwell/story/A15C3B6A4A5951B786256F55001BB26E?OpenDocument&Headline=The+NBA+is+hip-hopping+its+way+out+of+the+mainstream&tetl=1 >

Hip-hop culture is part of NBA's bad rap
Booting Artest won't solve big gap between players, fans

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6583353/

...Ticket holders and fans pay more than ever to see professional basketball, yet it seems they identify less than ever with the players. Some of that backlash was obvious this summer when a U.S. Olympic team of high-profile NBA players was ridiculed, at home and overseas, as pampered and spoiled before the competition had started.

snip

And not all the league's problems can be attributed to the players. League and club executives decided to marry the NBA to hip-hop, and clearly didn't know what they were getting into. As my friend Brian Burwell wrote in Tuesday's St. Louis Post-Dispatch, NBA marketing people "thought they were getting Will Smith and LL Cool J. But now they've discovered the dark side of hip-hop has also infiltrated their game, with its 'bling-bling' ostentation, its unrepentant I-gotta-get-paid ruthlessness, its unregulated culture of posses, and the constant underlying threat of violence."

snip

And all this is relevant because this is where NBA players live. It's not a lifestyle they've adopted, it's a life most of them -- black and white -- have lived their entire adult lives. It's a life that boasts incessantly about, "my drink," "my smoke," "my women," and "my rides." And it is a life based on getting "respect" at any cost, including going into the stands and administering a beat-down if somebody "disrespects you."

snip

What I hear now, increasingly, is tolerance for the game, particularly in black America where basketball is the most beloved industry going, but a wariness of many of the players. Just last week, the league told Vince Carter he couldn't wear headphones during warmups. The inference from fans is that Carter would like to, if allowed, block them out right up until the opening tip-off. The night after the brawl in Detroit, the Rockets' Maurice Taylor conducted an interview and wouldn't even take off his headphones. The message, intended or not, is that the moment he was done talking he didn't want to be bothered. This came two weeks after Latrell Sprewell indicated he would need more than $10 million a year to feed his family. And of course, Artest wanted time off during the season to promote his girl group's new CD.

[H2O Man]

9. That is certainly an interesting point ....

and isn't so much one based upon "race" as "culture." And I don't see it as cause for a flame war here. We are mature enough to be able to discuss issues like this without it becoming ugly.

I was never much of a b-ball player. I boxed. And I remember when the former light heavyweight champion turned author Jose Torres said that you could blindfold him, and walk him through a locker room, and he could tell you where the blacks were, where the whites were, and where the Hispanics were. It made a few people uncomfortable. Or I remember when Kenny Norton was on as a guest with Don Dunphey, announcing a fight on tv. Both guys were wearing the same color trunks, with just a tiny difference in the stripes. Don kept saying," so-n-so in the _____ trunks," and finally Kenny said, "Don, we can all see that he's the black guy, and the other guy is white." The sport survived.