Loving This FANtastic Game Again (or…How the NBA is Coming Back)

Tuesday night’s absolutely dreadful game between the Cavs and Celtics notwithstanding, the Eastern Conference has provided surprisingly competitive and entertaining action in this year’s playoffs. Recapping round 1: The Sixers showed up and actually made Detroit earn the series; Atlanta stunned Boston by forcing a 7th game and gave everyone reason to believe that the young, athletic Hawks could be a factor in the East next year; Orlando’s Dwight Howard showed why he’ll likely be the league’s best big man for years to come (with Chris Bosh putting in his own great performances for Toronto, which make me say “Not so fast my friend” to myself for wanting to enthrone Howard already). And Cavs vs. Wizards, hell, what didn’t it have? Nail-biters, buzzer-beaters, hard fouls, trash talking, bad blood, rapper feuds, Jay-Z freestyle disses, ninjas (Game 5, around the halfway point in the third quarter, go back and watch the tapes if you think I’m making it up).

There was a reason to watch every series. It was great.

The Western Conference, meanwhile, gave us a Lakers sweep (not that I’m complaining), a 1st round Houston departure that was predetermined (the whole “better without Yao” argument was always ridiculous), Dallas reaffirming everyone’s beliefs that they’ve stopped caring about the postseason since getting jobbed in the ‘06 Finals, and the disappointing Spurs vs. Suns series where, after a classic Game 1, we saw the basketball gods declare “Thou shalt not even sniff the reaping of any rewards for a foolish trade,” and cripple Phoenix’s ability to compete. Shaq was supposed to get them over the hump, and instead he just gave us a series where he frequently looked slow and uninspired and more like a liability than an asset (while I’m here, I know people called Hack-a-Shaq bush league and took Coach Pop to task for it, but fuck that, if Shaq could hit even 60% of his free throws nobody would do that shit to him. I’m a Laker fan, I’ll always have love for Shaq, but he brings that on himself).

Still, I can forgive this of the West because we know their Conference Final is going to be a hell of a series to watch (provided it doesn’t somehow end up as Spurs vs. Jazz) and they’re the main reason why we just had the best NBA regular season since the FANtastic 80’s / early 90’s.

Yes. The Association is back. Or at least it’s on its way. We’ve still got the threat of “Spurs vs. Pistons II: The Revenge” potentially coming to a TV screen near us to contend with (ok, bit of a cheap shot there; Jazz vs. Pistons would be a much, MUCH worse series). But we’ve also got the potential for Lakers vs. Celtics, which David Stern is either A) fervently praying for, and perhaps even offering human sacrifices to any available deities to ensure, or B) actively ensuring will take place by vowing to disappear any refs who don’t do everything in their power to make sure it happens.

Stern needed this great NBA season more than anyone, and now he needs a fun, furious postseason. Finally, the association needs fans to pay attention to the players again, to distract from the fiascoes happening off the court. The season kicked off with the revelation of an NBA ref letting mob debts influence his calls, gave us more of the ongoing “Isiah Thomas destroys all that he touches” saga in New York throughout the year, and is wrapping up with Stern letting a greedy ass businessman steal basketball from the city of Seattle. (In one year we have great evidence that the whole “Stern controls the universe” conspiracy isn’t valid, because there’s no way he wouldn’t have orchestrated Isiah’s departure from New York sooner if it was, and great evidence that the conspiracy is valid, because why else would he stubbornly support Clay Bennet, despite the man’s blatant disengenousness regarding keeping the Sonics in Seattle, if it wasn’t for the fact that Bennet’s his buddy? Oh David, you sure know how to keep us guessing!)

So how did this happen? We’re just a few years removed from Ron Artest ignominously stealing the spotlight for beating up a fan who looked like the “They’re eating her,” kid from Troll 2…

League viewership was at a low. People blamed the decline on the thuggish, hip-hop look and unlikable character and irreversible blackness of the players. Larry Bird came out & said what everyone was thinking, that white fans weren’t watching due to the pronounced lack of white American superstars. So the league implemented a dress code so players could only sport their tattoos on the court & would have to stop rocking do-rags during interviews, and they made leaving the bench during a fight a capital offense, even if it’s just to try to keep the peace or check on a teammate, (meanwhile in baseball if you stayed in the dugout during a brawl analysts would rip you to shreds on-air) and begged players to stop makign terrible hip hop albums for the love of God, and considered every imaginable, ultimately pointless cosmetic change. Nothing worked.

