Why Don't You Like the NBA?

The Game Room
81

In my perfect world an NHL team would move into the Portland area. So be happy that you can go watch the sport you enjoy as often as you like.

While I played basketball in high school and really enjoy playing to this day - I find it pretty boring to watch NBA. Perhaps it is because those guys are so tall - they make it look as if I was playing with a 7’ high net. How the hell can they miss - but then again they rarely do.

Now, as you’re comparing the interest of the SDMB to NHL vs NBA, consider this which I pulled off wiki:
“While the NHL does not hold one of the largest fan bases in North America, it does hold one of the most affluent fan bases. Studies by the Sports Marketing Group conducted from 1998 to 2004 show that the NHL’s fan base is much more affluent than that of the PGA Tour. A study done by the Stanford Graduate School of Business in 2004, found that NHL fans in America were the most educated and affluent of the four major leagues.”

Seems to me that by noticing that the NHL seems more popular on the dope, you’re just saying dopers are smarter and wealthier than your average Joe.

But there is still hope for you to increase your intelligence by watching hockey. Come support our local Winterhawks (local WHL league).
I was at a Winterhawks game this past Sunday night at the Memorial Coliseum, (the same night a Trailblazers game was on next door at the Rose Garden). It was a great game with overtime and a shootout that the Winterhawks won 5-4. They had come back from being behind 0-3 in the first period.
I have no doubt that I was in the right stadium that night.

82

Troy McClure SF:

Maybe it’s because they put on a fun show and are relatively inexpensive. I’ve been to basketball and hockey games in a number of venues during winter vacation trips, and the family 4-pack for Warriors tickets was probably the best value and the most non-game fun I’ve experienced at any of them.

83

I was going to reiterate my previous comment about the Portland pirates, but then I realized that there are at least two Portlands in the U.S., and the one with the AHL team is on the opposite end of the country. :smack:

I’m curious about the notion that hockey fans=smart and affluent. I wouldn’t infer that simply based on that study. It depends on how you define a fan. Someone who buys merchandise? Watches a team on TV? Or attends games? This is one of the two message boards I post regularly on. The other is devoted to hockey fights. Many if not most of my fellow posters are NOT rich university educated types who have a box suite. Without having read the study you are citing, I have to presume this is a similar dichotomy as basketball: yes, ghetto black people watch basketball and play it, but they don’t buy corporate suites at Knicks games.

Furthermore, part of that “affluence” of hockey is that, simply put, it’s a rich man’s game. It’s more expensive to play hockey than basketball or soccer or football. You need to buy a crapload of equipment, maintain a stick and skates, and rent a bunch of time in a well-conditioned arena. The inherent “whiteness” of the NHL is starting to breakdown now with a larger and larger black middle class in the states, exemplified by teams like the Atlanta Thrashers.

84

Relax, man. I already said I understand what you’re saying and don’t really have any problem with it.

Having said that, I do feel that today, it’s a bit outmoded to think of the NBA as all thuggy, as other posters have been pointing out. Even when it did have that image, I feel it was a bit exaggerated by some.

85

I played basketball in high school, and loved it. I wasn’t great at it, partly because i’m just not a great athlete, and partly because i never even picked up a basketball until i was about 12 or 13 years old. Also, Australia’s not exactly basketball central when it comes to talent and training and popularity.

But, despite the fact that i always loved to play, i’ve never been very interested in watching basketball. I wasn’t interested in the Jordan era, which was when the NBA first really came to my attention, and i’m not interested in it now. I am similarly uninterested in college hoops, and in Olympic basketball. I just find the game itself tedious to watch, even though i can appreciate the athleticism and the skill that goes into it.

Part of this is due to factors that other people have mentioned—being able to benefit from fouls; the interminable last two minutes; etc. Part of it is also the high scores and the often-predictable back-and-forth scoring. This last factor by itself might not be a deal-breaker (i’m a big fan of Australian Rules football, where scoring is often high), but combined with the other stuff, it just makes basketball uninteresting to me.

While i don’t think that people necessarily decline to watch basketball out of racism, i do think that the language in which the players and the NBA are criticized in the United States often seems profuse with racially-significant subtexts. Most of these guys, as noted by marshmallow, are no more thuggish or criminal than any other corporate-sponsored multi-millionaire, but the presence of all that black skin on the court, and all those tattoos especially, does seem to push some people’s buttons.

