It's Not Just the NBA that Needs Fixing

On February 21, 2008, I was watching "Mike & Mike" on my DVR from about 8am-9am as I always do. A while ago, I used to watch the show for the entire 4 hours, but with the commercials and highlights they do so frequently, I found it best to watch my own abbreviated version for an hour, skipping the commercials, promos, and redundant conversations. You know, every advertiser's dream.

Mike Golic was absent for this show in favor of commentating some bass fishing event, only solidifying the fact that the only prerequisite to cover a sporting game and is knowing the name of the sport.

Now, I am usually turned off by the fact that either one of the Mike's is not on the show. However, on this particular day, ESPN's NBA analyst Ric Bucher was on the show, and despite the fact that I've never been a big fan of basketball analysts who never so much as suggest that they have some background in the sport, February 21^st did mark the day of the NBA trading deadline. Thus, I figured Bucher would at least have some insight into what might happen before the deadline at 3 PM EST.

So when Bucher said he didn't expect anything big to happen, I was this close to resuming my regimen of reading, writing, and doing what I do with my website, but I hung around for a little while and skimmed to some of the other parts of the show when he wasn't discussing the trades that weren't and Mike Greenberg's flawed proposal for a new playoff format. Thank God I did, as the conversation for most of the day turned away from trade talks, to the perception of the NBA.

Of course, I get ESPN the Magazine every two weeks, but as many of you can tell from my boatload of websites, I do a lot of reading to do all of the writing that I do, so sometimes I don't always get around to reading every issue. Now you would think that I wouldn't skip an issue with Michael Jordan on the cover. But unlike the many of the people from the generation ahead of me that can't let mid-90's and Jordan basketball to and the generation behind me that doesn't remember Jordan on the court but live by his shoes and T-shirts, I don't get turned on everytime I see the Hanes commercial guy on a media outlet.

But maybe this time I should have, as the cover story that Bucher had written was about the perception of the NBA and the reality of what really went on in the league. And he addressed that throughout his appearance on the Mike & Mike Show. I have to tell you, it was an insightful and provocative look into it, and I am now officially a Ric Bucher fan. I've subscribed to his ESPN feed and everything.

Bucher mainly addressed the NBA and how unfairly the media and fans have treated it, especially focusing on the perception of the league's players. One of his main points was that the same things that get columnists riled up and fans turned off about basketball are happening in the other major professional sports too.

For example, Bucher especially took issue with the fact that NBA players are deemed "bad" guys, that are immature, dense, and unpleasant to be around. Bucher contends that perception could not be further from the truth, and he truly believes that NBA players are f the most bright, quick-witted, personable players of all of the major sports leagues. I would have to agree with him. In my dealings with NBA players, which are far less extensive than Bucher's, I have easily concluded that NBA players are the most pleasant of the bunch. Much of that stems from having been in the public eye for most of their lives. I mean, these guys have been at least 6 inches taller than everyone around them for 80% of their lives, and they have always had a talent that has made people wan to be around them, thus naturally they have learned how to deal and be agreeable with everyone from close friends to distant strangers.

Many of you will contend that the idea of them being superstars all of their lives actually has a negative effect on their lives, and that many of them are egomaniacs and super narcissistic. And I won't argue with you, that is very possible and many players are indeed egotistical, but that doesn't mean that is what they exude in their dealings with other people, especially when you are talking to them on an intimate level. Besides, CEOs, entertainers, and other people who get all the praise and the money are usually narcissistic too, as they have every reason to be, since they are indeed amongst the top 1% in terms of success and affluence. But being narcissistic does not make them bad people. In fact, narcissistic people probably have more friends than anybody, because being around somebody who is confident about who they are and what they do is far more fun than being around somebody who is dissatisfied with every aspect of their life. And there is not a person reading this who doesn't have a friend that they haven't labeled a narcissist once or twice in their lives.

So to me, it's not the narcissism that bothers everyone, it is the resentment of the fact that these players have reason to be narcissistic. Bucher was talking about how when Kobe Bryant came into the league, the LA Lakers had a ton of veterans on the team, and he remembers most of them being resentful of the fact that Bryant was coming into the league with ambition, desire, and the belief that he could be the greatest. So when he did things like waive off Karl Malone's pick, or took issue with the fact that he wasn't being recognized for the player that he was because he was playing alongside of Shaq (and he was right for the most part), the veterans on the Lakers team resented him. And I think that same resentment they had for Kobe is what the fans have for all of the NBA players. They see guys that collect big checks, get all of the girls, are hounded by the media, and receive tons of endorsement deals, and they just assume that there isn't a single NBA player that doesn't allow all of that to go to their head. But when you think about the Kevin Garnetts, Lebron James's, Steve Nash's, Dwight Howards, Tim Duncans, and Shaquille O'Neals, you would see that many of the players in this league are not caught up in the public love affair with them, and that in fact, many of them take that power and influence and do a lot of good with it.

