The 2007 NBA Season Starts October 30th. Does Anyone Care?

October 30th marks the beginning of the new NBA season. Does anybody really care? The NBA is certainly not what it used to be. Last year's NBA Finals was a quick sweep of the Cleveland Cavalliars, and it had one of the lowest T.V. ratings of Finals history. Why the decline in interest. There are several things you should consider.

A change in NBA stars. Gone are the Days of Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan. Yes we still have stars in today's game but they don't quite live up to the stars of yesterday. Kobe Bryant, Lebron James, Tim Duncan and Steve Nash are all great players. However they won't come close to the ranking in all time players that Bird, Jordan and Johnson will. There quite simply are the super franchise players that used to exisit. There are as many players that could single handedly take over a game offesively and defesively. The NBA misses these types of players and has struggled to replace them in recent years.

Younger and younger players. More and more players are entering the NBA at a young age. Recently the NBA made the rule that players have to be at least 19 years old to enter the draft forcing most players to play at least one year of college. While this is good in some aspects players still often are not ready for the pros at this time. Greg Oden and Kevin Durant are good examples of this. Both guys entered the draft after one year of college basketball. As great as they were in college neither player was really ready to play at the next level. Neither player really had the body to play in the pros and both could have benefited from improving their skills with another year or two in college.

No more great rivals. Lakers vs. Celtics. Pistions vs Bulls. Lakers vs. Pistons. All great rivalries of the 80 and early 90's. All teams had great Hall of Fame players. Rivals like these made basketball fun to watch. Even if your team didn't win you didn't mind tuning in because you knew the teams would give a great game. In today's NBA rivals of this caliber simply don't exisit. Lack of such rivalries has made the NBA a little less interesting to watch.

Overpaid players. Are NBA players overpaid. Do they recieve too much money too soon. Many think so. The stars of the 80's and early 90's didn't get huge contracts right out of the gates. They had to work hard and prove themselves over several years before they got the huge contracts. Perhaps teams of today can learn something from the great teams of past years.