[quote]oboffill wrote:
Wow, the crap that has been said in this thread makes me want to throw up in my mouth.
Shaq the only superstar!? I’m from Miami, and I can say that Wade is by far the most popular sports player in town.
The NBA boring?! Just about every single playoff game was amazing and exciting to watch. Buzzer beaters galore.
How about all the great new talent in the NBA? Lebron, Wade, Melo, the whole Bulls team, Josh Howard, Dwight Howard, etc.
The NBA talent is amazing, it just needs better marketing. [/quote]
29 point ratings drop. Dude, that is HUGE. People aren’t watching anymore. That’s a fact. You are a fan. Of course you think it’s wonderful. Yes, Shaq is one of the last superstars in the league right now. He’s THE MOST recognizable face in the game. Maybe he’s not the best player anymore, but he’s probably the most popular across the country. Read the articles I posted. Man, there are problems in the NBA. 40% of the players have a criminal record.
[quote]PGJ wrote:
Man, there are problems in the NBA. 40% of the players have a criminal record. [/quote]
And you think it’s less in the NFL?
Now I actually agree that the NBA has a lot of problems, but in my opinion there’s one man to blame for them- Michael Jordan. Ok, maybe it’s not DIRECTLY Michael Jordan’s fault, but ever since he rose to prominence the league changed drastically. He became such a big superstar that he truly did transcend the game. Of course, this made the NBA start immediately changing the game to search for the “next Jordan”. The officiating in the Miami-Dallas series was just embarrassing. The league has become more concerned with holding up its superstars than anything else. If Dwayne Wade dives out of control into traffic one more time and gets bailed out by the ref I think I might kill myself.
With that said, I don’t think it’s fair to put the blame on the players for that. They’re trying to make as much money as they can while they’re still in the league. A great deal of them came from having no money to suddenly having to support themselves, their family and about 8,000 other people trying to get a free ride off of them. That’s a lot of pressure for a 20 year old kid to handle. If you worked in a corporate office for say, a big insurance company, would you be a humble team player and sacrifice for the good of the company, or would you try to make as much money as you can and get the best benefits to support your family. Like or not the whole world today has a me-first attitude and it’s obviously going to reflect in our sports teams.
About the international basketball debacle. There’s a few things you can say about that. #1, the other teams are just getting better. There’s no denying that. I don’t care how many or how few NBA players are on foreign rosters, you can’t deny that there is simply a MASSIVE difference in talent level in international basketball, even when compared to 10 years ago. There was a time when nobody could touch the Soviet Union in ice hockey ya know… More competition is good for the game as a whole, in my opinion. Also, there really is a huge difference between NBA and international rules. Court dimensions are different, officiating is different, there definitly is an adjustment. The NBA is definitly structured to de-emphasize shooting a bit while placing a higher emphasis on athletes who can take the ball to the basket. This is definitly a bit different from the international game. Now, it may or may not be the right thing for the NBA to be structured that way, but I don’t think that the best players in the NBA are going to make the best team for international basketball.
[quote]PGJ wrote:
“Recent public opinion polls, as well as some of the NBA’s own focus groups, ranked basketball players as the least popular athletes among the major professional sports leagues, according to NBA officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Television ratings for June’s NBA Finals plunged 29 percent from the year before.”
Guys, I couldn’t care less about the NBA. I don’t play basketball and I don’t watch basketball anymore. But, I love sports. I’m one of those guys who used to watch, but don’t anymore because I don’t care for the players. I’m not alone. Ratings are down 29%. How do you argue with that? People are loosing interest. I think the new ball is a way of generating interest.
Please don’t throw the race card at me. It’s weak, cheap, and offensive. My comment regarding the ability of the players can be argued, but I haven’t said one thing that rates the race card or anything that hasn’t been confirmed by the league itself.
[/quote]
That article is from last year and last year the finals were between the two best defensive teams in the league. The spurs and the pistons. This resulted in extremely low scoring games and this style of basketball apparently doesn’t appeal to the majority of appeal.
THIS year’s playoffs were the best the league has had since the Jordan area.
Games were going down to the wire and players were stepping up and hitting big shots. But you obviously don’t know that since you don’t watch the NBA anymore and decide to use a year old article which is redundant in order to validate your opinion. Ratings this year have increased.
Your stereotypical comments towards how certain players dress, etc leads to them automatically being branded as thugs indicate that you have a racist undertone to your comments.
i would love for someone to explain the huge difference in rules between the nba and international. that seems like a pretty weak excuse. the only difference i can see offhand is the trapezoidal key, and the enforcement of rules that already exist in the nba. kind of like the difference between nhl and int’l hockey previous to last season.
i have to stick up for PGJ since he’s taking a lot of crap for being racist. i went through each one of his posts again and could not find one thing that was even close to being racist. it’s possible that people were referring to the links that were posted (which i didn’t read), but his posts are clean as a whistle.
[quote]UtahLama wrote:
iscariot wrote:
dom815 wrote:
Sorry. I don’t care who played in the world championship, they were pros and we lost at our own game.
See, this is B/S. The players on the other teams these days are all professionals too - and top level professionals in the NBA for that matter too. Nowitski, Ginobli, Parker to name but three…
One thing the NBA has achieved is the international popularisation of basketball and concomitant with that a universal raising of the international standard: so it’s a bit rich to complain about losing at your own game…or would you prefer it if the World Champs was like Baseball’s ‘world series?’ (lower case intentional)
The other thing with international ball is that the [a]rules are slightly different and [b]the international teams play those rules in their hoem comps so they’re sued to playing them in a team situation…
Who plays defense in the NBA?
