I just finished watching the Lakers playoff game, and it reminded me why I like basketball the least of all the major sports. Something happened in the 4th quarter that just amazed and disgusted me as a sports fan. Kobe Bryant hit a three-point shot. Several minutes later, there was a pause in the game, and they went to commercial with the Lakers up by a point. When they came back, the game was tied; apparently the officials had reviewed Kobe's shot and determined his foot was inside the line, so it was only worth two.
Are you kidding me? I just watched several minutes of basketball, and the score was wrong? How long would this have gone on barring a break in the game? It's not like they stopped the game specifically to review the call - like they do in, say, football, or hockey, or even baseball now on controversial home runs. If this had been near the end of the game, and it ended with the Lakers thinking they had won by a point, would they then have gone off to commercial, come back, changed it to a tie and initiated overtime, when half the fans in attendance were already out in the parking lot? How can players play the game believing the score on the scoreboard is correct when it isn't?! Mind-boggling.
And while we're at it, basketball is weak for some other reasons, too. There are so many goddamn points scored, by nature it's simply less exciting when anyone scores. That's why nobody seemed to care when they took that Laker point away. They probably didn't even notice. And the last few minutes of a basketball game can be excruciatingly boring. Intentional fouls, endless free throws...what other sport encourages players to break the rules of the game as a strategy? And why, when someone commits a foul, does everyone have to stand around and watch one guy shoot uncontested shots? That's the most exciting thing you could come up with? Non-competition? In hockey, someone breaks a rule, he goes and sits in a box. His team is shorthanded. It creates a huge scoring advantage for the other team. It even has a cool name: power play. Free throw? Boring. Power play? Exciting.
And one more thing: why does a basketball game only last 48 minutes? Hockey, football - they're playing a full hour, and those sports are infinitely more physical than basketball. What, these guys can only play twelve minutes a quarter instead of fifteen? Their fans don't want to see as much basketball as hockey and football fans do of their sports?
In closing, let me just ask you this: which is the lamest name of a championship/series?
1) The World Series
2) The Super Bowl
3) The Stanley Cup
4) The NBA Finals
Way to spend five seconds coming up with a catchy moniker, fellas.
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Until baseball A) shortens its games to 6 innings, and B)reduces the number of games in the regular season to under 100, and C) eliminates spring training (or at least the enthusiasm that 2 months of meaningless play encourages) your yammerings fall upon deaf ears, my friend.
ReplyDeleteBasketball was developed as a way to keep baseball players in shape during the off-season. Perhaps it can replace part of spring training.
ReplyDeleteWhile I agree with this kvetch, I also agree with the spirit of jason's comment, which is that baseball is roughly 10,000 times more stupid and approximately 50,000 more boring. That being said, they share a common and massive flaw: horrible officiating rules. Virtually every close basketball game is decided by subjective referee calls about whether this athlete brushed up too much against this other athlete. Like they were delicate little ballet dancers or something. Baseball is worse...every single pitch is subjected to the arbitrary call by a fat guy with a mask with bars in front of it standing behind another guy trying to pretend his judgement is perfect as to whether an object travelling 90 mph is 1 milimeter inside or outside a small strike zone. Hockey and football games may occasionally be ruined by a bad call, but they aren't usually defined by them.
ReplyDeleteAnyone who wants to bag on baseball can start his own kvetchery!
ReplyDeleteI'm just amazed that Adam actually agrees with me for once!
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