Do you remember that basketball preview I wrote back in October? I exuberantly went through a team-by-team analysis and vigorously reviewed each major off-season transaction.
Now I look back on that and ask myself, why did I even bother to waste such valuable time on a lost cause? The NBA is a boring dull league where emphasis on the team is completely lost and individuals have taken center stage.
Fundamentals have been lost and exciting plays like "dippy do dunky wunkies" have become first nature in the NBA. For instance, let's say Kobe Byrant misses an easy lay-up. Then, on the next possession down the floor he does a 360-tomahawk dunk or something like that and the missed lay-up is completely pardoned.
Allen Iverson is the most valuable player in this sad excuse for a professional league. When he is healthy and plays his 40-plus minutes his team usually will win, hence he is the most valuable player in the game. The fact that one player can make such an astronomical difference is a pathetic fact for a game built around the team concept.
Iverson may average 30-plus points a game but he is still shooting under 40 percent from the field, which is nothing to brag about. Iverson, however, does average nearly six assists per game and can play the point position as well as anyone else in the league.
The one issue that has completely turned me off to basketball, however, has been the continuing trend of under-aged teenagers who have taken it upon themselves to decide they are ready for the NBA. News flash to all the Kwane Browns of the world: You're not! I have seen it happen time and time again over the last few seasons and every time it happens it is no less frustrating.
Without the proper time to develop at the college/semi-pro ranks, these young kids with distorted images of reality will never be successful in the premier basketball league in the world. There will always be the special case here and there, but on the whole, teenagers are just further diluting the quality of play. I challenge you to name one team in the NBA whose entire roster made it through at least two years of college.
I suggest David Stern and the rest of the boneheads who run the NBA adopt stricter eligibility requirements for players that not only better suit these young men, but the league as a whole. The National Basketball Developmental League, or "D league" as it is called, is a good start but needs to force more younger talent to start off there if they are not already enrolled in a college with a Division I basketball program.
The only thing I give the NBA credit for is an existing salary cap, which is missing in the NHL and MLB. At least every team can compete and sign any player as long as he fits into the salary cap.
The luxury cap is awesome because any team that spends $1 million over the cap will have to give an additional $1 million to the NBA. The problem is that these spoiled players get too many perks based on their tenure in the league. Good teams will ultimately have success based on how many superstars they have, not how good the coaching is or how hard the team works towards game preparation.
Americans deserve good basketball for a change, where the games matter and the players leave everything on the court and not in the media room.
