I've tried, NBA. I tried to watch some playoff games over the last few weeks. The NBA playoffs are supposed to be exciting, but it has just been painful to try to watch any game for more than five minutes. It's hard to understand why. Everyone loves college basketball, especially the tournament. Although there's only 16 teams in the NBA playoffs, it's still their tournament, and with more talented players, should the NBA playoffs be just as exciting as March Madness? Why is the NBA so hard to like?
Like many kids my age, my favorite athlete growing up was Michael Jordan. The Bulls Dynasty was incredibly fun to watch. In addition to Jordan, you had Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman, Ron Harper, Toni Kukoc, BJ Armstrong, Steve Kerr, and yes, the immortal Luc Longley. The Bulls also had great competition. Magic Johnson towards the end of his career, Charles Barkley, David Robinson, Patrick Ewing, Karl Malone, John Stockton, Shawn Kemp; the list of great and entertaining 90's basketball players can go on forever. I'm not a huge basketball historian, but I would have to believe the 90's were the golden age for the NBA.
Then, MJ retired (from the Bulls, the second time, I don't count the Wizards years) and the whole league went downhill. The Bulls dynasty fell apart. It was impossible to be a Bulls fan with Eddy Curry and Tyson Chandler as their future. The NBA lost a good portion of their fanbase, as a lot of people simply couldn't root for these Bulls anymore. I tried to be a Sixers fan, but could never really get into them like I did with the Bulls. Since then, I've been migrating favorite teams; whoever has Shane Battier is my new favorite.
Another big problem with post-MJ NBA, high schoolers. Kobe Bryant and Tracy McGrady took the league by storm after high school, and opened the floodgates for a flood of high schoolers who thought they were ready for the NBA. 90% of them weren't, and the league became very watered down talent wise. It's simply not fun to watch "pro" players who probably wouldn't even be starting for college teams. Yes, you can point to LeBron James and Dwight Howard, but they are the exception. People think the NBA's ruling to disallow players from entering the draft straight from high school is unfair, but it's good for the league.
Another problem? A lack of likable superstars. Kobe Bryant is almost impossible to like. He's smug, arrogant, and let's not forget that little rape suspicion that everyone else seems to have forgotten about. LeBron James is a bit more likable, but he still doesn't connect with the fans in the way MJ did. Listen, by almost all accounts, MJ isn't exactly the nicest guy in the world. He was an absolute jerk on the court for the most part. But he still connected with the fans. When he got off the court and away from the sportswriters, he seemed like an ok, marketable guy. LeBron doesn't have that facet to him, and I'm not sure any NBA player will ever have that off-the-court persona that MJ had. He was truly one of a kind.
The biggest problem with watching the NBA? Except for the last five minutes of almost every game, there's absolutely no sense of urgency on the court. I'm not saying every NBA player doesn't try. There's no doubt a lot of these guys don't try and just want a paycheck, but you get that in every pro sport. Guys like Dwayne Wade do try, almost every minute of every night. But still, there's never any urgency in these games. Watch a big time college game, and every bucket made is a big deal. In the NBA, a guy pulls up to make a three pointer without passing the ball, and yawn. It's not necessarily the players' fault; it's just the way the NBA game is. But it does mean that even Game 7 of the Finals can seem like a regular season game up until the last few minutes.
I'll admit, the last few minutes of any close game can be exciting. I'll randomly turn on a Mavericks-Hornets game in the middle of the season that can be close in the last few minutes, and I'll watch because it's always compelling. I'm not sure how the NBA can find a way to take those last few minutes and extend it for the rest of the game. I'm also not sure how the NBA can recapture the magic they had with the superstars of the 90's. But until the NBA can find a way to be fun again, they'll never have the mainstream audience that they once had.
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