This is not exactly time for the NBA to panic, but it's time for the league to listen more carefully to the grumbling of dissatisfaction with the game and players. I follow The Athletic and read comments about players, teams and league. More and more I'm reading about spoiled players, high ticket prices, absent superstars, and, what bothers me the most, boredom with the game itself.
This is the high flying, acrobatic game that back in the early 21st century that made me happy to watch, a reminder that the fundamental pleasure of playing basketball was really based on its playground roots. This is no longer the case anymore, or more to the point I should say the game has left the playground and become a racetrack.
I don't believe I'm alone. I've talked to NBA fans and an unsettling number of guys and gals experience boredom: Too much mad dashes full court and to score or kick to open three point shooters, too much dribble drives and kick, too much pick and roll and pop and drive and kick to open threes. Iso and kick to three point shooters. Predictable, predictable. The game remains exciting to a certain physical extent, but it's losing it's relationship with its fans. Losing, NOT lost. Not yet, So, I'm playing the role of Nostradamus. Beware NBA!
Too much of the same-o-some-o, like too much seasoning can ruin the stew, or two little leaves it bland, there is a fine line between the amazing athleticism of the NBA game and too much athleticism. High flying dunking and three point shooting has become commonplace. There are team that play a decentr brand of motion offense, but it, in my opinion, the reads don't have enough time to avoid the predictability of its reliance on athleticism, the drive into the paint and kick to the open three point shooter. Not yet, but there is a growing ho hum.
Perhaps, I'm not in tune with what the public wants to see in an NBA game. Perhaps, but it's not the vibe I'm getting. So, I've asked myself, what does the NBA need to do to retrieve its fan base that is slowly slipping away as the TV ratings suggest? I'll just mention a couple of possibilities:
1. Ticket prices have got to come DOWN, or in some way make the games more affordable for fans.
2. A SHORTER season. That would help with the injuries to players as well as reducing boredom.
3. The 24-second clock must become a 30-second clock in order for teams to develop offense more.
4. Increase the LENGTH and WIDTH of the court. Lengthening the court would make the Mad Dash less frequent. Widening the court would bring the easier corner three in compliance with the normal three point distance.
5. Increase the distance of the three point line to 26-feet. It would help to bring back the importance of the mid range shot.
6. Now, the most controversial of my suggestions: the first part of the season must have greater meaning. The Cup was not a bad idea, but it really is a Band Aid fix. The league should consider changing the way the final standiings work from a simple wins and losess to a point system based on quarter points. The winners of each quarter should earn a certain number of points. The winner of each game shoudl win an addition number of points, in a sense this turns the game into four separate games of 12 minutes, or perhaps, consider lowering to 10 minute-quarters, which could reduce the time on the court and thus reduc the possibilites of injuries to some degree. Owners and players need to readust their profit margins for the good of the overall game. In today's world TV ratings are essential. The league need to look beyopnd this present windfall tv contract to the next one. I know all this sounds drastic, but it should be given some real THINK.
Finally, I guess what I'm suggesting is to slow the game down a notch. Give the fans a chance to breathe a little between spectacles of athleticism. I leave you with this; What's attractive about the NFL game from the fans' point of view is that between downs and changes from offense to defense, fans have time to contemplate, make guesses, become part of what they are watching.
It's winter and that means in parts of our country, Curling is on its way. Fans growing as I write.
CURLING by Tom Meschery
two brooms, like blockers in the NFL
(I’m thinking Packers, Greenbay in the snow)
lead the running back, a guy named Stone
(not exceptionally fast, but relentless)
down the icy field: masked fans in parkas,
sipping from flasks. They’re watching curling
on local ice, while I’m enjoying building
this extended metaphor, thinking that Milton,
had he a sense of humor, which there’s no
evidence he possessed, might have appreciated.
My wife also enjoys curling. “What’s not to like
about a sport played with brooms?” she asks.
“The ice needs cleaning, and the players
are only doing what any good wife would do.”
She’s talking to me while dusting,
which comes before vacuuming, a rule
in her sport that must never be broken.
