The NBA

Over the last 10 years, my feelings for Professional Basketball has diminished to the point where I don't like it at all. Unlike its better looking step child College Hoops, The NBA lacks anything that I would consider for a night out.

This past week, Referee Joey Crawford was essentially fired for Teeing up Tim Duncan for laughing at him. I commend David Stern for hopefully making an example out of that referee and I hope others will take note before their big, fat egos get in the way. One of the things I hate about the NBA is the officials feel they are more part of the game than they are. A good official in any sport is invisible. Not in the NBA, the calls they make to favor some players over the others, take away the integrity of the game.

Back in the day, The NBA had a good balance between marketing of the team and the individual. Michael Jordan was the greatest and did things we never saw before, The Bulls won 6 championships, not Jordan, Pippen and Phil. The NBA today is marketing Kobe, Lebron, Dwayne first and the Lakers, Cavs and Heat second. Michael Jordan was never bigger than the Bulls, that's why they were so successful.

I hate the fact that the NBA doesn't have a good minor league system. The NBA is using college to be their learning grounds, but the problem is these kids play less than 2 years in college and there is a different system in college than in the NBA. Not everyone is college material, why not let these superstar High School kids get drafted and work on their craft in a minor league? The NBDL needs to be fixed, there needs to be 30-40 teams, these teams needs to be marketed to basketball fans who want to see up and coming players learn their craft. Put these minor league teams in places where they are going to draw (Philadelphia Flyers and Philadelphia Phantoms. The Phantoms, a minor league team, draws 15,000 per game and they play right across the street from the major league team.)

The NBA has to do something about teams tanking at the end of the season to get more ping pong balls. They need to put all of the lottery teams in a more balanced way to determine who gets what pick. Why should a team get rewarded for tanking their season, ripping off fans who pay a lot of money to watch these teams lose?

Finally, the NBA has to make the game better. I would love to see more players care about making their team better around them. NBAers should take more pride in their free throws, assists and turnovers. Slam dunks and three pointers are nice, but they are only part of the game. The cultural differences between the players and who the game is marketed to needs to be addressed as well.