Sell me on basketball

[zmspartans]

the basketball i enjoy the best isnt until.....march . which means it will be a while . but its the ncaa tournament. everythings on the line and players play the best then because if you lose one game , your done .

[MDC]

Heres a good place to start:

[TFoA]

Heres a good place to start:

The crazy thing about that video is that you see that almost every night across the league in the NBA now...but when Jordan was doing it, it was some crazy stuff that you'd never seen before, and only seen players like Julius Erving among others who played above the rim like that. Again, now you see everybody doing it.

That may be a good or bad thing depending on who you ask, but I say it makes the game more exciting. I guess the reason why the NBA in particular is so exciting to me is just because it's fascinating to see a game that we've all played in the gym, concrete, or in the backyard being played at the highest level. College is great because even though it isn't the highest quality, it's still great quality and more passionate at times. March Madness is easily one of the top sporting events year in and year out. But still, nothing tops a well played NBA game. Plus there's FAR more interesting personalities in the NBA & the group that covers the NBA. From the players to the coaches to the refs (for better or worse, mostly worse) to the analysts to the writers to the bloggers, the league is just full of colorful characters.

So yeah, I don't wanna say choose between NBA & College. You can do like most and choose both & see what you like better, but still watch both because in the end, it's both good. It's a great sport.

[AndrewPF]

Hey, you?re going to be drawn to the sport that?s most compelling to you. My favorite sport to follow and watch happens to be basketball, while my least favorite is hockey. You happen to be the opposite and there?s nothing wrong with that. Nobody should have to sell you on a game, just do what you want.

Well it seems like he's interested in basketball, but he's not exactly sure how to approach it. Not long ago, I discovered an interest in soccer and wanted to make a fan of myself. I wasn't too sure how to start, so I came here for a push in the right direction. Since then I've developed a rooting interest and fanship in a couple clubs, I now understand most of the rules, I have several favorite players, and I have become an almost obsessive fan of the USA national team. Sometimes it's good to get advice from people in the know when you want to venture into uncharted territory.

[DG_ThenNowForever]

I like watching NCAA basketball during tournament season for the raw emotion. Then I like watching NBA during playoffs for the raw (and also refined) skill. There's a huge jump in quality of play from NCAA to NBA, and NBA prima donnas are no more prima nor donna than players in other professional sports leagues. They're often funnier too.

[The_Admiral]

The complaint about the NBA I never understood was "these guys are a bunch of thugs who just play one-on-one!", when the beginning of this decade saw the legalization of zone defense and multiple Finals appearances from the defense-oriented "team-first" Spurs, Pistons, and Nets. Of course, after a few years of that, the complaint was "it's so boring when the Spurs keep winning," which isn't entirely unfounded but still. Pick a lane.

[infrared41]

To me I say avoid basketball as a whole. It's flawed. I'm sorry, but the flow of every game is killed at the end of the game when 2 minutes takes 30 minutes because of all the stoppages. There are way too many stoppages in basketball due to tv and timeouts called by coaches. I hate watching coaches call unneeded timeouts at the end of the game. Give them one time out for each half and then you'd have a better game with a better flow. I use to love basketball until Jordan ruined the game by making everyone think they could play one on one basketball. Jordan killed the game that Bird and Magic built up so high and was fun to watch. Throw in the timeouts at the end of the game and you lost a fan a long time ago. I don't care what level it is, I think coaches with the timeouts along with Jordan turned me off of the game.

I agree with most of that. The timeouts have always been a problem and I'd just change Jordan to bad play, Pat Riley's Knicks, and expansion. I know it sounds like an old guy longing for "the good old days" when I say this but... I have tried on numerous occasions to jump back on the NBA bandwagon but I just can't take how bad the play is compared to the 80's heyday. For anyone who is old enough to remember how great NBA basketball was from '79 until Magic and Bird retired you already know how much better the game was back then. It's too bad those of you too young to have experienced it never got to see how great The NBA used to be.

That said, I'll do what I do every year when the season starts, I'll give it another chance. Who knows? Maybe this time it will stick.

[BB61]

I like the NBA more now than I did five years ago. Being commissioner of an entertaining and engaging fantasy league helps.

So on the Jigga scale, I've gone par for the course: I've talked up the NBA while managing to mention my fantasy team.

[BBTV]

What has killed the NBA for me is the current CBA. It just makes it too hard for teams that f up to ever recover from it. You have teams trading guys who are "retired", or injured, or just plain suck, just to acquire expiring contracts. It sucks when a contract is worth more than a body. Also, the fact that it's tough to make blockbuster trades because the "money has to match" is frustrating. All this "mid-level exception" nonsense has made the NBA harder to understand (at least to me) than any of the other pro leagues (though the NHL CBA has it's own quirks, but it's hockey, so it's awesome.) Guys that nobody has ever heard of seem to make 10s of millions of dollars, and it seems (at least more so than in the other sports) that a lot of the players really don't care once they sign their big contracts. Not necessarily the stars, but there are a lot of guys who really don't seem to have their hearts in it.

Also, even the way the draft is run sucks. What's the point of seeing who drafts who, when half the time there are trades involved that just aren't announced yet, so you have no idea who is actually going to be on what team until after the draft. Seems really silly to me.

The NBA was so... "right" for a while. It's hard to believe that David Stern allowed it to get so "wrong". Also can't believe that he sent Gary Bettman to the NHL to kill hockey. Stern is just pure evil.

[IceCap]

I remember when I actually watched the NBA just as much as the NHL. It was the last two seasons of the Jordan/Bulls dynasty. I loved to hate that team. I was a HUGE Raptors fan back then to. The Bulls were everyone's favourite, and the Raptors, sucky as they were, were MY team. Those back-to-back Bulls/Jazz finals were some of the fondest memories I have of watching the NBA, even if the Jazz did disappoint me twice.

I'm not sure what happened, TBH. I just know that I stopped watching, and I just couldn't get back into it a few years ago when I tried to pick it up again.