• » Name: Virly
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• » I want the INSIDE STUFF!

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basketball • dirk • jordan • kobe • lebron • nash • nba • nbc • playoffs

• » FallDownDesigns

Ya Herd?

I want the INSIDE STUFF!

Are there any other sports fans out there that cannot stand professional basketball these days? Don’t get me wrong, I love basketball, this will never change. The day my hometown [Toronto] received a pro team was arguably one of the most monumental moments of my life.

And this has nothing to do with the quality of the league. The National Basketball Association is just as talented, deep and competitive as it ever has been  - personally, I think it is even more so. We have 7-footers running the floor and hitting 3’s more often than Tyson hits women. Sure, Bill Laimbeer and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar were threats as deep at 17 feet out [being generous], but show me a clip of either of them going 5-10 from 25 feet out and also keeping up with a fast break on a regular basis and I’ll eat my hat.

Also, Dominque, Dr. J, and Jordan did what they did, but now we could fill an all-star game with players who can arguably [I repeat: ARGUABLY] meet or exceed the in-air acrobatics of these three.

It's a hell of a lot more unpredictable thats for sure. There's no absolute favourites anymore and there hasnt been in years. You don't have to worry about the Bulls, Celtics, or Pistons of yesteryear running over everyone.

There can also be a lot said about how diverse and varied the game has become. We now have players from all walks of life and corners of the Earth playing on North American wood grain contributing a ridiculous amount of different styles of play, strategies and techniques.

What then, must be my gripe with the current state of the Association – it’s the presentation. Watch this clip:

NBA on NBC Memories

Hopefully, you should understand where I’m coming from within, literally, the first 5 seconds. The epic arena pans, the music, the displays of historic memorabilia, the color schemes, the effects and the announcing, all bring me back to a better day and a better NBA.

That’s right. I’m talking about my utter disdain for how crappy NBA broadcasts have become. I love going to the Air Canada Center to watch the Raptors live, but I cannot for the life of me be bothered to sit for 2 hours in front of an ESPNBABC program and listen to 4 guys tell horrible jokes and force-feed even worse catch-phrases into my brain with no more knowledge or eloquence than the average boozehound at the local sports bar.

I mean no animosity toward Hubie Brown, Bill Walton [who is fine in a minor capacity], Kenny Smith, Sir Charles, or Stuart Scott, but they shouldn’t be allowed to wipe the spit off of the microphone after Bob Costas, Ahmad Rashad, Jim Gray or Marv Albert [the lone bright spot in NBA commentary, and the reason TNT is not mentioned above] are finished their monologues. Done are the days of the commentary adding that certain timelessness to a buzzer-beater, triple double or gravity defying reverse layup. “Throw it down big man, throw it down!!!” is what rules today.

How many people do you think followed the Saturday ritual of watching NBA Inside Stuff before lunging for the next 6 or seven hours for an NBA Showtime Triple Header. Is your answer “Everyone who loves basketball?”, because mine is. For a sports fanatic back then, that was life. Throw in Saved By the Bell, and all those other stupid shows that aired beforehand and you have one of the most identifiable entities of North American popular culture of the 1990’s – but that’s a whole different topic altogether [*notes subject for future blog*…just kidding (maybe)].

I know what you may be thinking. “This fuckhead is just caught up in nostalgia.He’s living in the past. His Airness and Larry Legend are gone. Deal with it.” – I can assure you that I have [dealt with it] and that this is not the case. My gripes have nothing to do time.

My love for sitting on my ass for two whole days during the 1st round of the NCAA March Madness Tournament hasn’t wavered in the slightest since watching the Fab 5 of Michigan lose as freshman back in 1992 – Hell, I don’t even remember who did the broadcasts back then (was it still CBS???).

During the season, MLB on FOX is a great way to spend the rare Saturdays that I am actually homebound, and I am still glued to the set every October during Major League Baseball’s Fall Classic starts up.

I don’t even think I need to mention how epic NFL Sunday and Monday Night Football is and has been over the past few decades.

In case you’re still wondering, this has nothing to do with the quality of the game or the calibre of the players – it’s about the presentation, and how those players are presented and represented by the Media and the Leagues themselves.

Athletes in every other sport besides basketball are often portrayed as national heroes and cultural icons. With the exception of Big Diesel, there’s no single NBA player that can be held with the kind of regard that goes beyond just basketball.

Derek Jeter, Brett Favre, and Tom Brady are so loved by their regions and have such a heavy following both in and out of their sports you could argue for them running for State Senate – could Kobe, KG, Tmac, Vince or Dirk do the same?

Lance Armstrong and David Beckham are freaking national heroes, Barry Bonds is a super villain, and A-Rod is one or the other depending on how he hit last night. Can you put Lebron, Pierce, Elton Brand, Tim Duncan, or Agent Zero into those same molds?

Don’t kid yourself. You can’t – and it’s not their fault. The best example [even better than Shaq] is Steve Nash right though, but that’s only in Canada [F.Y.I. he’s like Mohammad Ali up here]. It has nothing to do with Kobe or D-Wade being as good at basketball as David Ortiz is at baseball or Peyton Manning is at football [I would argue that they are better than Ortiz, Manning on the other hand…] It’s the way they are portrayed by the media and the league.

As I have said, I still love the sport, and being in the crowd is still a favourite way to spend a day, but with respect to the broadcast, I’m more than happy catching the highlights.

The MLB, NFL and NCAA have been able to maintain that flare for decades. Their athletes are presented to be ‘larger than life’ men fighting on a ‘larger than life’ stage. The legacies go far beyond just the sports themselves because the networks have kept that cache alive and strong during a period where there are so many alternate forms of entertainment besides keeping up with the local sports team. And, for whatever reason, The NBA has damn near lost every ounce of it’s universal, ‘more than just sports’ cultural iconic status. Drink up this clip from the 1999 Eastern Conference Finals and see if there has been anything comparable in terms of paying tribute to stars on a broadcast level.

NBA on NBC 1999 ECF game 3

What happened? Maybe it’s because NBC jumped the shark and gave all their money to the Xtreme Football League [see: hahahaha remember that shit???] Or, maybe this is because the Association and it’s new network affiliates opted to go for the more urban route, replacing the orchestral scores, historical references and dramatic player pieces with G-Unit, Lil John and four instalments of ‘NBA Street’.

Maybe once again, hip hop is to blame.

[note to morons: that was a joke]

p.s. how the hell do you embed these videos in???

and why the hell can't i set this as my display pic?

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