# Why Don't You Like the NBA? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [January 12, 2011, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-you-like-the-nba/567321 "2011-01-12T07:24:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2011, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-you-like-the-nba/567321/41 "2011-01-12T19:35:43Z")
> [@Stringer](#): > > I don’t think you hate all black people, I think you hate rich black people who don’t act white enough for your taste. Using “thug” as a codeword for “those rowdy black guys” is pretty racist. And I think you’re an idiot, but if it makes you happy, I retract the word “thugs” and will substitute “assholes.” I don’t hate them because they’re _black_, I hate them because they’re _tall_. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Philster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/13edae/32.png) [@Philster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philster)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2011, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-you-like-the-nba/567321/42 "2011-01-12T19:36:48Z")
The issue on NBA “Thugs”: > **[The NBA is full of thugs, and here's the rap sheet to prove it](https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2010/01/nba-is-full-of-thugs-and-heres-rap/)** > > The Gilbert Arenas situation has made it clear as day: the NBA has a problem.The league is "full of thugs," to quote Forbes editor Michael K. Ozanian. San Read it to the end. ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2011, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-you-like-the-nba/567321/43 "2011-01-12T19:46:58Z")
> [@pancakes3](#): > > chicken or the egg? is the NBA not targeting those people because it’s those very demographics that turned their back on the NBA once Larry Bird retired? Or did the NBA decide to make it policy to actively alienate that demographic? note: it’s not Joe Black in harlem that’s renting out luxury boxes, or courtside seats. It doesn’t matter why it is the way it is. It sounds like you’re trying to make excuses to convince me that I actually DO like it. > [@pancakes3](#): > > NFL wide receivers pre-catch. Soccer players all the time. But they have a big field to work with. They’re not forced by the nature of the game to all be packed into the same space. And there’s tackling in those games. The NFL is a rough sport, and I’m not a fan of soccer either. > [@pancakes3](#): > > spiking the ball (intentional grounding?), taking a penalty if you’re inside the 10 and on the hash’s so you can back up and get a better angle at the goal posts, intentionally walking somebody… Issuing walks and spiking the ball aren’t illegal. And taking a penalty to move back a bit is rare. In basketball, fouling you opponent is an essential part of the game’s basic strategy. > [@pancakes3](#): > > so you (and other SDMBers) don’t like it because poor people play it? sorry, not poor people. American poor people (read BLACK people)? > > i’m not calling you out specifically. in fact, i’ve always suspected that most white americans don’t like basketball because of race. it’s fine in the NFL because you’ve got SOME white stars - brady, manning, brees. in the NBA? Dirk’s not american. Nash is tinted with canadian blood. there are no down home white american stars. Not since chris mullin and he wasn’t even that great. you’ve got to go back all the way to Bird and that was 30 years ago. no white heroes = no kids emulating those heroes = no adult fans. Well, it’s not like I’m sitting there going “I’m not going to watch that because poor blacks like it.” I think your word ‘because’ is the wrong one. The question was “Why doesn’t the SDMB reflect the general population’s enthusiam for the NBA?” and the answer, honestly, is because we’re rich/middle class white people and that demographic doesn’t watch basketball. All the “but, but, but…” in the world isn’t going to change that fact. You might as well ask why we don’t start threads about Beyonce or Pitbull in Cafe Society. And you can go ahead and call me a racist, btw. It wouldn’t be the first time this board’s membership has called me it for pointing out that the races don’t like the same things. ::shrug:: > [@DCnDC](#): > > It’s an offensive game. It’s _supposed_ to be high-scoring. The reason most games come down to the last couple of minutes is because… I’m going to stop you right there, because anything that follows is irrelevant. You’ve just proven that it’s _supoosed_ to be boring. The rest of your post is just an explanation of why it’s boring. ---
**Author:** ![Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troy_mcclure_sf/32/4150_2.png) [@Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Troy_McClure_SF)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2011, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-you-like-the-nba/567321/44 "2011-01-12T19:58:34Z")
I grew up a baseball fan, so clock-management in the other major sports always drives me nuts. It just seems so false. (Yes, yes, foul lines, backstops, etc) Also, the concept of “drawing a foul” or fouling on purpose, at its core, is just fucked up. ---
