I rarely watch a basketball game these days, especially an NBA one, so take this comment with an unhealthy heaping teaspoon of salt. The game is choppy because the refs are incessantly blowing their whistles and have far too much influence on the outcome of the game, which kills it for me. I have a feeling it is no different from the NBA of my youth where Bird, Magic, et al would get tons of calls, but now it bugs me too much to sit through a whole game.
I agree completely with Deion. Maybe it is just that the Knicks suck, but somehow I think I always felt the game was fake, even when the Knicks were good. Sure, I cared (too much) but so many games seemed (and still seem) to be decided by who the refs want to win. How else can you account for the complete disparity in home/road WL records in a sport where, in principle, the least amount of home court advantage should be gained? It is a beautiful game, but the ref influence kills the fun.
Funnest games to play, worst to watch:
1) Basketball
2) Soccer
3) Bowling
Worst games to play, funnest to watch:
1) Football
2) Curling
Re: B-ball comments
Not so sure about the refs making a clear distinction about who they want to win. It seems more and more, NBAers have given up playing D and instead are doing tiny cheap hard to see tugs, nudges, pokes, etc. Not to mention the flops. They make it hard on the refs to call the egregious things only.
What gets me is the endless complaining. If you are caught, take the damn call you whiny wimps. The replay shows whatever they did 95% of the time anyway.
I'm with Lex: I agree the sport is diminished by the officiating, but I see it less as a conspiracy than the fact that it has just become very hard to officiate. Flopping is a huge part of it -- it's become all about selling the call, like it is in soccer.
As for the home/road discrepancy, I think it's probably a number of things, including basic human nature: people are generally weak and take the path of least resistance. I think most refs probably don't even realize they're doing it, but their instinct is to please the thousands of people who are screaming at them on every play.
americans are too dumb and earnest to flop.
they should kick all of those slick old world sweaty euro doods out of the league.
Hans, I agree it is not likely an out and out conspiracy. But why then does the same thing not happen in other sports? The home/road splits at the very least show just how much influence the refs have over the game, even if not via nefarious intent.
And then there is always Donaghy's comments on the infamous Kings-Lakers game. Somehow I find it hard not to believe him...
wow. i'm kinda surprised by all this "refs killing the game" stuff. for the most part, seems like the same crap that's been going on for ages.
In the 80's, LA & Boston (*ohhhh, ESPECIALLY Boston) always got ridiculous calls at home.
In the 90's Jordan took star treatment to a whole other level (*breathing on him too hard could constitute a flagrant and 5 month jail term).
Today, it's basically the same ref- wise to me. The main unappealing diff I see in the game is in quality of team passing and shooting. Still, defense is waaaaay better than it used to be back in the 80's and such (*Detroit basketball had a huge impact on that evolution).
As for all the Euro flopping beef: believe it or not, i think a lot of it has to do with soccer influence and a penchant for long hair that exaggerates the foul (ex: Varajao, Vujacic, Nocioni, Scola, etc).
Excessive TV commercials and blatant star promotion? That's a whole other topic..
still, i love the game.
if you read my initial comment, i state that i doubt the reffing is any different from that of my 'youth' (ie. celtics-lakers of the 80's), it just that it bugs me more now. i think pb hit it on the head for me, for the time being i enjoy playing more than watching -- there are simply too many breaks in the action when watching on tv -- no flow.
Exactly. It has always been BS. I knew it then, only the Knicks were good, so I didn't care. Now they suck, so as a bad sportsfan all I can focus on when it is temas I don't care about is how crappy the ref situation is...
yeah, i agree there as well...i am sure i would be much more interested in the nba if the knicks were half decent.
Whatever about the officiating -- the game is just played differently now than it was 20 years ago. Way more physical, way more bodies on the deck, way more guys trying to sell calls, over-reliance on the 3, probably an average of 200 extra pounds of beef on the court at any given moment, plus an emphasis on defense all adds up to a more clunky product than the one we grew up on.
~i just miss the great shooting and passing teams. nothing beat watching Sacramento and Phoenix in their recent heyday. I don't know that D'Antoni gives a living shit about D (*to my great annoyance) but he will make an interesting product over the next couple years.
Intuitive prediction based on nothing: Nash and/or Stoud to Knicks in 2010 (*Nash lives in NYC in off-season, hates Kerr, isn't a big money guy and loves D'Antoni) ..Wade or Bron possible as well.
THEN we'll see if you guys watch..
kobe bryant is a rapist.
That last part made me literally hold my side with laughter. Thank you.
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