NBA thug-a-thon indicative of league
Editorial
As the yawn-fest that is the NBA playoffs kicked off yet another seemingly interminable basketball post-season last week, the only question on our minds was why they even bother holding the thing in the first place. After all, even the most casual of observers has come to realize that the fundamental lack of competitive balance in the NBA translates into virtually identical outcomes year after year. And really, no matter how much everyone might wanna be like Mike, who wants to see the Chicago Bulls win every year?Enter 6-foot-10 inch Alonzo Mourning and 6-foot-7-inch Larry Johnson, toss in diminutive New York Knicks coach Jeff Van Gundy and suddenly this year’s yawn-fest quickly transformed itself into a thug-fest.Assuming you missed the endless replays of the event, last Thursday’s playoff game between the New York Knicks and the Miami Heat turned both ugly and bizarre when Van Gundy took it upon himself to play bouncer in a brawl between Mourning and Johnson; and ended up wiping the floor with his body as a result.After officials calmed the brouhaha down, the 5-9 Van Gundy emerged from the tangle of bodies (where he’d been holding tight to Mourning’s leg in an attempt to restrain him, a Lilliputian to Mourning’s Gulliver) with his thinning hair standing straight up from his head, anger emanating off his person in waves.While the whole affair made for some really good television and kept viewers tuned in for the conclusion of the series (Knicks won), the incident also raises the image-tarnishing specter of poor sportsmanship the NBA so recently grappled with after Golden State Warrior guard Latrell Sprewell went postal on his coach, P.J. Carlesimo. For many, the now infamous choking incident came to represent just how far the league had fallen from the golden, heady days of Bird, Magic and Jordan. Skyrocketing salaries and players like Kevin Garnett, plucked straight from highschool, have purists bemoaning the league’s quality of play. And yet another example of spoiled players acting like criminals on national television is not what the NBA needs right now.Although it would have seemed impossible even six or eight years ago, the NBA is in decline and the behavior of its players is merely symptomatic of deeper flaws in the system. At the beginning of this decade it was Michael Jordan’s soaring flight, impossible moves and open personality which breathed life into the league. But there is no heir apparent to his title and just how the NBA will respond to Jordan’s inevitable retirement is open to speculation. But the very fact that the answer is unclear points to the lack of star power commanded by today’s younger players.With declining television ratings, fewer fans attending games and merchandisers reporting huge losses on the vending of league apparel, the NBA has seen better days. And while major league baseball, maligned as the penultimate betrayer of fans when players went on strike in 1994, has managed to make a comeback, professional basketball is just now beginning to wake up to it dilemma.If the league hopes and expects to draw new fans while retaining its core base of die hard purists, some fundamental changes are going to have to take place. But about the only thing that’s perfectly clear is that incidents like last Thursday’s are not the path to start down.
