I’ve tried to give the NBA the benefit of the doubt lately. The product on the floor has improved by leaps and bounds since the early part of the decade. While I don’t feel the team aspect of the game has improved, the skill of the superstar players put on the floor certainly has. Two of those superstars will be on full display when the NBA Finals finally start this week. For some reason unbeknownst to me or anyone else, the NBA has decided that it needed eight days between the Western Conference Finals wrapping up and the tip of the Finals. I’m not a business man, but taking that long of a break is certainly going to distance the product from the casual fan. As the NBA increases in popularity, the last thing the league wants to do is lose the casual fan that lives in the Midwest and has no dog in the fight. This break certainly couldn’t be to give these guys a rest due to overly physical play. The league is by far being played at the softest level that we’ve seen. Save your argument in regard to the small pushing and shoving physical altercations. The “well I oughta” mentality of some of the NBA players is laughable. The Bad Boys from Detroit would have a field day with the present-day player. Series would be won before anyone stepped on the floor against those boys. It’s not just the break that has rubbed me wrong. After dropping their second-round series to Golden State, fans of the Los Angeles clippers were crying foul at how the game was managed in terms of the Warriors fouling DeAndre Jordan. You see, there was a thing called “Hack a Shaq’ back when Shaquille O’Neal struggled to shoot 40 percent from the free throw line. Jordan is the present day Shaq when it comes to charity shots. Now people want to see a change to the rules to avoid a team fouling one player excessively. This practice is becoming all too common in the world of sports. Instead of forcing someone to actually work at their craft and make strides at improvement we should just reinvent the game of basketball. It’s beyond me to think that someone actually earn their millions of dollars instead of forcing everyone else to change the way they play and prepare to win. It’s the same argument with the shot clock in high school basketball. If you don’t like what a team does in terms of a game plan it’s your job to find a way to beat it. I guess that opinion isn’t vogue in public opinion though. It doesn’t make the NBA brand exciting enough and the game doesn’t have enough flow. Since when should coaches and owners care about flow of a basketball game? They have one job and that is to win a championship. The game of baseball has struggled with flow for years, yet the World Series is always very well attended. People who want sports to be this high-paced product with little or no strategy are generally those that have never been inside of a locker room or in a jersey. There’s more to a game than just roll the ball out and play. If you want to see that, head to a summer open gym at your local high school and let me know how the quality of play is. So the NBA had me back for a short period. That short time frame has ended now though as I have no interest in watching a game that continues to showcase and implement rules to showcase individual players. Some call me old school, but there’s a way things are meant to be done and the NBA isn’t doing it right. That’s OK, because the real pure sport plays on Wednesday night, and wouldn’t you know, the Chicago Blackhawks are involved!