However, even if you feel that no player that receives all of those benefits could possibly be void of a sense of entitlement that overrules everything they do in life, how is that not the perception of players in baseball and football? Especially in baseball where players make more money and have far better contracts than basketball players do. It's not. But for some reason, players in the NBA are viewed as the worst of all the players out there.

I think that has a lot to do with the fact that the NBA players are known by faces and they are categorized by their color. Unlike in football, you can see the NBA players when they play, so after watching an NBA for the better part of 3 hours, if you were to see that player in the newspaper, in an advertisement, or the hottest nightclub, there is no way you would not know who they were. But you can't say the same for a football player. The most you see a football player's face during a game is for the seconds they show their press photo during the starting lineups, and the for the 30 seconds they give an interview with their helmets off. And even in baseball, but to a lesser degree, you can see there faces, but for the most part, they are really on the focal point when they have their helmets and batting armor on at the plate. Because of this, when you see a football or baseball player in the news, it doesn't resonate with you the same way it does when you see an NBA player, who as we already discussed, is narcissistic and entitled.

The NBA is also knocked because of race. You clamor all you want about how this generation does not make judgments based on color and race, but at the end of the day, you're wrong. NBA players are labeled as thugs because they have tattoos, listen to rap music, and they are black. While in baseball and football, they have a much more prevalent population of white players, especially at the more popular positions. There's no denying that the populace is often turned off by the hip-hop culture that most black players exude. I'll admit, that dislike for the hip-hop culture of black people mainly comes from older white Americans, but I don't think it's necessarily because they are a generation behind, I think it's because they older. As this generation of white Americans gets older, I think there will continue to be a dislike of the hip-hop culture of blacks, and that dislike will probably perpetuate because the hip-hop culture is not in line with a lot of the beliefs of older Americans as a whole, not to mention white Americans.

Even as I discuss why the perception of the NBA is bad and try to defend it, I recognize that there are things wrong with the league. However, let me once again state, that most of the problems people have with the NBA are not exclusive to this league. That said, allow me touch one of the major issues that is more or less exclusive to professional basketball. For one, the players are more immature than in most sports. For years, the NBA had problems with young 18-year olds ruining their lives because they entered the NBA draft too early. So, David Stern and the league said in order to fix that, we'll make the age requirement 19! Well, you see how well that worked out. There are an abundance of problems in the NBA that can stem back to immaturity and the realistic fact that people that are young, uneducated, and unversed in life are going to make mistakes.

In the cover story that Bucher did, he asked Michael Jordan how he would fix the problems in the NBA if he were the commissioner. Michael said he would do two things. One, he would raise the age requirement to 21. That is essentially what the requirement is in the NFL, and it makes a lot of sense. First, it makes players have to prove themselves and gives them a chance to truly evaluate how successful they might be at a career in the NBA. Too often, these players who go to college and decide to opt for the NBA after a good freshman season that is inflated by the fact that no good players stick around to play college ball, don't have the longevity in the league that you could have expected from top picks as recently as 15-20 years ago. I think if the NBA takes MJ's suggestion and makes its age requirement 21 and essentially makes players play 3 years in college, a lot of the immaturity issues will dissipate. Also, it gives players a chance to separate themselves from the people who they always grew up with before they come rich. That will give them the opportunity to make some decisions for themselves, grow up, and realize the type of approach they need to have on life as they enter stardom on the collegiate level.

MJ's other solution is to shorten the length of contracts. Now, this comes from a guy who benefited from the NBA contract system for years, but he does have legitimate point. He says that if you get rid of the safety net that all of these players have with long-term contracts that they won't be able to act out and step outside of the lines so much. They will actually have this thing called "accountability". Sure, it eliminates some of the security, but maybe that will help them mature and do things outside of basketball to better their lives. That's something they should be doing anyway. And besides, somebody who makes $1 million in the course of 7 months has more security than 99% of America, so I wouldn't feel too sorry for him if he got hurt and all of a sudden could only make $400K on their next contract. Boo-hoo.

I think MJ's suggestions would serve the NBA well in cleaning up their reputation. But more importantly, I think that people need to give up on the false pretenses they have for the NBA. It is no more thuggish, narcissistic, embattled, and troubled than the other sports. Yet because you can see their faces, they make more money than football players, are darker than baseball players, and you can see the tattoos on their faces and their bastard children in the front row because of how personable they are with the fans, the NBA gets a bad rap. So while anything the NBA does to fix its youth and other problems could be beneficial, the bad image the NBA gets will be there as long as people continue to perceive the league through iniquitous preconceptions.