What Happened to Basketball??

Basketball is a joke. No, professional basketball is a joke. The era of crowning an 18-year-old the "next Michael Jordan" has begun and the era of playing your butt off to show the world you are the best has ended. Over the past four years I have been enundated with LeBron-hype, fine-inducing brawls, and a bunch of hugely overgrown babies posing as professional athletes. If you want to watch a game that is worth your time you almost have to watch the Spurs, and they are so incredibly boring and fundamental you want to jump inside the television and sucker-punch Tim Duncan. That's how the NBA boys do it, right?

The other extreme is any game where either Rasheed or Ben Wallace, Ron Artest, or Kobe is playing...you're sure to see some flagrant fouls, elbows to the nose and likely some blood. There just aren't many teams that will give you a great game where players played with heart then left it out there on the court while keeping you interested. So although I grew up watching Patrick Ewing play the way I thought all players should (he's my favorite player of all time, I can be biased), very few men in the NBA play for the love, true love, of the game. They may have started out that way dribbling their Spalding with two small hands and shooting it from atop their father's shoulders. They may have played basketball from the time they were three, but at 18 a basketball is a lovely stepping stone to the BIG bucks, the babes, the fame and of course, the bling. So what do I get out of it?

Watching my team bounce the leather, then rubber and back to leather again ball up and down the court infuriates me almost every time I turn to Altitude Sports channel. Our lame team doesn't even play on regular television so my dad can watch it at home! "My" team doesn't play defense, not well anyway, they shoot from outside and lack the beast quality needed to do damage on the inside. Sometimes my sucker-punching favorite will take that ball inside and slam it in the hole like he owns it, but other times he plays like he'd rather be at home making pizza (which he apparently does after buying the ingredients at a locally owned pizza shop). It's frustrating to someone who loves watching good basketball. It can be like watching vomit dry: disgusting.

So what am I going to do now? I have taken a liking to some of the NCAA players who play like they're not getting paid, because, well, they aren't. At least not millions anyway. They play like they want to win a game at all cost, and when they start throwing blows it's because the focus and drive to win that game is so strong that anything that threatens victory is on the wrong team. This time of year is March Madness but because I didn't get in on the front end of the season, I don't know who is who to make them "My" team. But next season, I'll be watching for the guys who play with heart. Who love the game. Who play like there is no game like THIS game and like the world stops for just 40 minutes while they earn that W. I Love this Game.