The Boredom Continues

    A funny think happened the other day. Someone actually asked me, “Hey, Hall! Why don’t you ever write about basketball, or sports in general? I heard someone say that you were, at one time, the Kamala Harris of basketball!” Now, while I think that was a tad harsh - funny, but harsh - this old friend of mine makes a good point. The best answer is, as I’ve gotten older I find professional sports boring. I mean, I’ll watch enough of the regular seasons in all 4 major American sports (just so I don't sound too stupid at any gathering of ex-jocks), and I’m glued to the television for the 4 majors in professional golf. I have also been known to even watch the World Cup for more than a few minutes at a time. But for the time being, let’s stick to basketball, because I actually know something about that. So we go with a nerdy, sports essay! Which reminds me of a story… 

    Not long ago, I’m talking to the wise and wonderful and sarcastic (is there a better trio?), Preston Duane Phillips...my stepfather. He has become somewhat of a devotee of the National Basketball Association. Now, he might argue with that description and say he is only interested in the local Philadelphia team, the 76ers. Either way, he and my mother watch a lot of hoops. Obviously, I’d like to think they watch all this basketball because their first-born, messiah-like child (that would be me), played hoops for years! Alas, that would not be the case. They enjoy it on its own merits. Well, up to a point. Because Duane takes a more nuanced look at the sport, we got to talking about why he is so bored with the professional version, and why I feel the same way. I’ll tell you the story that I told him.

    The big power forwards and centers, wide as canyons in the shoulders and waist, used to bludgeon each other in the post like elephant seals. That was basketball once — Charles Barkley backing down defenders like a bulldozer, Shaquille O’Neal shattering backboards, Oliver Miller eating his way through the league but still getting all the easy buckets. Now, DJ Burns plays in Korea and Kenny Lofton Jr. bounces between teams, simultaneously too short and too hefty for a game that’s become addicted to the three-point line.

    The numbers tell the story in red ink. NBA ratings have plunged 48% since 2012, down another 28% on ESPN just this year. Teams averaged 93.7 points in 2004, the last season defenders could place and keep their hands on offensive players. The scoring climbed after that — 97.2 points the next year, then triple digits by 2009. The NBA’s higher-ups were hungry for a cleaner game, a faster game, a supposedly more fan-friendly game. Well, former Commissioner David Stern and his hand-picked successor Adam Silver got what they wanted.

    But the pair of bloodless technocrats lost something too, something unlovely but authentic. There was beauty in the ugliness once — the sweat-soaked jerseys, the bodies colliding in the paint, the pure physics of mass against mass. The “Malice at the Palace” was the turning point; that night in Detroit when Indiana Pacers Ron Artest and Stephen Jackson went into the stands to teach the fans a lesson and the league decided it needed to change if it wanted to preserve that fanbase. No more hand-checking. No more bullying in the post. No more chaos. Before that, you had Latrell Sprewell choking PJ Carlesimo at practice, Charles Oakley clearing out entire teams, statutory rapist Anthony Mason posting triple doubles as he mean-mugged his way through Madison Square Garden, and ball-hogging Allen Iverson lamenting he had to practice at all in preparation for willing his underdog teams to victory.

    Again, take poor DJ Burns, all 300 pounds of him. I love this kid! He dominated the NCAA tournament last March, backing down defenders like the ghost of Barkley. The Cleveland Cavaliers gave him a summer league shot but that was it. Now he’s with something called the Goyang Sono Skygunners, too tubby for today’s NBA but just right for the version of yesterday’s game still played in Asia. Back in March of last year, he hit the only three-pointer of his college career in the ACC Championship. The crowd went nuts because they knew — this wasn’t supposed to happen anymore.

    Kenneth Lofton Jr. — no relation to the Cleveland Indians’ all-time great center fielder, himself snubbed by the NBA after a fine career at Arizona — suffered an even worse fate. He’s got Barkley’s build and Zach Randolph’s footwork, but four NBA teams have already waived him. He averaged 25 points a game in the G League, bullying defenders like it was 1993. The analytics guys don’t want a low-efficiency player like that anymore. They want three-pointers, spacing, and transition baskets. In his first NBA start, Lofton dropped 42 points and 14 rebounds. Let me repeat that for those of you on the West Coast. He dropped 42 points and had 14 rebounds in his first NBA start! They STILL sent him away. Really?

