November 23rd, 2004 at 9:03 am
Friday night at Auburn Hills seems to me a predictable consequence of some of the practices in the NBA.
Take one athletic sport where the simple act of personal contact is technically a foul. Of course, I can’t truly make that assertion because the NBA doesn’t seem to post its rules on the web, but I’m inferring this from high school basketball rules.
Loosen the enforcement of those rules in order to let in bigger, stronger guys to fight for the ball. Players are not immediately ejected the first time for flagrant fouls, which places flagrant fouls into the set of tools a player can use to affect the outcome of a game.
Mix in some fellows with run-ins with the law: Allen Iverson, Jason Kidd, Latrell Spreewell, Kobe Bryant, our friend Ron Artest, not to mention those who don’t play any more such as Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman, and Charles Barkley. Sportsbusinessnews.com notes (link dead) that this book, Out of Bounds: Inside the NBA’s Culture of Rape, Violence, and Crime reports that 40% of NBA players are convicted felons. Perhaps I should put that book on my stack to read.
Also given is that most of these multi-millionaires get their sources of funding from endorsements, rather than ticket sales, so they are less interested in drawing people to games with autograph signings and public photos with the fans. The incentive is much less to get fans to like these people.
Add tens of thousands of fans seated with no physical barrier to the players or the playing surface. The league was reminded Friday that there are worse fans than Calvin Klein.
I don’t know what the definitive answer to Friday is, but I have to figure that the above doesn’t help. The referees were right to call the game, because we weren’t watching basketball.
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