If you know me, you know that basketball was my first love. From shovelling off the snow on my grandma's driveway just two blocks down from my house to shoot hoops whenever the weather would suffice each March, to watching more basketball on television than any child should, I quickly fell in love with the game. In high school I played varsity ball, further developing my love for the game on the court and at the same time starting my affair with writing about the game, eventually landing a job editing a Toronto Raptors blog where I got my start and is one of the main reasons you are sitting here reading this long introduction in the first place. It is safe to say I love basketball and always have since a young age.
Yet in recent years the NBA has became less and less apart of my life. A new generation of NBA players have came in with new attitudes at the same time as new rules that have made the NBA a softer replica of the game that is played at the high school and collegiate levels has now entered the fold. A league that has always been called out for a mythical "lack of defense" actually has changed the rules to make things even more offensively oriented. After the Detroit Pistons, New Jersey Nets and San Antonio Spurs made the mid-00's all about defense, slowing down the clock and playing "boring" basketball, the league welcomed new rules to attempt to ban handchecking and put more of an advantage to the offensive player as defenses got better. While at the same time thanks to the infamous "Malice at the Palace" where Indiana Pacers went into the stands to fight fans during a Pacers-Pistons brawl, more of a focus was also placed on taking out trash talking and intensity out of the game.
These moves were understandable at the time, scoring was on the downturn and the negative press from the incident in Detroit spooked an always PR savvy commissioner in David Stern. Yet those changes were the start of an evolutionary path that has turned the NBA into something no sport should ever turn itself into: soft. Also, no team is more of a case study for the wussification of the NBA than their promotional golden child, the Miami Heat.
Throughout the playoffs, we have seen multiple teams and multiple players employ some embellishment to get calls. Yet the Miami Heat have seemed to take it to another level, and for a team that should be the Chicago Bulls of this decade, a transcendently powerful team blessed with some of the best talents of the era, it is sad. Could you imagine Michael Jordan looking like he just got shot in a bad action movie after Anthony Mason gave him a shove? Would Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman do that either? Yet that is what LeBron James has been doing, embellishing to get fouls and whining to officials. Stuff that is hard to like and is as far from behavior of the ambassadors of the game before him.
All of this from a team that in all reality could be like the memorable teams of the 80's and 90's that made the NBA a popular league in the first place. With Dwyane Wade, LeBron James, Chris Bosh, and Ray Allen the Heat have four of the Top 25 NBA players since 2005 on their roster. LeBron still plays basketball in a way we have never seen before, like an NFL running back with the jumping ability of an NBA player. They also play great defense, playing a small ball style that is heavily reliant on trapping and making switches, the type of system that always makes it look like there is max effort being put into every defensive possession. Yet something is still missing that has never allowed me to embrace the "Post Decision" era of the NBA. It also might not be the doing of the Miami Heat and rather of David Stern.
Did anyone ever think ten years ago that players could force where they want to go in every single situation? Could you imagine Reggie Miller forcing his way out of Indiana to play for the Knicks/Bulls/Lakers? Or Allen Iverson bolting to play with Kobe and Shaq in LA? Now that type of scenario happens every trade deadline and offseason to the point where the games best player (LeBron) best center (Dwight Howard) best point guard (Chris Paul) and best scorer (Carmelo Anthony) have all forced their way out of small markets in Cleveland, Orlando, New Orleans and Denver because they had to "play in a big market" aka "we can't win on our own so we are going to go where it is easier" how is that going to drive fans to your league?
Maybe I was a different type of kid, but when Vince Carter forced his way out of Toronto all those years back, I didn't still like him because he was a great player who had more highlights than a fake blonde, in fact the consensus was that his reputation would be forever tarnished for the sins he committed in doing so. Now it seems like any Top 15 player in the league can switch teams to wherever he will be a contender and all will be forgotten by the All-Star Game. How do you market that and expect the lifelong fan, the people who buy NBA League Pass, watch 3-8 games a night, buy season tickets and jerseys and are the main audience that keeps your league alive? The NBA: "Where when you can't win, you backstab the team that brought you into the league and the fans that made you famous happens" isn't exactly the best ad campaign.
With the new wave of players leaving teams, it is even harder to feel a connection between the passion of a city and its fans to the players as the focus to prevent on-court dustups has led to seeing technicals that wouldn't even get called in a high school game get thrown around in a seven game Conference Final series, robbing playoff basketball of its emotion. Could you imagine what would happen if Miller gave the choke sign to Madison Square Garden today? Or if Scottie Pippen stepped over Patrick Ewing after dunking on him? Now Chris Andersen was suspended a game for shoving his opponent. In the Conference Finals. Hard to feel that emotion and passion that used to be in the game when it is being so clearly phased out.
Nearly a decade ago, David Stern and the NBA made a final focus to once again try to attract those who called out the NBA for being too "urban" of a league by enforcing a dress code and trying to make the game less physical to bring in a casual audience. Now the league has evolved into the opposite. Too soft, too many people focused on being "stars" and not winning titles, too many players forcing their way onto winning teams and disconnecting over half the league in a divide from major markets and small ones, and the rampant era of flopping. All of these things are alienating this hardcore NBA fan, a man that loves the game more than any other sport. Stern might not be able to go back on his changes to the game, but in trying to make the game more marketable, he has lost its soul. I just wish we could have it back. It isn't the same without it.