    The NBA thinks it’s protecting the product. Technical fouls for stare-downs, ejections for emotions, and all the left-wing politics you can eat. They hand out techs like Biden handed out the recent Presidential Medal of Freedom awards…indiscriminately, without thought, and with no respect to the award — Giannis Antetokounmpo gets T’d up for looking at Al Horford wrong; Jokic gets tossed for nothing at all. I’m not kidding...nothing at ALL! The refs have more highlights than the rookies, more game impact than the All-NBA first team. Even that League Pass thing on NBA.TV is a maze of blackouts and restrictions, making fans jump through hoops just to watch their home team.

    Want more? Paul George posted more podcast episodes than games played in 2024. Zion Williamson — the 5-star Duke forward that was going to change the game, and once my great hope for a genuine throwback star, a massive bruiser in the Shawn Kemp mold — talks about how hard it is to stay on a diet with millions in the bank and nagging injuries constantly sapping his Bunyanesque strength. Are you kidding me? The players treat the league like a stepping stone to their guaranteed contracts, their brand, their social media, their next venture. Understandable in a mercenary, money-obsessed world like ours, but it means the passion’s gone AWOL along with the post moves.

    Today’s game is optimized for gambling and analytics. The three-point line might as well be a slot machine. Pull the lever enough times and you’ll hit the jackpot. There’s no room for a 300-pound post artist like Al Jefferson or Jahlil Okafor anymore. No space for the fat man’s sumo ballet in the paint. The referees will blow the whistle if someone flexes after a dunk. There’s no space for tough guys in the game if you’re getting teed up for being human, all too human, on a basketball court.

    I genuinely thought Zion could bring it back. He had Karl Malone’s build and Julius Erving’s hops. He didn’t have my jump shot, but hey, you can’t have everything, right? You’re an idiot! But he can’t stay healthy, another casualty of a game that’s become too fast, too lean, too predictable. The fun died somewhere between the Palace and the analytics revolution. His story reads like a cautionary tale — even the new Barkley can’t survive in a league that has engineered all the Barkleys out of existence. 

    Think about this: A single upload of the Conor McGregor-Floyd Mayweather press conference in 2017 has 8.4 million views on YouTube. Are you kidding me? Some drunk named Conor McGregor and an over-the-hill Floyd Mayweather? Ugh... By contrast, the 2020 NBA Finals, played inside the instantly memory-holed COVID-19 bubble, barely managed 7.7 million views a game. People want drama and rivalry, something real, even in the context of a spectacle as silly as McGregor-Mayweather. Instead, they get Kevin Durant switching teams like changing shirts, LeBron James building super-teams then abandoning them, players who are friends off the court trying to manufacture intensity on it.

    Look, I’m not an idiot. The NBA got what it wanted — a clean, efficient product. But cleanliness isn’t always what the fans are hungry for. Trust me, sometimes they want to see Michael Jordan and Ron Harper beating the hell out of whoever they’re defending. Sometimes they want to see Boris Diaw waddling down the court, dropping no-look passes like a young magician named Gary Jones or Chow Magee. Sometimes they want basketball that feels more like life — messy, physical, human. For my younger readers who like basketball, go YouTube Diaw, Jordan, and Ron Harper. And then, maybe a couple of hacks named Bird and Magic. See Genius At Work...

    Watch Kenneth Lofton Jr. fill the box score in his Shanghai Sharks highlights. Watch DJ Burns methodically dunking on some hapless Korean center who’s never seen a wide load like him. That’s what basketball used to be, before the stat geeks and the gambling apps and the three-point revolution turned it into calculus and trig. I know, I know...I sound like one of those “get off my lawn guys.” I don’t care.

    But back to Duane. He has always loved watching pro basketball. But he can barely tolerate the product that is being shoved down his throat now. “It’s just one three-pointer after another, and guys waltzing down the lane while taking 5 steps to get to the basket.” Tru Dat, Duane! And Lebron James is the greatest ever? Take it easy. Do you know how many points Jordan would have had (and more championships) if he could skip down the lane without being beheaded by the likes of Rodman and Laimbeer, and every other goon who played for every team in the NBA at that time? Just stop. You have no clue. That’s what we lost when they decided the game needed to be saved from itself. The ratings say we’ve lost our taste for pro hoops. Duane says, “But maybe we just can’t recognize what we’re watching.” Ah, the wisdom of old age.

    Here endeth the lesson.

 

Write to Peter: magtour@icloud.com