**Author:** ![Swords\_to\_Plowshares](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b38774/32.png) [@Swords\_to\_Plowshares](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swords_to_Plowshares)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2011, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-you-like-the-nba/567321/45 "2011-01-12T20:04:31Z")
I don’t really enjoy watching basketball mainly because of what Troy McClure said: the rules are designed so you are often encouraged to break them. Fouls are annoying stoppages and watching free throws is like watching paint dry. Combine this with referee favoritism and it’s a messed up system. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2011, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-you-like-the-nba/567321/46 "2011-01-12T20:20:53Z")
I like the NBA but the referees make the game almost unwatchable. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2011, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-you-like-the-nba/567321/47 "2011-01-12T20:36:30Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > It’s basketball. It’s indoors. It’s playoff system is a joke. It’s basketball. I don’t get the playoffs being a joke. Seems logical to me. I suppose you could argue that too many teams get in, but since the lower seeds are generally disemboweled in the first round anyway, it still hugely favours the really good teams. I used to like the NBA when Toronto had an NBA team. Now we have some sort of lower league club that pretends to be an NBA team. ---
**Author:** ![Paintcharge](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/paintcharge/32/7946_2.png) [@Paintcharge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paintcharge)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2011, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-you-like-the-nba/567321/48 "2011-01-12T20:44:11Z")
> [@Invisible\_Chimp](#): > > My broader question, which I used the NHL vs. NBA in my OP to illustrate, is why isn’t the NBA as popular on the SDMB as it seems to be in real life? The NBA is one the big 3 of American sports leagues and this is an American based message board. MLB and the NFL get plenty of love here. Why not the NBA? The NBA is a much more fluid, strictly athletic game with less discrete strategic points than either NFL or MLB. It is more interesting for people who populate SDMB to discuss individual plays/series/matchups than it is to talk about…well I don’t even know what you would discuss about a NBA game. Lineups? Individual plays? In baseball you can question the wisdom of each pitch, pitcher batter matchup, positioning of defensive players on the field. There is time to see those things at game speed. Same with football. We can talk about play calls, both defensive and offensive. See how coaches will try to get favorable tendencies going, then exploit them. A good football game is violent chess. One coach moves his pieces into position, the other counters and then the players go. Basketball doesn’t have that same kind of micro managed style, it’s much more of an improv. ---
**Author:** ![Squooshed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@Squooshed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squooshed)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2011, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-you-like-the-nba/567321/49 "2011-01-12T21:07:34Z")
I don’t like the NBA any more because I was a Seattle Supersonics fan. Even if a team comes back to Seattle in the future, I’m not ever coming back to the NBA. ---
**Author:** ![Jas09](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d07c76/32.png) [@Jas09](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jas09)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2011, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-you-like-the-nba/567321/50 "2011-01-12T21:27:33Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > I don’t get the playoffs being a joke. Seems logical to me. I suppose you could argue that too many teams get in, but since the lower seeds are generally disemboweled in the first round anyway, it still hugely favours the really good teams. Too many teams getting in is exactly the problem. When you couple that with such a long season, it makes the vast majority of the games completely meaningless. Even so-called playoff races are useless, because as you indicated the low seeds get routinely destroyed anyways. Why watch 82 games if none of them will matter? If you’re going to let more than half of the teams in then do we really need 82 games to figure out which half of the league is the good half? At least in MLB (which I love, and has an even longer schedule), there is a purpose to the long season - identifying the very best teams for the playoffs. At least until Bud gets his way and ruins it by adding even more playoff teams… but that’s a different rant. ---
**Author:** ![Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a183cd/32.png) [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barkis_is_Willin)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2011, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-you-like-the-nba/567321/51 "2011-01-12T21:33:56Z")
Too many teams in the playoffs and each series takes too long. If you must have 8 teams from each conference, make round 1 a best of 3 series and round 2 best of 5. And no days off except for travel. ---
