But at 50, the league appears to be experiencing a midlife crisis. And fans, who still “love this game,” are finding themselves more than a bit disenchanted by the actual games. There are too many bad teams, too little scoring and too many overpriced players who can’t make a free throw with–or even without–the game on the line. As Charles Barkley explained to NEWSWEEK, “The league is going to hell in a handbasket.” Here are some of the problems.
Where to begin? East, with the Nets or the Celtics? Midcountry, with the Mavericks and the Nuggets? Or out West, with the hapless Clippers and Grizzlies? Barkley says there are only five decent teams in the whole league and the rest are “crappy.” He exaggerates, but not by much. Six weeks into the season, almost half the teams in the league had winning percentages under .400. Their fans have little to root for except a high lottery pick to bolster next season’s team. But the fact that so many of those bad teams are lottery perennials belies the notion that any rookie will be their salvation.
A decade ago every team averaged more than 100 points a game, with the Knicks trailing the league at 103.8. Today that Knicks stat would make them the second highest-scoring team in the NBA. Only four teams are averaging more than 100 points per game. Five are averaging less than 90 points–and three of those actually have winning records. Some of the scores hark back to early NBA days when the one-handed set shot passed for a lethal weapon and there was no 24-second shot clock. Check out these Cleveland Cavalier scores: 74-68, 73-63 and the recent 84-57 epic. “I used to think the offenses were so dazzling that the NBA might perfect itself out of existence,” says Bob Ryan, longtime basketball guru at The Boston Globe. “Now I think it’s more likely the NBA will bore itself out of existence.”
Some of the credit (or blame) for the lack of scoring, as NBA Commissioner David Stern points out, goes to the ferocious defense being played. But that can’t mask the fact that today’s players, for all their extraordinary athleticism, lack basic skills. Too many learned the game watching highlight films. They can spin 360 degrees, slam-dunk and hit a shot from 35 feet falling out of bounds at the buzzer–but they can’t hit a 15-foot jump shot consistently. Defense can’t explain why the league’s free-throw shooting percentage is at its lowest mark in almost three decades. “The NBA has gotten itself into this by marketing itself–brilliantly–as a thrill-a-minute show rather than a game,” says Chicago Tribune basketball writer Sam Smith.
Call it the NFL-ization of the NBA. There was a time when NFL quarterbacks actually called their own plays. But then control-freak coaches took over and turned football into a computer game; now every other play is a three-yard pass to a running back. NBA coaches followed suit. So now they, too, call all the shots. Gone are the exquisite fast breaks, as defined by the great Celtics teams of the ’60s and refined by the Lakers’ “Showtime” in the ’80s. Point guards walk the ball up the court so they can glance over at their coach, who is frantically waving some number of fingers. Keep shots to a minimum and keep the games close–in the apparent hope that the other team will collapse from stultification. “This whole game isn’t fun because this isn’t the way it was intended to be played,” says Barkley.
The NBA dismisses all this as the complaints of nostalgic baby boomers. But even Michael Jordan sees a change and a problem. “The league has gone younger and it’s a different game,” he says. “It’s being played by a lot of guys who have not had the team-sport experience that college gives you. Or the competitiveness.” Jordan is the NBA’s, indeed America’s, master of endorsements–and that will never pass for one.
