Damn I Miss NBA Grime
November 6th 2010 16:49
The recent expansion of technical foul guidelines over the off-season has only furthered my notion that the NBA has really lost touch with the gritty, grimy, and ballsy NBA of the 90's that I grew up on, instead opting for a "family friendly" marketable product.
Reminds me of when I was a kid my Mom washed one of my old beat up, perfectly worn in St.Louis Cardinals hats- sure it looked better and was more presentable, but it just didn't fit right and wasn't the same blue collar hat with character that I worked to break in. It also reminds me of the wife or girl's renovation project for the garage- sure it has new cabinets for everything and cubbies and all that and again "looks better" but ya gotta miss the old dusty workspace where bikes are built, xmas lights are unraveled, and rusty toolboxes roam (with a few hidden beers perhaps). It also really reminds me of Wrigley Field. Probably the best place to watch a baseball game and baseball purist heaven because of the ivy lined brick walls, dirty bleachers with peanut shells and empty bottles, and for the most part devoid of advertising pasted all over most ballparks.
Fact is: Making things pretty doesn't always make it better, renovation doesn't always mean improvement, and sometimes dirty is better than clean (i.e. girls). In memory of the old favorite hat, pair of jeans, or broken in kicks I maintain that the NBA has thrown their product in the wash and it came out shrunken and pink.
As far as marketability goes it seems the NBA along with other forms of entertainment have recently all gone to the PG-13 format of playing it safe (don't even get me started on Die Hard 4) and makes me think while they are advertising the game to the all American conservative family, they are losing out on the blue collar/lunch pail crowd in the process. For me this takes into account my own family where when we get onto the court it's not about bonding or for the clean fun of the game: its about winning, passionate competition, call your own fouls & take it up top, one side is pissed afterward type of ball.
So when I watch someone like KG get technical fouls when he's talkin trash after throwin somebody's shot 15 rows up I start to think, this is weak.
Once again this makes me wonder if they're not cleaning the game up for my audience segment, who are they doing this for? Its confusing because for every apple pie eating-white picket fence- eat dinner at the table- glass of wine drinking type of family there equally is the trash talkin-BBQ cookin-eat in front of the TV- PBR/Coors Original type of family. That's what was great about the old NBA, something for everyone and contributed to some great TV watching, great rivalries, and great competition.
The Old NBA as I call it brings back some awesome memories of the NBA on NBC theme song (best intro music ever), Reggie in the Garden doin Spike wrong, MJ breakin off Starks and crackin on Ewing, the Knicks-Heat fights to the buzzer, and Lakers-Kings battle with Webber jawin to the posh L.A. crowd. What I thought about as I wrote that last sentence was that they involve rivalries. Rivalries that came through fighting, scrapping, and trash talking; all of which would not occur in today's NBA.
Once again, that's what made it great because for every throat grabbing Reggie Miller there was workman Chris Mullin, for every jaw poppin head bobbin Gary Payton there was quiet and saavy John Stockton, and for every Vegas tattooed rebound fighting Dennis Rodman there was country fishing fundamental Karl Malone. Fans are free to choose and we don't need to sanitize the game just to get fans to watch; its simple that fans pick their favorite players around the league as a reflection of themselves so limiting the game seems like taking candidates off the ballot. The New NBA makes it harder for the personalities (primarily rough, gritty ones), rivalries, and passion to shine through- not to mention it actually affects the game on a point by point scale so let it play itself out because the NBA I grew up on while possibly R-Rated at times had more drama and "realness" then what I see today.
The technical fouls policy also reveals a much larger problem of the NBA: The inferiority complex of referees and the horrible officiating of the last couple seasons, especially playoffs. Referees in the NBA remind me of the kids in high school that get picked on, then grow up to be cops and end up going on a power trip writing tickets and busting people to show they're in charge. It's similar because there is very little checks and balances and the new regulations only give referees more leeway to forward their own agenda and more importantly the discretion to decide the fate of important games.
The policy doesn't take into account the fact that the refs get the calls WRONG sometimes and refuses to admit mistakes. So if the ref actually blows a huge call and the player argues or loses his cool he is punished while the ref who made the call can further swing the game by calling a tech on that player (all while not admitting at any time he/she could've gotten the call wrong). The NBA is worse than any other sport in this regard (i.e. Tim Donaghy) and rarely admits mistakes even on a personal level: the umpire who blew this year's huge call in what would have been the perfect game of Armando Galarraga admitted afterward that he felt horrible and knew he blew the call. Fact is, if that's Bennett Salvatore (who is horrible by the way) in a similar situation for basketball he doesn't say anything, David Stern covers for him, and Galarraga probably gets a tech.
The NBA must realize that there is a certain raw element to the game of basketball, that refs may sometimes get the call wrong and players are right to argue, and that for the most part things will play themselves out on the court: if you let them. There are times where a tech needs to be called to keep the game from going into "Artest territory" but for the most part let it work itself out and we will have some new rivalries, new memories, and new favorite players/personalities out of it. It can still happen, David Stern just needs to take a laissez-faire approach to the game in terms of in-game regulation and let the game speak for itself/play itself out while refs should take a back seat to the action (where they belong- I mean there is no reason I should know Salvatore's name ya dig?)
Hopefully the NBA can adapt and get back to its roots a little bit because for every old hat, pair of jeans, or kicks there is a new one that I'm breaking in and getting to fit just right. My advice Mr.Stern: let the game get a little worn in this time and don't throw it in the wash.
Lowpro
"I go out there and get my eyes gouged, my nose busted, my body slammed. I love the pain of the game."
Dennis Rodman
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