Basketball is still an awful sport to watch

From the current issue of Sports Illustrated:

So why do I care about this?

Four years ago, I said the same thing in a blog post called "Basketball is an awful sport. Here's why." If you don't want to read the whole thing, I will summarize.

Basketball is the only sport I can think of where a team can be rewarded for breaking the rules. Specifically, by deliberately fouling and opponent's weaker free-throw shooters, a team that is losing can catch up when the weak free-throw shooter misses and the team that is losing gets the rebound.

All of the fouls and free throws plus the seemingly unlimited number of timeouts that each team has result in the last two minutes of the game taking 20 or more minutes.

To me, it's unwatchable.

Pertinent to Van Gundy's comments is that Detroit Pistons center Andre Drummond, who will play in the All-Star game, set an NBA record by missing 23 free throws in a single game on January 20.

This was part of a deliberate strategy by the Houston Rockets who were losing the game by nine points at the start of the third quarter. Houston's K.J. McDaniels fouled Drummond five times within nine seconds and the team fouled Drummond on seven straight Piston possessions. During that stretch, Drummond made 5 of his 16 free-throw attempts.

It must have been quite an exciting couple of minutes of play.

The All-Star Drummond had to be taken out of the game in the fourth quarter so that Detroit could hold on and win the game.

Yahoo Sports reporter Eric Freeman said: "While it's a little inexact to say that sending a player to the line over and over again 'isn't basketball' given that the rules allow it, it's downright enervating to watch and not an ideal product for a league that ultimately sells entertainment above all else. Intentional fouling is also increasingly common, with seemingly each team having at least one player who gets sent to the line in opportune moments."

He suggested that NBA commissioner Adam Silver is going to have to do something about the issue.

Here's what I've done about it. For the last few years, I haven't watched basketball.

Penn State Scandal: It Gets Worse

Yesterday I blogged about the many things wrong with Penn State and the way the child molestation scandal was handled. Little did I know that it would get much worse.

The Penn State Board of Trustees finally appeared to do the right thing by firing coach Joe Paterno. But according to an article in USA Today, they did it in the best interests of the school. Here’s a quote from the vice-president of the board [italics mine]: "The current situation we are in at the moment is not in the university's best interest. We believe a change is necessary to allow us to continue going forward without further damage to the university. Great difficulties have engulfed our university.” Damage to the university? Great difficulties engulfed the university? What about the children?

Speaking of children, what is going on with the students at Penn State? I realize we aren’t talking about high intellect over at Happy Valley, but the moral compass and sense of priorties seem to be missing. Someone is wasting a lot of money on tuition. Check out these quotes from some of the rioters on campus via the New York Times.

“I think the point people are trying to make is the media is responsible for JoePa going down,” said a freshman, Mike Clark. Yes, the media did it. I guess if this hadn’t been exposed by the media, everything would be just fine at PSU.

“We got rowdy, and we got maced,” Jeff Heim, 19, said rubbing his red, teary eyes. “But make no mistake, the board started this riot by firing our coach. They tarnished a legend.” Oh, the board tarnished a legend. I see.

“It’s not fair,” Mr. [Justin] Muir said hurling a white ribbon. “The board is an embarrassment to our school and a disservice to the student population.” No, the students are an embarrassment to their school.

“Of course we’re going to riot,” he [Paul Howard] said. “What do they expect when they tell us at 10 o’clock that they fired our football coach?” Of course. There’s a big game this Saturday against Nebraska. How could they fire Joe now?

“This definitely looks bad for our school,” he [Greg Becker] said sprinting away from a cloud of pepper spray. At least this guy is on to something. It does look bad for the school.

The article said, “Mixed in the crowd were a few dissenting opinions.” But it seems the vast majority of the rioters were protesting the firing of their football coach.

Meanwhile, what about the children who were the victims? Where's the outrage for them?

Basketball is an awful sport. Here’s why.

Basketball is difficult to watch. What makes it so for me is the way the games end. I can’t think of another sport in which breaking the rules can result in an advantage for the team which does so. Here is what I mean.

A typical scenario is that the Lakers are leading the Knicks by 9 points with two minutes to go. At this point, the strategy for the Knicks is to foul the worst free-throw shooter on the Lakers as soon as he touches the ball. The idea is that if he misses his shots, the Knicks will gain possession with a chance to narrow their deficit. This goes on and on until the game mercifully ends 20 or 30 minutes later.

The reason the end of the game takes so long is that the clock stops when the foul occurs and the free-throws are taken. And each team has about 10 time-outs which are called at every whistle. To me, there are basically two phases of a basketball game. Phase I consists of about 38 minutes of what passes for basketball today. That is, a lot of one-on-one offense and minimal-to-no defense. There is no such thing as “traveling’ or “palming the ball” any more. Phase II is the last two minutes which involves a lot more walking back and forth than a soldier on guard duty can imagine.

Try as I might to come up with something, I just don’t think there is any other sport that rewards rule-breaking. Baseball? No. Football? No [but certainly right up there with basketball as far as the duration of the last two minutes of a game is concerned]. Hockey? No, in fact a foul gets you a chance to play with fewer men. Soccer? No. Tennis? No. Golf? No. Swimming? No. NASCAR? No [not a sport].

Why don’t they just skip the basketball game altogether and have dunking contests instead? Then it could be more like gymnastics, figure skating or diving.

Mickey vs. Tiger: A Tale of Two Eras

I just finished reading The Last Boy, Jane Leavy’s interesting focused biography of Mickey Mantle. The tale is told from her personal and unique perspective and it’s not a typical sports biography filled with scores and stats. She tells of his upbringing, his fear of dying young and his self-destructive behavior, and she doesn’t hold back. He was an epic womanizer, the Tiger Woods of his day, and cheated on his long-suffering wife throughout the course of their marriage. He even hit on Ms. Leavy back in 1983 when she first met him for an interview. Mickey was also a world-class alcoholic, eventually receiving a liver transplant and dying of liver cancer in 1995.

Sportswriters in the old days protected the athletes and there was no Internet, no Twitter and no such thing as a cell phone with a camera. But tabloid newspapers and expose’-type magazines [see photo] published stories about Mickey’s escapades, which the public didn’t seem to care about. Yet the '50s and '60s were a time of sexual denial and public modesty. You would have thought that people back then would not have tolerated Mickey’s behavior, but he kept endorsing products and was beloved until he died.

Fast forward to the present and the Tiger Woods scandal. Why was it a scandal? In contrast to Mantle’s heyday, anything goes when it comes to sex today. Pornography is delivered unsolicited to your email. Sexuality, vulgarity and nudity can be seen on television at all hours. Senators, congressmen and governors and even a president commit sexual indiscretions on an almost daily basis and continue in public life without apparent consequences. Yet when Tiger’s infidelity (what a quaint term) came to light, he was universally reviled, and he lost millions of dollars in endorsements.

What strikes me is the contrast between the eras. The uptight mid-20th century tolerated the unbridled Mantle and the “anything goes” first decade of the 21th century shunned the prowling Tiger.

Other than the fact that Tiger is back to playing golf in a relatively protected environment, he is a virtual recluse. I’m sure he will eventually be more visible but meanwhile, why did he have to disappear? I don’t condone his actions. His goody two shoes family man persona was obviously a sham. But why is he a pariah and Mantle a god to this day?