As for the whole “rap culture” thing, if you don’t like the music then you don’t like the music, but i’m not sure why that would stop someone watching the game itself. I’m not a big fan of the all flag-waving bullshit that goes with the NFL or MLB, and i literally have to turn the TV off when they play “God Bless America” in the seventh-inning stretch during baseball games, but none of this changes my love for the sport itself. My own baseball team, the Orioles, has on its roster a fucking moron who still seems to believe that Barack Obama is not a US citizen, but that’s not going to stop me cheering when Luke Scott hits a home run this season. I expect my sports stars to play sports; i don’t look to them for political advice or moral guidance or music recommendations.

86

It has to be some kind of subtle, unconscious racism. Who cares what kind of music the players like? Why is it even an issue? The only way I could even think of how rap and hip-hop affected the NBA is they went to the longer shorts, but these guys are so tall that you wouldn’t want them to wear the old butt-hugging hot pants anyway.

I like scoring. That’s why I hate soccer, baseball, and hockey. 0-0 games have NO momentum, no matter what anyone says. It is utterly meaningless if you have “momentum” and make a big play, but in the end, fail to score. Even football has games where one team doesn’t score, or scores once. And I’m watching a 3hr+ game for that? Fuck no! I want a game like basketball where scoring can be in binges, where a team can sustain ACTUAL momentum for 5 or 10 minutes and rattle off a double digit lead, or erase one. I would feel cheated if I put down good money for seats and fail to see any scoring from one or both sides

The NBA is hard to referee. That’s a fact. There are more types of subjective calls and they happen more often than in other sports.

With less players on the court/field and less on a team, and also taking into account that a person can play the entire game without having to come out, makes individuals stand out. I don’t see this as good or bad. The reason why some of the teams of the 80’s were marketed as teams vs. teams instead of now where it is star vs. star is because there was a lot less parity back then and a lot less teams. If you don’t like that, you can of course pick that out as a point of contention, but I see this change as neutral

I dislike college basketball because they exaggerate all of the problems the NBA has, with worse and more nameless athletes. Don’t like 30 teams in the NBA? Try 64 (or 68) in one tournament! At least the 8th seed in the NBA has (once) reached the finals and (3 times) beaten the 1st seed in a playoff series, even when they switched to a 7 game format in the first round when all the good teams were supposed to be invincible in a longer series. The lowest winner of the tournament is an 8th seed (and that was 25 years ago), and a 16th seed has never beaten a 1st seed. College basketball is terrible and boring. At least in the NBA, there is more parity, at least 1 recognizable star on each team, and on any given night (if not the playoffs), any low seeded team can beat a high seeded team.

Season length is a meaningless critique. Baseball’s is twice as long and half it’s history didn’t even have black people so it can be said to be completely skewed. Hockey’s is just as long as well. In football, when people say there are more meaningful games, I dare them to watch the last third of a season on a bad team. Once you get a certain number of losses, you’d pretty much have to run the table to have any kind of a chance. When a team that’s 9-7 where 2 games decide playoffs or not, and you can win 2 games by luck, you cannot say there’s much meaning in the seeds. Might as well shorten the NFL season right? Just have the entire season be one big elimination tournament

And speaking of football, it’s the only game I know where the clock matters and time runs even while play is stopped! You can at least say with the NBA, 48 mins means you’ll get at least that much time of real action where play is going on and things matter. In the NFL, time runs while everyone’s standing around or milling about trying to set up for the next play. It’s horrifically boring, the slowest game next to baseball.

87

I guessing, based on your profile and love of hockey, that you’re a Canadian transplant?

I’ve been to one Winterhawk game in my life. I found watching hockey live much more enjoyable than on TV. I have no interest in watching HS age kids play sports, unless I know the kids personally.

88

It seems that your definition of “thug” is number of tattoos. Chris Anderson was suspended for drugs, but that was several years ago and he has been a model citizen since, and very popular with the fans.

Carmelo Anthony came from a rough background and had some small issues early in his career, but he is now married with a kid and has had no issues in quite a long time.

JR Smith, I concede, is a thug.

89

For the first quote, I think you vastly underestimate the number of people who think exactly that. A large portion of college football fans don’t like the NFL at all. For the second, I think the NCAAF fans who don’t like the NFL is much, much larger than the NCAAB fans who don’t like the NBA.

The name that jumped to my mind was Gilbert Arenas.

Meh. I don’t think it’s a shame that blacks don’t like NASCAR or hockey, so it’s hard to get worked up about whites not liking basketball.