Chuck Klosterman has a perceptive article on ESPN.com about the “problems” facing the NBA. He argues that the NBA’s continual state of crisis doesn’t result from player misconduct or racism on the part of fans. After all, he says, the NFL is subject to these same factors, but its popularity has surged over the past decade.
Instead, Klosterman claims that the unpopularity of the NBA stems from three issues inherent to the game. First is the reality that “some games are going to be boring.” Second is the fact that “We are an unshared society” (i.e. the racial, economic and talent gap between players and fans makes them utterly unable to relate to one another). Third is the idea that “potentiality destroys happiness” (i.e. the balletic potential of the game is undermined by bricked shots and long slogs in the low post).
Klosterman makes a persuasive argument, particularly with his first point. Because of the length of the NBA season, it’s counterproductive for a player to exhaust himself in every regular season game. Instead, he has to find a balance between working hard enough to help his team win enough games to make the playoffs and maintaining his health and energy to be productive should they make it. This can make for boring games in mid-January, especially after teams are eliminated from playoff contention with a third of the season to go or, worse, deliberately tanking for a better draft pick, as was seen this past season.
This problem could be solved be reducing the number of regular season games, thereby raising the stakes for each. A 40-game regular season gives you more incentive to tune in than the current 82-game system, and it could also regularize the schedule to give casual fans a consistent day and time when their favorite team will play. I think this would make for a more exciting NBA season; it’s not ever going to happen, though, because of the huge revenue losses it would entail.
Even if we accept the inevitability of the issues Klosterman highlights, I don’t think he completely accounts for the problems facing the NBA. Race may be a convenient scapegoat, but I think it’s an accurate one as well, as white fans shy away from an enterprise they perceive to be almost exclusively African-American. The NFL’s players are 67 percent African-American, compared to 75 percent in the NBA. Still, white players rank among the NFL’s most prominent faces, making up 25 of 32 current starting quarterbacks. In contrast, not a single Caucasian-American made the NBA All-Star roster last year (Steve Nash and Dirk Nowitzki were born in Canada and Germany, respectively).
The impact of NBA demographics on its popularity may not be solely ascribed to racism either (although it’s surely a contributing factor, as any message board perusal on NBA player misconduct will tell you). Larry Bird notably raised controversy when he wondered whether the NBA needed white superstars to excite fan interest. Race provides a crude barometer for cultural identification, but white fans may be more interested in tuning into a sport where they feel they can identify with the participants, at least superficially.
Also unexamined in Klosterman’s article is the pervasive criticism that has surrounded NBA referees since at least the Jordan era. Even before this summer’s gambling scandal with referee Tim Donaghy, fans have often perceived referees as more meddlers in the game than arbiters of it. Stars in the league seem to play by a different set of rules, one giving them more leeway in their rebounds and reckless drives to the hoop.
The reffing of the 2006 Finals between the Mavericks and the Heat was notably lopsided, with Heat star Dwyane Wade benefiting from the referee’s largess, getting favorable (and questionable) calls on repeated drives to the basket, including 25 free throw attempts in Game 5 alone. As ESPN writer Bill Simmons said at the time, “You know it’s bad when the owner of the losing team runs out onto the floor to stare down the commissioner after the game—the last time that happened at a sporting event, Vince McMahon was involved.”
My reaction was to promise not to invest myself in the NBA playoffs again, a position I held last year with moderate success. Those playoffs brought greater officiating controversy—the Spurs went on to win the championship after a cheap foul by Robert Horry on two-time MVP Steve Nash triggered a fracas that resulted in two of the Suns best players, Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw, being suspended a game apiece for leaving the bench. This year will undoubtedly bring it further shady calls and blown games.
Ultimately, referee interference or incompetence (take your pick) convinces fans that the best team doesn’t necessarily win in the NBA. Sometimes instead it’s the one that flops best, or works the refs best, or has the highest-profile player. With each new incident, more and more people vow to lost interest. Unlike me, for some of them it sticks.