The National Basketball Association is dead. What use to once be an enjoyable and exciting event to watch has now turned into a bloated 2 ½ hour circus. Over the years, professional basketball has transformed from a team sport, complete with passing and teammate cooperation, to an individual showcase marked by which player can dunk the most and/or drain the most 3-pointers. Consequently, this style of play, or lack thereof, has now created a cash cow among the NBA and its 30 franchises; thus disregarding the quality and effort in the games. The recent demise of the NBA has been noted by commentators, analysts, and former players alike.
Towards the end of the 2015-16 NBA season, Hall of Famer Charles Barkley stated during an interview, “I’ve never seen the NBA as bad as it is, and I’ve been saying the last three or four years. We’ve got too many young players coming out of college that don’t know how to play. It’s frustrating for me because I want to see competitive basketball.”
It is hard to dispute the comments made by Barkley. The NBA is just no longer competitive, largely in part to the rise of the 3-point shot and the subsequent fall of defense. In today’s league, it is abnormal for games to end with under 200 combined points between teams and less than 25 attempted shots from downtown. On December 16th, the Houston Rockets set a trio of NBA records during their 122-100 wins over the Pelicans. The Rockets managed to drain 24 3-pointers for the record while also attempting 31 shots from downtown in a half and 61 in the game. Yes, you read that correctly: the Rockets tossed up 61 shots from behind the arc, managing to make a whopping 39% of their shots. Since the addition of the 3-point arc during the 1979-80 season, 3-point attempts have gone up nearly tenfold while teams are still only averaging 9 3-pointers a game, an average of 35%.
In addition to the 3-point shot destroying fundamental basketball, defense has subsequently deteriorated over the years. This was more than evident on December 5th when the Golden State Warriors defeated the Indiana Pacers 142-106. First off, look at the combined score. 248 combined points, really? To make matter worse, Klay Thompson of the Warriors scored 60 points in 3 quarters before being pulled by head coach Steve Kerr. Thompson was averaging 2.07 points a minute and shot with 64% efficiency throughout the game. With half the teams in the NBA averaging over 105 points per game, the defense needs to start showing up to the games to make the point differentials a little bit tighter.
It's time that the NBA return to its roots and the great game it once used to be. Basketball is no longer a team sport; it is nothing more than a poor excuse for entertainment showcasing often-missed 3-pointers and mile high slam dunks. If someone is looking for an entertaining basketball game, their best chance is to pay $5 to watch their local high school team play; I can almost guarantee there will be more defense and cooperation.
