"Boring games and the reason why..." (November 15, 1997)

Ok, this one is from the hip. It's a simple rant. Basketball is becoming increasingly more boring. I can't explain why definitively, but I'll give it a shot. First, shot selection is horrendous. I mean, when Rex Chapman is being featured in Phoenix, we know the basketball world is in trouble. The NBA is full of scorers, not shooters. There used to be a time when 15 shots a game would give someone their 20 points, but not anymore. Not more than 10 years back, you'd see a player go 7 for 15 to get 15 points (six 2's and 1 3 ball) and then go 5 for 6 from the line. Tom Chambers, Eddie Johnson and Kevin Johnson all scored 20 points a game while on the same team. They were all very good shooters, even though some would argue that Chambers was a scorer (I thought he was just a damn good player who couldn't defend a tree). So shot selection is poor. The quality of shooters is also decreasing. This is also attributed to the better defense, since that's being preached much more now. Se cond, the progressive offensive system is going to the way of the do-do. It's much more of a two-man game and I don't mean Stockton to Malone. You see it a lot with any team that has a good post player and a good outside shooter, although you don't need either to play this game. New York does it with Ewing, with good reason, as does Houston because both are great back to the basket players. When the ball comes down low, they wait 3 second then make their move. If the double team comes from the defender up top, the shooter is open and he takes it, even though he might not be a good shooter from that range. This seems to take away from the athleticism of the players. The offensive team seems to sit around and wait. That's not offense, although it's offensive. What ever happened to cutters, either down the lane or back door. You're more likely to see it in the woman's games to compensate for their lack of relative size. The WNBA and ABL look more like a game from those 60's files with Bob Cousy, with all those cutters, medium range jumpers and quick passes. I'm not a huge fan of the women's game, because I do like watching Shawn Kemp dunk, but sometimes it's fun to watch how intricate the passing game is in the women's game. The NBA seem to have forgot about it. In the NBA, it's the two-man game in the post, one-on-one and take your man off the dribble and the occasionally hoist of a three from 23 feet. It's fun to watch the Bulls run their triangle offense when they have the jump shooters going. I like watch Kerr get the ball from 18 feet from the right of the elbow or Wennington hit that 15 footer from the baseline. Last night (Wednesday, Nov. 12) I was watching the Raptors vs. the Knicks on TNT. Did anyone see that? The Raptors couldn't shoot. They couldn't hit water if they dropped a ball form a boat. They sucked. The Knicks, who aren't the best shooting team, looked great. Then again, it's easy to look good against a team that doesn't have one true shooter. It seems to me that a team like the Raptors have players like Doug Christie, Damon Stoudamire and Walt Williams, who all can play all, but lack the consistent shooting stroke. They are all streak shooters, more scorers than pure shooters. Maybe it's due to their offense. I was listening to some stupid sports talk show a couple days ago (the kind of show where the caller says, "The Raptors should trade for Michael Jordan", so you can tell how dumb the callers are) and the host suggested that the NBA expand the size of the court and the key. This would make it much easier to move around and would keep people out of the key, allowing for more movement. It would counteract the increased size and athleticism. I mean, there are players like Kevin Garnett and Marcus Camby who are seven feet playing small forward with the athleticism of a 6'2" guard. It's amazing. But it also makes it harder for players to score when these guys put on the screws defensively. I think a larger court would alleviate some pressure. Kind of like the way the CFL differs from the NFL, with the larger field, players can outrun other players to the outside and have more lanes to run down the middle, a larger court would allow more room for cutters and make it harder to double team and allow for the truly great one-on-one players room to maneuver. The NFL is thinking about implementing a larger surface, the Olympic size rink. If anyone watches hockey, the problems are similar to the NBA. Players are bigger, stronger, faster with more skill. The rink remains the same size. Players have more time moving with the puck and scoring is down. The move to a bigger size rink, like the Europeans play on would allow more room to skate. A larger basketball court would alleviate the same pressures. Will this happen? I don't know. I don't think this will end up the Shaq Powerade commercial, but I do think maybe an extra 5 to 10 feet on each side, making the key wider by 2 feet or so, as well as lengthening the court in proportion keeping the same relative dimensions, would be interesting.