1. It is basketball and basketball is the best sport made or played. Sorry Tony Messina, but it's true. I love or appreciate a lot of other sports (track and field type stuff, tennis, soccer, hockey, cricket, ping pong, volleyball, water polo, farting contests, Republican primaries, etc.), but for me nothing combines athleticism, strategy, watchable TV entertainment, and off season rumors and analysis quite like basketball.
2. The NBA is basketball's highest form of art. Of course, thousands if not millions of basketball fans disagree with me on this, but they are wrong. The basketball players in the NBA are better at basketball than anyone else. This is indisputable.
3. The NBA combines the melodrama of the WWE with the talent and dedication of actual athletes who actually play the game.
4. Specifically the state of the league right now. There were 6 teams that had a legitimate shot at the title this year (Lakers, Spurs, Thunder, Heat, Bulls, Celtics), and the Mavericks won. Do you realize that the Mavs weren't even in my parenthetical?! The teams can play, and there are a ton of players with all time great potential.
5. I grew up with the Indiana Pacers during they're greatest moments in the NBA. Reggie, The Davis Boys, The Dunking Dutchman, Mark Jackson, and the rest of the gang were my heroes growing up. I have been and always will be a Pacer fan, and they are an NBA franchise so there you go.
6. This reason is completely arbitrary. So think of any reason you want. Lebron James sucks. There. Reason #6.
This all brings me, unfortunately, to the purpose of this post. I am totally over how much is being written and discussed about the NBA draft. I just don't see the point in it all (and yes I am aware that I am only adding to the massive amount of coverage it's already getting). If you go to my current favorite website, you will notice that there are no less than six articles in the past five days on the NBA draft and it's litany of possibilities. Anyway, here's my point...
Modern sports journalism is mostly centered around predicting and discussing the unknown. Who will win the title this year? Which team will be up and coming? Which player will move up a level this year? But all of that is based on actual athletics from the previous season. There is some kind of circumstantial evidence to predict the result. But with the NBA draft they are basing it on a whole lot of nothing.
Of course the NBA draft is hardly the only sporting event that wastes our time with completely arbitrary conjecture. The NFL draft is just as bad (if not worse), and it takes forever. If Cam Newton wins the Super Bowl next year then maybe I'll back off. However, college basketball recruiting is as bad and unpredictable as any of it. I have not had a single conversation with an IU basketball fan that does not eventually dovetail into how awesome the 2012-13 season is going to be. It's two years away (as a reasonably big IU fan-- not devout like I am for the Pacers but pretty close-- I do sympathize with the issue considering how bad we've been. We need some hope. Like now.) and one of the more widely read college basketball articles on espn.com is about how IU got it's 2012 recruits and how it's legal.
But with the NBA draft, we are working with a smaller group of people and thus a more obsessive analysis. We get to hear the incomparably predictable Jay Bilas talk about "upside" and "leaping ability" and "athleticism" and "length" and "wingspan." We get to hear how dumb some of these guys sound after only one year at an ok state school. We get to become hopeful about how much Jimmer Fredette can do for our team even though he won't be aloud to hold the ball very long and he won't be allowed to be taller than 6'2". And we get to pontificate about how great Kyrie Irving will be even though he only played 11 games last year and doesn't really have any numbers or games to back up the claims. And don't forget about Derrick Williams who one writer described as the next Al Harrington (I am so excited for what he can do). I actually got in an argument online with some people who thought trading Danny Granger for the completely unproven Derrick Williams was a totally great idea after the Pacers made the playoffs. Sorry friends but trading Danny Granger for a young Al Harrington is not a good idea.
Let's not start hypothesizing about which one of these guys will be better than Dwayne Wade or Pau Gasol. Maybe after we watch them play some pro ball we can talk about how great they could be, but for now, can it. Just watch the draft and enjoy the lockout.
Oh and by the way...Bismack Biyombo is the next Dikembe Mutombo. Take it to the bank.
I read this........mostly
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