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how wrong can one person be??
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/200...nba/index.html
This guys wants the allstar game 82 times a year.
Poof!
Lack of stars, long playoffs drop NBA off radar
Bruce Bowen; Richard Hamilton; Nazr Mohammed
Richard Hamilton has helped take the Finals to Game 7 but hasn't help take the NBA into greater public consciousness.
Jesse D. Garrabrant/NBAE via Getty Images
If our professional sports were magazines, the National Football League would be Fortune, Major League Baseball would be American Heritage, Major League Soccer would be Foreign Affairs, the National Hockey League would be, uh, The Saturday Evening Post and the National Basketball Association would be, of course, People.
The NBA has always been a creature of its most glamorous or controversial stars. Basketball can't help but be that way. It's such an intimate game: only five players on a team, dressed in sexy, scanty attire, their faces distinct, clear of any helmets or hats, the fans pressed close upon them. Team play in basketball can be beautiful, and it wins games, but the sport will always be owned by its heroes.
This was so from the very beginning of the NBA. From big George Mikan to Bob Cousy, Elgin, Bill Russell, Wilt, Oscar, Jerry, Dr. J, Kareem, Larry and Magic, Michael, Shaq and Kobe. As you listen to that roster, note that basketball stars are invariably known best by their first names or nicknames. They're like rock stars or supermodels. It's ironic -- and so instructive -- that of those elite in the last half-century, Bill Russell -- by far the biggest winner of them all, the epitome of a team player -- is the only one most commonly known simply by his real name.
Hockey, of course, has chosen to disappear completely -- although we have started to hear rumblings that Appomattox is at last approaching for union and management. But the NBA has proved this championship season that a whole league can disappear in plain sight.
The two teams who will play for the championship tomorrow night, San Antonio and Detroit may well be the best two teams in the league, but, sorry, nobody's paid any attention to them. It's a ghost championship. The NBA would've fared much better if, say, Cleveland had played Philadelphia. No, the Cavaliers and 76ers aren't much good, but they are led by two stars, guys whose shirts sell: LeBron and A.I. -- Messrs. James and Iverson. San Antonio and Detroit may be talented ensembles, but the NBA needs big names up in lights to stay in the public consciousness.
And, listen, NBA: longer ain't necessarily better. The league's regular season ended way back in the middle of April. That means fans in cities such as Los Angeles, Atlanta and Minneapolis-St. Paul have been without any visceral connection to the NBA for almost two months, as the playoff eliminations have dragged out, interminably.
Having lots of playoff teams is tempting for any league. It keeps interest up at the end of the season. There's more revenue in more cities. But it also means that people tune out as the post-season goes on ... and on ... and on. How many of us exhausted NBA fans have wanted to cry out, as Oliver Cromwell did to his Parliament: "You have sat here too long for any good you have been doing lately. ... Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!"
Mercifully, basketball will finally absolutely depart tomorrow night.
Sorry, but
If a column falls in a forest, is there any sound?
him. We got to see some of the best basketball on the planet. Their loss, not ours.
Well, not the Spurs, anyway!
Deford (you ing old fart) when will you do the same?
that is one of the most stupidest articles ive read
I have a lot of respect for Frank Deford, but this is the worst thing he's ever written.
Once again baseball, no matter how boring the WS is, gets a free pass.
Once again the NBA gets dismissed no matter how compelling the games are, because the ratings are bad.
And some people wonder why our Olympic teams have fallen from their dominant position in the world. This article pretty much unwittingly sums up the answer to that questionl.
This is what American sports have come to. Sad.
Heh, the guy IS a jackass, but I gotta like the Cromwell quote.
As a newbie to professional basketball and this board, I actually quite enjoyed the finals, and the long post season didn't do much to make the NBA fade from my mind. Of course I live and work just north of San Antonio, so I suppose all the Go Spurs Go lawn ornaments my neighbors put up didn't hurt in that regard.
GO SPURS GO!!
Find his email let's bomb this bas with some Spurs love.
WTF They want NBA like WWF? Where it's rigged to certain markets and people?
This guy loses all credibility as a sportswriter when he's asking for freaking Philly and Cleveland.
I'll be willing to give it back to him the next time two teams from the East meet in the NBA Finals.
Somebody get this dude a damn map.
And this guy is paid to write this stuff???
If the NBA misses the truly heroes (Duncan, Manu, Billups, Big Ben, etc), it's their fault.
They should fire some dumb ass marketing idiots, before they start talking about our teams.
Maybe next year they should give de O'Brien Thophy to the best selling merchandise team. That would be great for basketball. :vomit
There is no "I" in team!
The NBA tried to hype up the Wade, Stoudemire and LeBrons, and it bit them in the ass. Serves them right.
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