Hell, the entire game was invented by a Canadian! Still doesn’t make me care about it, though. It’s something to do when there’s no hockey game on, but that’s about it.
I don’t like the NBA because I don’t feel any attachment towards a pro team like I do towards my college team. I could try and point out things I don’t like in the NBA, but I imagine that if I grew up in an NBA-centric part of the country, where my dad was taking me to pro games instead of college games, and my friends were all into the NBA instead of college, I would probably like it more.
I’m with you.
To those who think basketball is “too high-scoring” or “only the last 2 minutes count” are missing the point. 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 #1: it’s a game of runs- it’s about sustained scoring over the course of the game and #2: the players at the NBA level are so good that the margin between great teams and mediocre or even bad ones is so slim. Watch a bad NCAA team play against a great one; it’ll be a blowout before the first 10 minutes are up every single time. And if the first 46 minutes didn’t matter, the games would only need to be 2 minutes long.
It’s also supposed to be flashy and in-your-face; it’s played with the least amount of equipment (sans soccer) on the smallest playing field. With good enough seats there’s a high probability the ball or one of the players will actually end up in the stands right next to you or even on top of you. You can always see their faces and you’re right up on top of the action at all times.
If it’s not your cup of tea it’s not your cup of tea is all it really comes down to.
It’s a combination of things. I grew up following (and attending a few games a year) the Baltimore Bullets; once they left, it was too much of a shlep to go down to Largo to see them play.
The other reason I’m not a big NBA fan is not original - there are wayyyy too many teams in the playoffs, and the playoffs take much too long. Every year, I open the sports section, and every year I say to myself, “My God, is the NBA still playing?” (The NHL is just as bad.)
At least with college, once March Madness starts, it’s single elimination.
So there’s a problem with officiating with fouls, but no problem with officiating for football? I don’t follow.
For me, it’s that there’s entirely too much scoring.
That’s pretty much it. Make the hoops bigger and put a goalie up there and it might get interesting.
The off-court shennagins by a bunch of overpaid, self-entitled, pretentious thugs leaves me with little to identify with.
Don’t get me started.
I became a big fan when Dr. J made his move to the NBA. The Sixers, and by association the league, started to lose me when Allan Iverson came along-he was symptomatic of a lot of the things which started to go wrong in the league, and I grew to loathe him. I typically am moved in sports by those athletes who have a certain artistic or aesthetic quality about them. Back then fundamentals served to accentuate the artistry; a snappy pass at the right time could lead to either a thundering dunk or a delicate finger roll. Somewhere along the line a lot of that was lost (and soon there will be none who remember it ;)); now, clumsy brute-force attempts at artistry are the norm, many fundamentals have been neglected.
A game from 30 years ago was a lot more free-flowing; not only did the fast break reign supreme, but even in the half court game you had players swirling all around the place. Now everybody basically stands around: the forward or center who can’t shoot tries to stay out of the way of the shooters, who (if they’re big men) camp out near the lane, while the little guys stand motionless at the 3-point line, and you have this endlessly boring game of toss back and forth until one of them is open enough to take a shot. Few teams actively try to push the ball hard up the court; when they find themselves in a position to run the break they look lost, and either chunk the ball away or mystifyinginly halt the break mid-stride. Many teams seem to actively eschew any such chances when they present themselves, content to walk it back up the court.
My theory as to why things changed involve the following:
(a) The 3 point shot. At the time it seemed like a real cool thing to put into the game (the ABA used it, after all, and they were about as freewheeling as it got). For a few years teams kind of struggled with how exactly to implement it; eventually it came down to the kind of back-and-forth I described above. It became such that teams seemed to actually prefer the chance at a 3 pointer than they did at a potentially easy fast break basket.
(b) Fundamentals became de-emphasized in favor of a more individualistic type of play. Now, some of the greatest players in the history of the league have had tendencies to get things done all by themselves, almost by brute force of will, so I don’t deny that this tendency is a recent invention (in a game with only 5 players, that might be inevitable to one extent or another). I decry the willful emphasis on such things as opposed to a more team-oriented approach. When I watch old clips of the Celtics, Lakers, or even Sixers, I am impressed by just how much the individual skills of the players meshed with and complemented each other (Magic & Worthy, Bird & McHale, etc.). It wasn’t a collection of 5 individuals but 5 guys who knew how to get the best out of each other. I’ll note that my Sixers had to learn this lesson the hard way before they won their title-frustrating to watch, but often entertaining nonetheless just because of all the talent they had.
© Hand-in-hand with (b), teams deemphasized the break, on both sides of the ball. Starting with the Daley-era Pistons, teams found that they could slow down the break by instantly retreating their 2 guards back towards the other half-court the instant the ball hit the rim or board, if not right after it left a shooter’s hand. Exhibit A is the marked decrease in offensive rebounds by guards over the past quarter century. On offense, as I said most teams seemed not to want to test this strategy by trying to beat them to the other end anyway, and as a result scoring dropped almost 20 points per team per game in just 10 years. Frankly it was one of the most puzzling developments I’ve ever seen in any sport-it was like just about every team bought into this philosophy overnight, without questioning it or trying to go against the grain. While others have decried the high scoring levels (and they have something of a point), if you’re going to design a sport with such levels, then I think it is better to let it all hang out, vs. holding the pace down. Lately we’ve recovered about 10 of those points, as some teams apparently now will push it hard on transition.
