Given my interest in sports, several friends have asked me why I have not blogged much on professional basketball. My stock answer is that, even though I have followed the NBA for about 45 years or so, I find it less interesting now than most other sports, particularly baseball, golf, professional football, intercollegiate athletics, and bowling (well, maybe not bowling).
The Houston Rockets are a good reflection of my reservations. The Rockets won two championships in the 1990’s by building a team of interesting complementary players to surround the wonderful talents of Hakeem Olajuwon, who is one of the top five NBA players of all-time. Now, the Rockets have promising young center Yao Ming surrounded by a boring mish-mash of players who do not play well as a team. The Rockets other star player — Steve Francis — exemplifies this problem, as he is a phenomenal athlete who is frankly a poor point guard. As a result, the Rockets have made the playoffs only once in the last five years (this season), and were dispatched in that series with relative ease by a Lakers team whose individual parts are better than its whole.
That’s a long introduction for this Geoffrey Norman Wall Street Journal ($) op-ed in which he addresses lagging interest in the NBA and the reasons for it. The entire op-ed is quite witty and well worth reading, and here is a sampling:
Many pro-basketball games are so poorly played and tediously long that the fingers seem drawn irresistibly to the remote. You find yourself seeking relief in “The Battle of Stalingrad” on the History Channel or the food channel’s primer on how to make jerk sauce. Even some stranger eating worms or getting fired by Donald Trump seems preferable to enduring 10 minutes of undisciplined motion, interrupted occasionally by a dunk, some chest-thumping, a shove, a technical foul, a missed free throw and a beer commercial.
. . . The problem is with the product, not the consumer.
The first game of the Spurs/Lakers quarter-final series was played on Sunday afternoon and, according to Nielsen, drew a 4.9 rating, which translates into 7.3 million viewers. That afternoon’s NASCAR race scored a 6.1 rating and 9.8 million viewers. The contrast is especially telling when you consider that this is probably the most desirable matchup in the NBA’s unending postseason, with each series lasting longer, it seems, than the Florida recount.
And Professor Bainbridge will appreciate Mr. Norman’s analysis of the Lakers:
The Lakers stars, of course, possess a celebrity that extends beyond the realm of sport. Shaq endorses everything that costs money, and Kobe did too until he got into trouble with the law. Just as people who didn’t know anything about the game would tune in to watch Michael Jordan, nonfans ought to be drawn to Shaq and Kobe, who has been called the heir to Jordan’s throne. Plainly, it isn’t working out that way.
Perfect for L.A., if not for basketball, these Lakers resemble a troubled film crew on location, with feuding stars, an ever more temperamental, gnomic director (coach Phil Jackson) and egos ceaselessly banging into each other so that the real point of the thing gets lost in the din. Great material for one of those fan magazines where celebrity is its own justification. Who cares if Kobe unilaterally decides to take over a game and plays as though making a pass to the open man might cost him a shoe endorsement? It doesn’t matter because…he’s Kobe.
The “Showtime” Laker teams of the late 1980s were built around Magic Johnson, who generally led the league in assists. They ran the fast break, and they moved without the ball. Their rivals, on the opposite coast, were built around another great all-around player, Larry Bird. The Celtics/Lakers rivalry was one of the greatest in the history of sport. A matchup of great stars — true — but also of great, and distinctive, teams. When they met in the finals, people changed dinner plans so they wouldn’t miss a game. The Celtics of the 1960s and the Knicks of the 1970s could inspire such loyal devotion, too, and for similar reasons.
With the Lakers now down 0-2 and on the ropes, it looks as though it may come down to the San Antonio Spurs and the Detroit Pistons in this year’s finals. This is a matchup that might be challenged in the ratings by “Animal Planet.” The Pistons and the Nets played a 78-56 contest the other night that was more grueling to watch than even “The Bachelor.”
Then, Mr. Norman closes with an astute observation about what is missing:
Those great Knick teams (of the late 1960’s and early 70’s) were much more than the sum of their parts, and that was the fascination. There was some kind of deep art at work. Fans sensed possibilities and valued, above all, a display of control in the midst of all that motion.
After all, if you just want movement, collisions and chaos between the beer commercials, you can watch NASCAR.