After finishing last season with one of the lowest final’s ratings in its televised history, the National Basketball Association recently commenced the 2005-06 season. But seriously, does anyone care anymore?
Personally, I no longer understand the NBA and its fans.
Not after Detroit and San Antonio, arguably the two most fundamentally sound teams, competed for the NBA Championship, yet still garnered little fan support and notoriety.
What do solid all-around players like Tim Duncan have to do to garner the attention comparable to Kobe Bryant, whose soap opera-like, prima donna-filled Lakers had nearly a 25 percent higher television rating one year prior to the Pistons-Spurs series?
I understand the market size difference between Los Angeles and San Antonio, but Chicago, which certainly isn’t one of the league’s biggest markets, managed nearly record-high ratings during the Bulls’ run in the 90s.
Face it Duncan, the NBA and its fans just have no room for a classy, team-first player who has guided his team to its first three championships.
Simply put, you have to disrespect your teammates, get some technical fouls, break some laws – go to jail if you must. In return, you’ll be one of the most beloved players in the league.
Forget about working on that sweet bank-shot jumper and start working on that alibi, or calling out that one teammate who took too many shots last season.
The league is not ready for you in this era of the bad boy.
Besides, NBA fans got enough of the too-good-to-be-true superstar with Michael Jordan. Near the time of his departure from the league, came the entrance of the bad boy himself, Allen Iverson. Iverson truly started the list of the egotistical, whiny and overpaid athletes that now includes Bryant, Rasheed Wallace, Jermaine O’Neal and Latrell Sprewell, among others.
I’d go as far to say that the NBA’s style has a trickle-down effect – all the way to middle schoolers who try to emulate Iverson’s crossover but forget that defense, unglamorous as it may be, wins games. Many high school and college coaches have struggled to reverse this offensive syndrome.
The And-1 craze, where offense is the name of the game, may have also added to this mentality .
So while Tim Duncan and the Spurs continue winning with the truest form of a total team effort, the rest of the attention remains focused on the reunion of a once feuding Phil Jackson and Bryant in Los Angeles, Ron Artest’s return to the Pacers after a one-year suspension for the now infamous brawl, and the new dress code.
Meanwhile, this former NBA fan prepares for another painfully drab 82-game schedule and tries to grasp why there’s such little love outside of San Antonio for Timmy Duncan, the most complete player in the league.

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