All of the above of course runs the risk of getting me labeled as out-of-touch; about once or twice a year I try to watch a game, only to get completely bored out of my mind by the somnambulent play and the attempts at cheap theatrics.
It’s 3 1/2 quarters of 1-on-1 street ball, followed by a couple of minutes of decent play, followed by an interminable ending, played by self-important jackass millionaires. No thanks.
This is not entirely true. Probably the most common play in the sport is the pick and roll, and there’s plenty of contact between the players; when a player is “in the post”, with his back to the basket, with or without the ball, there is plenty of contact; rebounding demands contact between opposing players; there is often lots of contact any time a player drives to the basket that is incidental and no foul is called.
Before I clicked the thread I put the over/under at #5 for the first post to trot out the thinly-veiled racist “thug” or “thuggish.” It took all the way to post #9, nice work SDMB!
The NBA is too black for this crowd, and anyone who thinks NBA players are thuggish and unconcerned with fundamentals has obviously never heard of Kevin Durant.
Yep. You’re right. I hate all black people. You caught me. I’m really the Grand Kleegle of the Southern California branch of the United Klans.
IMO, a better question to be asked, is how is the NBA still a thriving enterprise? I live in a small midwestern town and no one I knows from work or personally is even remotely interested in NBA basketball.
I could not tell you who is leading the divisions as of right now and I watch Sportscenter everyday. I just tune out the NBA sections.
College Basketball is on the radar screen, behind baseball, NFL and CFB.
The NBA season goes on too long, too many teams that don’t have a chance to win make the playoffs, and if your team doesn’t have a superstar who gets superstar calls from the ref, your team doesn’t have a chance.
The league could do with some serious contraction: Nobody would miss the teams in Cleveland, Toronto, Milwaukee, Minnesota, Memphis, Sacramento, New Jersey, Oakland (Golden State), Utah or New Orleans.
My team is the Cleveland Cavaliers, so maybe I’m just way too bitter (last night’s score, Lakers 112, Cavs 57). 
That describes most pro athletes, not just in the NBA.
The only thread started this year. I’ve been here longer than you and I’ve seen many an NBA thread die a quick death.
I don’t like the NBA because of a few related things. In no particular order (while being stunned they weren’t mentioned… just stunned):
>ESPN
>Sportscenter (Of ESPN)
>Cable TV Outlets
>Internet/YouTube
I don’t want to do a 'when I was a kid’ diatribe, but I have to compare now to then.
Dr. J.
Magic
Bird
“Ice Man” Gervin
Marques Johnson
Adrian Dantley
Word B. Free
Otis Birdsong
To see them, I had to wait for them to play. And… the game had to be televised, and I had to be around to watch it. I was left wanting. I wanted to see these guys play, yet I rarely did (well, I saw Doc weekly, as I grew up in Philly).
I remember that the only time I saw Alex English was when I looked in the stats section of the local newspaper, and English would be averaging a league-best 27 pts/game, and they’d have this tiny pic of him.
He played for many years, and I have almost no recollection of ever seeing him play. I might have gotten a glimpse of him.
Now? Not only do I see everyone from Kevin Durant to Kobe, I get to see them over and over when I am not even wanting to see them.
And it gets worse exponentially, because the current mix of players/stars is playing with the highlight reel in mind. And some admit they even play harder to make their XBOX/PS3 player better on next year’s game release from EA Sports.
I had to watch NBA games and wait for moments of greatness I could appreciate. I don’t need to even have a conscious thought about anything from an actual basketball to any actual player and I will experience NBA highlights just casually going about my daily life. Meh.
For the record, I LOVE hockey. I love it, play it and just appreciate it. I hate the NHL and rarely watch NHL games. I watched the Junior World Championship and sucked in every darn minute.
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.
It seems many of the criticisms leveled at the NBA could just as easily be leveled at other sports (especially the NFL):
-Overpaid millionaires
-Thuggish off-field behavior
-“Look-at-me” antics on the court
Yet these are not a problem if you like the sport; you look past these issues because you like the game. Clearly there’s something about the sport of basketball that some people do not like. Which is fine, but don’t use any of the above cop-out answers (unless you’re a diehard amateur rugby fan, or something).
I used to enjoy watching the NBA when I was growing up in Wisconsin – in the 1970s and 1980s, the Bucks, with Marques Johnson and Bob Lanier were entertaining. Living in Chicago during the 1990s, I sort of followed the Bulls. And, I played basketball (though not very well) when I was younger.
That said, basketball never caught my attention the way that football or baseball did. I have a hard time pinpointing exactly why that is, but it was always a distant #3 on my list.
I really haven’t followed the sport much at all since Jordan left the Bulls. I can’t say that what I do see entices me to want to get back into it. As others have noted, it’s always been a sport where individual performances are more visible, but it seems to me to have become overwhelmingly about the outsized egos now. (And, before you accuse me of a double standard – I hate “diva wide receivers” in the NFL, too.)