Maddenation

What’s wrong with the NBA

New York Times writer Michael Sokolove writes about the state of the NBA in his article, Clang!, where he lashes out against “basket stuffing”, the maturity of players, the three-pointer, and the Team USA 2004 Olympic performance, while suggesting rule changes to get the professional game back to how it should be: Watchable.

If you’ve watched a regular season NBA game during the past few years, chances are you haven’t seen much of that game. Maybe 5 minutes? I’ve said for years that the NBA isn’t worth watching until the 2nd round of the playoffs, a statement echoed on Pardon the Interruption, ESPN’s fantastic sports-debate show.

I won’t rant because Sokolove’s article says everything I would say and much more. Some points he makes:

The N.B.A. doesn’t have a thug problem; it has a basketball problem. Its players are the best athletes in all of pro sports — oversize, swift and agile — but weirdly they are also the first to have devolved to a point where they can no longer play their own game

Richard Hamilton of the Detroit Pistons, last year’s N.B.A. champion, has been just about knighted for his ability to consistently sink the ”midrange” jumper, which used to be an entry-level requirement into the N.B.A.

Rod Thorn, the president of the Nets, told me, ”We have better athletes than ever, but they play at a slower pace. The reason is they’re not as sound fundamentally, so the coaches feel that the faster they play, the more mistakes they’ll make.”

An industry of tout sheets and recruiting services identifies (the best players) as early as fifth or sixth grade, and they begin traveling a nationwide circuit of tournaments with their high-powered youth teams. In the summer, the best high-school players attend showcases sponsored by the big sneaker companies. Quite understandably, these young stars, rather than being prone to sharing the ball, are apt to believe they own it. ”I’m amazed when guys make it out of that system with any sense of perspective at all,” said Jeff Van Gundy, the former Knicks coach now coaching the Houston Rockets. ”It’s not natural to be that catered to at such a young age. We’ve got kids being named the ‘best 11-year-old basketball player in America.’ How the hell do you recover from that?”

One night earlier this season at the press table at Madison Square Garden, I was seated next to Jeff Lenchiner, the editor of InsideHoops.com, an online magazine for basketball aficionados. During a lull in the game, he turned his laptop computer toward me and directed me to watch an electronic file of Stephon Marbury highlights, an array of breathtaking moves: crossover dribbles that left defenders looking as if they were stuck in cement; spinning, twisting drives to the basket; soaring dunks. The last clip showed the 6-foot-2 Marbury rising up for a jump shot over a taller defender. At his peak, just as the ball left his hand, his sneakers looked to be about three feet above the floor. ”Look at him!” Lenchiner shouted. ”It’s like he’s in a video game. He’s got thrusters!”

Marbury this year publicly proclaimed himself the best point guard in the N.B.A. The Knicks promptly lost 14 of their next 16 games, and the coach, Lenny Wilkins, resigned along the way.

Foul shooting is generally regarded as a matter of discipline and repetition. With enough practice, most players can become proficient. It’s worth noting that in Athens, the gold-medal-winning U.S. women’s team made 76 percent of its foul shots while the men connected on a woeful 67 percent.

As the Spurs took the floor for a November game in San Antonio against the Knicks, I looked in my program and noted the backgrounds of the players in their starting lineup. Rasho Nesterovic is from Slovenia; Tony Parker, from France; Manu Ginobili, star of the gold-medal-winning Olympic team, from Argentina; and Tim Duncan, the Spurs power forward and best player, from St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Among the Spurs starters, only Bruce Bowen was born on United States soil, and he spent four years after college toiling for minor-league teams in the U.S. and on the European pro circuit.

snapshot from today’s N.B.A.: the locker room of the New York Knicks, where in each dressing cubicle a necktie hangs on a hook, pre-knotted. Isiah Thomas, the team president, has ordered players to wear suits and ties to the arenas, a grown-up enough thing. But during games, a team functionary goes around knotting the ties so that when a player gets dressed afterward, all he has to do is slip the tie over his head and tighten it rather than actually having to make the knot himself.

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