**Author:** ![HubZilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ccd318/32.png) [@HubZilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HubZilla)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2011, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-you-like-the-nba/567321/52 "2011-01-12T21:52:06Z")
Three things for me 1. My racism. The hip-hop showboating thugs in the NBA. I rooted against the USA in the 2004 Olympics, thinking those players do not represent _my_ USA. Do I have to turn in my racist-card if I enjoyed watching Jordan? Anyway, it seems to have toned downed a bit lately. Allen Iverson, the poster-boy, has been exiled to Turkey. 2. There was a conspiracy that games featuring popular teams games were unfairly influenced. Then it turns out there was a ref influencing games!! Oh, but it was only one rogue ref. Just one. 3. NCAA stars leaving too early for the NBA, some after only one semester of schoolwork. Dilutes the formerly star-laden teams where George Mason and Butler can make the Final Four. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2011, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-you-like-the-nba/567321/53 "2011-01-12T21:57:05Z")
> [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](#): > > Too many teams in the playoffs and each series takes too long. If you must have 8 teams from each conference, make round 1 a best of 3 series and round 2 best of 5. And no days off except for travel. For perspective: The NBA regular season is (roughly) 5 1/2 months long. The NBA playoffs take 2 full months (or, about 36% as long as the regular season). Compare to: NFL: regular season 17 weeks, postseason 5 weeks (including the off-week between the conference championships and the Super Bowl, which now contains the Pro Bowl (29% the length of the regular season) MLB: regular season 6 months, postseason 1 month (more or less) (17% the length of the regular season) NHL: regular season 6 1/2 months, postseason nearly 2 months (31% as long as the regular season) ---
**Author:** ![Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troy_mcclure_sf/32/4150_2.png) [@Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Troy_McClure_SF)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2011, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-you-like-the-nba/567321/54 "2011-01-12T22:33:47Z")
> [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](#): > > Too many teams in the playoffs and each series takes too long. Agreed on these, too. If half the teams make the playoffs, why bother watching the rest? Also, last year there was a point in the the conference finals when both series were going, and there were two days with no games. What the fuck? ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2011, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-you-like-the-nba/567321/55 "2011-01-13T01:15:02Z")
> [@Paintcharge](#): > > The NBA is a much more fluid, strictly athletic game with less discrete strategic points than either NFL or MLB. It is more interesting for people who populate SDMB to discuss individual plays/series/matchups than it is to talk about…well I don’t even know what you would discuss about a NBA game. Lineups? Individual plays? I’ll note that the NHL is much more fluid than the NBA is now, which was one of my points of criticism above. Unlike the NBA, the NHL took steps to open up their game once they realized just how much the neutral zone trap was porking the flow. Frankly both sports could stand to enlarge their playing surfaces, but alas those court/rinkside seats are too expensive for that to be a starter for the teams. ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2011, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-you-like-the-nba/567321/56 "2011-01-13T02:21:00Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#): > > … both sports could stand to enlarge their playing surfaces, but alas those court/rinkside seats are too expensive for that to be a starter for the teams. Wouldn’t a larger playing surface yield more court- & rink-side seats? ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2011, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-you-like-the-nba/567321/57 "2011-01-13T02:25:29Z")
I’m another for whom the long & largely meaningless season is a big turn-off (as it is in the NHL). Effectively, the regular season is an exhibition season. I also think the 3-point shot was a mistake - reduces the incentive to make actual plays. ---
