Photo courtesy of NBA via Wikipedia.
Since its inception, the NBA has evolved substantially. Trends have ebbed and flowed; team philosophy has shifted. And now, more than ever, fans and the media are complaining about the product.
This season alone, all fans heard was there were too many threes, foul calls and the game is running longer. You would also hear that a season average of a triple-double isn’t enough to win MVP anymore — thanks for that nugget Stephen A.
Now fans are complaining that not enough fouls are being called during early stages of the playoffs. They’re realizing that teams can’t just shoot lots of threes and win at will. Otherwise, the Celtics would have swept the Magic and secured Game 3 of their series.
So who’s causing all this confusion and contradicting opinions?
The answer is Big Media.
Beyond the cop-out of blaming sports debate shows, I want to look a bit closer.
If you were to turn on ESPN and there wasn’t a game on, there is a chance there’s a GOAT debate happening.
In fact, it feels like that’s all they talk about on sports shows anymore. Especially now that “Around the Horn” is getting axed.
But it’s this constant comparison to the old that keeps it fresh in people’s minds. It makes people question whether Lebron would be the scoring leader if Jordan played today and shot lots of threes.
It’s the moving of goalposts that you see across sports that diminishes the dominance and talent of players at all eras. This isn’t limited to basketball either.
T.J. Watt will forever have an asterisk next to his sack record that is shared with Michael Strahan. Strahan did it in 16 games, while Watt had it in 17.
Talking heads love to point out differences in eras or games played to invalidate achievements or claim one era is better than another. In reality, eras aren’t better or worse, they’re just different, and you can’t really compare across them.
Big men who couldn’t hit a three dominated in eras that favored the two-point shots and size. Mobile guards that are accurate from beyond the arc are now dominant because the primary method of scoring is the three-point shot.
Just because it’s the primary method, doesn’t mean it always works, nor does it mean that players are less talented than they used to be.
If refs call fouls frequently in the regular season and playoffs, games will naturally run longer and fewer teams will play physically in the postseason.
On the other hand, if refs don’t call as many fouls during the regular season and playoffs, the game will evolve again.
You’ll likely have more physical players who can take some shoving but still shoot threes. You’ll also see the revival of more physically imposing centers.
In either case, the rules need to be enforced, or not enforced, consistently. Otherwise, viewership will continue to decline, and soon no one will care about who wins the Finals or who Stephen A. plans on voting for in the MVP race.
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