So what changed this year? Why are ratings back up after being in a free fall since the end of the Bulls dynasty? Well what the hell made it FANtastic in the 1st place?

Super-Teams that were overloaded with productive talent, and Offense. They’ve made a comeback and brought the fans with them.

The NBA in the 90’s stayed afloat because of Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls. If not for the most popular American athlete since Babe Ruth the ratings would’ve been declining since about ‘91 as opposed to ‘98. Prior to Jordan there was the famous arrival of league saviors Magic Johnson and Larry Bird. But what really made the game fun to watch wasn’t just the individual stars, it was the fact that these stars could hit shots, score points and helped turn their teammates into stars (and in rare cases Hall of Famers). The Celtics in the 80’s were considered a “blue collar” team but they could put a century up on the scoreboard easily.

In the 90’s, coaches started adopting that whole “Defense wins championships” theory with a tad too much zeal, thanks to Pat Riley’s “We can’t keep up with the Bulls offensively, so lets try to bully them into a slow, brutal defeat” Knicks. The same Pat Riley who helped Magic unleash “Showtime” in LA for close to a decade completely changed the game for the worse when he moved to New York.

Things like ball movement and moving without the basketball and working for the best shot possible became obsolete. Sure, defense is crucial, but basketball is different from football and baseball. Anyone who’s played at any serious level or actually watched and studied the game with serious interest knows that there’s only so much defense can do. Good ball movement and making the extra pass will always thwart good defensive rotation. It can’t be helped. A great pump fake and footwork can confound even great defenders. Think I’m lying? Here’s a videoof Hall of Famer, world-class athlete and 8-time All Defensive Team selection David Robinson that everyone in my city would love to pretend was a work of fiction.

Everybody’s who has watched a fair amount of games has seen a moment or dozens or hundreds where a guy played textbook defense and still got a jumpshot buried in his mouth. Seriously, look up the list of NBA players who’ve scored 50 points in a single game, and yes you’ll see the expected names–Chamberlain, Bryant, Barry, Jordan, Jabbar–but you’ll also find Dana Barros, Cedric Ceballos, Shareef Abdur-Rahim and Tracy Murray.

Tracy…Murray.

That’s basketball, though. A guy can get hot and there’s not a hell of a lot you can do about it. The rules of the game–particularly the pro game–are inherently designed to benefit the offense and force a faster tempo. But it only really works if you play as a team and if the coaches show confidence in their team’s ability to score.

This year saw it come together after years of selfish play (facilitated by exorbitant contracts handed to unproven players) and lousy coaching crippled the league. That terrible game the Celts & Cavs played the other night–it’s an abberation worthy of its own article now. Had it been played in 1999, nobody would’ve noticed (I don’t care that it was a strike shortened season, that doesn’t excuse guys from hitting shots). It’s not too far off from Game 7 of the ‘05 Finals.

A score of 148-114 was the 1985 version of an embarrassing blowout in the NBA Finals, while the 1998 version is 96-54. And people wonder, really, why fans started tuning out when Jordan left? Nobody tunes in to the NBA to watch a lot of lockdown defense and bad shooting. People don’t even like defensive struggles in football, where it’s more common and there’s at least a chance of seeing a big hit to excite you. Why would the masses tune in to see basketball games where you know nobody’s going to even flirt with scoring 100?

Things are getting better now though. We’re still a long way from seeing a return to the glory days, but it’s getting there. It’s getting out of its own way and it’s seeing the light. There is young talent making a name for itself in the playoffs, teams are actually playing team ball and not standing around watching one guy go for his every time down the court, veterans are proving that they aren’t quite beyond their prime yet, and then you’ve got other talented guys who are sitting at home right now waiting to prove themselves next year.

Yes, the NBA - on the court at least, if not in the back offices - is climbing out of the dark and giving us a reason to love this game again.

We missed you fam. Welcome back.