**Author:** ![pancakes3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ba9def/32.png) [@pancakes3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pancakes3)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2011, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-you-like-the-nba/567321/58 "2011-01-13T15:35:26Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#): > > It doesn’t matter why it is the way it is. It sounds like you’re trying to make excuses to convince me that I actually DO like it. not at all. you said that you don’t watch the NBA because it’s not marketed towards you. i was simply wondering WHY the NBA isn’t marketing itself to you. it seems like they have a lot more to gain by selling itself to the middle and upper-middle class suburbanites who have more disposable income to go buy jerseys, season tickets, lux boxes, concessions, etc. than the lower income urban crowd. i feel like it’s the white middle class that turned its back on the NBA rather than the other way around. > [@](#): > > Well, it’s not like I’m sitting there going “I’m not going to watch that because poor blacks like it.” I think your word ‘because’ is the wrong one. The question was “Why doesn’t the SDMB reflect the general population’s enthusiam for the NBA?” and the answer, honestly, is because we’re rich/middle class white people and that demographic doesn’t watch basketball. All the “but, but, but…” in the world isn’t going to change that fact. You might as well ask why we don’t start threads about Beyonce or Pitbull in Cafe Society. > > And you can go ahead and call me a racist, btw. It wouldn’t be the first time this board’s membership has called me it for pointing out that the races don’t like the same things. ::shrug:: i’m not calling you racist, but maybe closed minded? the music tie-in isn’t exactly fitting because hip hop is an entirely black construct. basketball is just a sport (thoroughly enjoyed by white people) that white people seemed to have abandoned for no other reason than it was infiltrated by black people. it’d be as if white people stopped running marathons because they were just sick and tired of competing with those darn kenyans, or if bobsledding drops in popularity because of the influx of those showboating jamaicans and/or other “black” countries. i just think, as popular as basketball is as a sport for many people when they’re young, it just doesn’t make sense that the interest drops SO much as they age, and such a disparity between the college game and the pro game. college FOOTBALL is drastically different than the NFL and yet there are far less cases of people saying “i can respect the college game, but the NFL? with those showboating thugs, a grueling 17-week regular season, sudden death OT’s, both-feet-in-bounds receiving rules? i say feh to that!” or maybe the NBA is just an amalgamation of little nitpicks that people DON’T like about other sports rolled into 1? a long season is not unique to basketball yet it’s cited. the lack of physicality is more prominent in soccer. that means you’ve now precluded people who don’t like baseball as well as soccer, and tack in people who don’t like high scoring affairs and you’ve eliminated a LOT of people from enjoying the sport? that coupled with the race-issue just really kills off most of middle america? maybe it’s an issue with middle america not having pro teams in general? it’s a long ways from kansas city to minneapolis with nary an NBA franchise in between when you can drive from DC to Boston and run into 5 separate storied franchises? ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2011, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-you-like-the-nba/567321/59 "2011-01-13T15:46:31Z")
> [@pancakes3](#): > > i’m not calling you racist, but maybe closed minded? the music tie-in isn’t exactly fitting because hip hop is an entirely black construct. basketball is just a sport (thoroughly enjoyed by white people) that white people seemed to have abandoned for no other reason than it was infiltrated by black people. If that’s true then why on earth has the NBA ever been popular in my lifetime? It’s been a black man’s sport for decades. Were white people less racist when Michael Jordan was around? For that matter, why aren’t the fans trading their NBA tickets in for NHL tickets? A whiter big time team sport you will not find, and yet they’re having the same problems. While the SDMB membership can have its reasons, in terms of why the NBA in general has stalled a bit, it’s absurd to claim it’s because people are racists and just now noticed NBA players are mostly black guys. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2011, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-you-like-the-nba/567321/60 "2011-01-13T15:50:30Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > If that’s true then why on earth has the NBA ever been popular in my lifetime? It’s been a black man’s sport for decades. Were white people less racist when Michael Jordan was around? Agreed…the NBA has been dominated by black players since the 1980s (at least), and it only seems to be over the past 10-15 years that the league has been suffering from “white flight” among its fans. (And, the NFL is pretty seriously dominated by black players, as well.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-you-like-the-nba/567321.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-you-like-the-nba/567321.md?page=4)