San Antonio
Utah (Jerry Sloan routinely bawls out players that don’t play defense)
Detroit
You [generally] tend to find that the teams that have crap defense have one dominant scorer: Philadelphia, LA Lakers (although the return of Phil is ameliorating that somewhat), Golden State…
Ummmm.
The Greek team that wooped our ass at the World Champ. has all of 0 NBA players, 1 German pro league player 2 Italian pro league players and that’s it.
We got beat because the rest of the world took our game and perfected it, while we have allowed the basic principles that made it great to slide away.
[quote]rawda wrote:
i would love for someone to explain the huge difference in rules between the nba and international. that seems like a pretty weak excuse. the only difference i can see offhand is the trapezoidal key, and the enforcement of rules that already exist in the nba. kind of like the difference between nhl and int’l hockey previous to last season.[/quote]
The ball is slightly smaller. You can touch the ball once it hits the rim. Thats major and something the NBA players cannot adjust to without a lot of time.
Your stereotypical comments towards how certain players dress, etc leads to them automatically being branded as thugs indicate that you have a racist undertone to your comments.[/quote]
Hey, F-you and your stupid little “that’s racist” bullshit. I didn’t say anything that the league, it’s fans and MANY former players haven’t already acknowledged. What did I say that is “stereotypical”? Why is there a new dress code in the NBA? I didn’t make that stuff up.
[quote]PGA200X wrote:
rawda wrote:
i would love for someone to explain the huge difference in rules between the nba and international. that seems like a pretty weak excuse. the only difference i can see offhand is the trapezoidal key, and the enforcement of rules that already exist in the nba. kind of like the difference between nhl and int’l hockey previous to last season.
The ball is slightly smaller. You can touch the ball once it hits the rim. Thats major and something the NBA players cannot adjust to without a lot of time.
Not making excuses at all though.[/quote]
Maybe there something to that, but it’s kind of like saying the Colts couldn’t beat the Winnepeg Bluebombers using Canadian rules because the field is bigger in the CFL and you only get three downs.
[quote]PGJ wrote:
Maybe there something to that, but it’s kind of like saying the Colts couldn’t beat the Winnepeg Bluebombers using Canadian rules because the field is bigger in the CFL and you only get three downs.
[/quote]
I honestly just don’t think that there’s as big of a difference in talent level between US and international ball anymore.
Look at how players are develop as kids nowadays, all the AAU coaches want to do is steal players to make all-star teams, there’s not a whole lot of fundamentals being taught at the lower levels. With the quality of athletes we have (which is definitly a bit superior to other countries), there’s no reason we SHOULDN’T be dominating, but we’re definitly going to need a rebirth at the grassrooots level that I’m not sure is possible.
[quote]jtrinsey wrote:
PGJ wrote:
Maybe there something to that, but it’s kind of like saying the Colts couldn’t beat the Winnepeg Bluebombers using Canadian rules because the field is bigger in the CFL and you only get three downs.
I honestly just don’t think that there’s as big of a difference in talent level between US and international ball anymore.
Look at how players are develop as kids nowadays, all the AAU coaches want to do is steal players to make all-star teams, there’s not a whole lot of fundamentals being taught at the lower levels. With the quality of athletes we have (which is definitly a bit superior to other countries), there’s no reason we SHOULDN’T be dominating, but we’re definitly going to need a rebirth at the grassrooots level that I’m not sure is possible.[/quote]
I agree. I wonder if that’s because American ball has stagnated while the Euro’s have improved slightly, or is it that the Euros have improved by leaps and bounds. It’s not like basketball is a new sport in other countries. It’s a little embarrasing that a nation with almost 300 million people and the most powerful (and highly paid) professional sports machine on the planet can’t put together a basketball team that can beat the Greeks or the Euro-Slavs.
A team of American professional basketball players should, each and every time, dominate every other team the world has to offer. Don’t the guys who aren’t good enough for the NBA go play in Europe and South America? Our college guys used to compete in international games and win. Now our pros are getting spanked. Did the Greek team have one player from the NBA? I’m really not 100% sold on the “the international players are getting better” argument. The NBA is the premier league in the world. They should play like it. A team of NBA 3rd stringers should be able to beat any international team.
For you lovers of basketball out there, what international team has the most NBA players?
[quote]Professor X wrote:
Just to keep up with the Joneses, the NFL has decided to change their ball as well. Nerf is apparently suing for $5,000,000,000 in copyright infringements. To combat this, the NFL has stated their balls will be rocket powered and also capable of deep space travel.[/quote]
I haven’t watched any pro sports on a regular basis in the last 10+ years. In my opinion the problem isn’t just with the NBA, it is in all pro sports. The athletes are paid waaaaaaay to much and the owners are greedy little bastards, and who pays (figuratively and literally) are the “fans”.
Someone already mentioned performance pay, if the players were paid according to how they play…what a concept, being compensated for what they are really worth?! Growing up I watched guys playing injured, now days guys are out of lineups with jock itch…wtf!
[quote]Niko wrote:
I haven’t watched any pro sports on a regular basis in the last 10+ years. In my opinion the problem isn’t just with the NBA, it is in all pro sports. The athletes are paid waaaaaaay to much and the owners are greedy little bastards, and who pays (figuratively and literally) are the “fans”.
Someone already mentioned performance pay, if the players were paid according to how they play…what a concept, being compensated for what they are really worth?! Growing up I watched guys playing injured, now days guys are out of lineups with jock itch…wtf! [/quote]