What's wrong with basketball, you ask?
The N.B.A. doesn't have a thug problem; it has a basketball problem. Its players are the best athletes in all of pro sports -- oversize, swift and agile -- but weirdly they are also the first to have devolved to a point where they can no longer play their own game.
Unbelievable as it may seem, you can make millions in today's N.B.A. without having even one semireliable way to put the ball in the basket -- no jump shot, no hook shot, no little 12-foot bank shot. In fact, the entire area between dunking range and the three-point line, what used to be prime real estate for scoring, is now a virtual dead zone.
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The dunk, by the way, has been banned once before, for reasons other than the one I am proposing. In 1965, a 7-foot-1 basketball player of uncommon grace and coordination graduated from Power Memorial Academy in New York City and enrolled at U.C.L.A., then the dominant force in college basketball. In his first season, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (then known as Lew Alcindor) led U.C.L.A. to a national championship. Faced with the probability that no other team would have any chance at a title for the duration of Abdul-Jabbar's stay, the N.C.A.A. outlawed ''basket stuffing,'' aka the dunk. No one said straight out that the new rule was meant to handicap the young giant, but it immediately became known as the Alcindor rule. U.C.L.A. still thrived, winning national championships in both of Abdul-Jabbar's remaining two seasons. ''After the so-called Alcindor rule was passed . . . some skeptics said he wouldn't be as great,'' John Wooden, the legendary U.C.L.A. coach, observed years later. ''They ignored his tremendous desire and determination. He worked twice as hard on banking shots off the glass, his little hook across the lane and his turnaround jumper.''
In other words, Abdul-Jabbar, already skilled, became even more so. His ''sky hook'' -- released 5 to 10 feet from the basket, with his right arm fully extended and the ball cradled in one hand -- remains the most devastatingly effective, and most beautiful, shot in the history of the game. A close second, in terms of grace, might be the ''finger roll'' of Julius Erving, in which high-flying Dr. J glided above defenders and let the ball roll toward the hoop with his palm facing up, as if he were a waiter extending a serving tray. It is no coincidence that Erving played his college basketball within the years (1967-76) that the Alcindor rule was in effect: the finger roll is the kind of move you invent when the option of just powering it to the basket and stuffing it is not available.
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Jordan created this world, but it's important to remember that he did not grow up in it. Until he was deep into high school, few outside of his hometown had heard of him. When he needed coaching, he was still listening -- which is part of what made him worth watching. The same cannot be said of many of his heirs in the sneaker-shilling game.
The power of the shoe deal (and the hoped-for shoe deal) in basketball cannot be overstated. It induces kids to skip college and go right to the N.B.A. because endorsement money from Nike and other companies can dwarf the salaries they make from playing ball. The shoe deal is specifically what is making the N.B.A. younger -- which, in turn, is what is degrading the quality of play.
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He makes a good case. But some other things should be done.
1) Travelling should be called more often. It seems to me that the travelling foul went out when Jordan entered the league.
2) Palming the ball should be called more often and discouraged by penalty.
3) I thought basketball was not supposed to be a contact sport....
4) Enforce the rule that players must stay outside the free-throw lane during a free throw until the ball hits something. (Though this doesn't seem to be an NBA rule...)
5) Ban the dunk, sure. Get rid of the 3-point shot, sure. But I think raising the basket ~ 3 feet would be a reasonable solution to the problem too. Maybe enlarge the court too, but that would be a lot more difficult.
6) It should not take 30 minutes to play the last minute of a basketball game. Something's is very messed up in a sport that thinks it needs a game timer with hundredths of a second resolution.
I haven't been able to watch the game since [link|http://www.nba.com/history/players/maravich_bio.html|Pete Maravich]'s days. I wasn't much of a fan though. Even when I played it in grade school I wasn't much of one. But the current NBA is killing the sport.
Cheers,
Scott.
