MLB and the NFL has some bigger rivalries. The NBA does not for some reason. David Stern keeps going on about how great this 'golden era' is but he doesn't seem to understand that without rivalries the game just isn't very interesting. We have Carmelo, LeBron, Dwyane and these guys are supposed to carry the NBA and become rivals but they are all great friends off the court and they had yet to form anything close to a rivalry...The NBA wanted Magic/Bird with those guys but it doesn't look like it will happen. Is it just because the game is more pansyish and guys don't want to go after eachother?
I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that teams don't stick together long enough for they're to be rivalries. Two teams could be headed for a rivalry, then soon enough they get new guys who don't really care about that. Until we get more elite teams who stick with the same core of guys for 5-6 years I don't think we'll see a lot.
I was really thinking about this, not about the NBA but overal in sports. Without having rivalries the game could get a little boring. The NBA needs some more Chad Johnson's who will call out other guys or just to get some bad blood started so people could say" Man I got to watch that game Kobe vs. Bell"or something like that, BCB is right thats what the NBA is missing right now. People used to watch every Lakers-Celtics game because it was Lakers-Celtics. Everyone watches the Sox-Yankees because its the Sox-Yankees. The NBA would have much more friends if they had just one big rivalriy.
Quick, in 5 seconds or less, name the best current rivalry in the NBA.Is there one? If you answered Kobe v. the World, Iverson v. the Dress Code, or Pacers v. the Palace patrons, you've uncovered the same problem I have: there simply aren't any intriguing rivalries between teams in the Association any more.The thought occurred to me when I sat down to watch tonight's TNT doubleheader between the Cavs/Wizards and Clippers/Suns and realized that I really could care less. As I wrote earlier, I used to be an NBA guy. I would watch every regular season game of mild importance and I lived for the nights when four play-off games were featured on the Turner family of networks. Now I simply wait for halftime to hear the Round Mound of Rarely Profound make a bunch of thinly-veiled gambling references with Kenny and Magic, before I click over to The Office.College football is the king when it comes to rivalries. Pick your favorite from hundreds. The NFL, while losing some of its ferocity with increased parity, still offers the Packers-Bears, Cowboys-Redskins and any AFC West match-up not involving the Chargers as pretty intense games. College basketball continues to center around Duke-UNC on the men's side and Tennessee-UConn on the womens. I don't follow hockey, but living in Boston has taught me that Montreal and Toronto have a weird, less hillbilly more mountie, Hatfield-McCoy thing going on. And, of course, baseball trumps them all with the Yankees-Red Sox (blind hate) and, to a lesser extent, the Cubs-Cardinals.But the NBA hasn't had a meaningful rivalry since the Bulls-Pistons circa 1990. That rivalry had everything: a bonafide superstar with questions of vulnerability, grizzled champs with sharp elbows, and a blatant display of hatred when Isaiah led his team in skipping the post-game handshake after Michael and the Jordanaires finally conquered. Before that we had the best rivalry of all in the Celtics-Lakers, a contrast in styles, coasts, and old, crazy announcers. But for the past 15 years, NBA fans have been forced to quietly bide their time, bestow and revoke next-Jordan status on every promising swingman, waiting for two teams to truly captivate us.We missed perhaps our best opportunity with the Kings-Lakers during LA's three-peat because the most intriguing rivalry was all on one side with Shaq and Kobe. The Pacers and Pistons were building nicely towards a good rivalry in the recently resurgent Eastern Conference before a game of Arch Rivals broke out, which actually hurt the prospect rather than helped it as both teams were forced to take an overly cautious approach for every subsequent game after one of the NBA's most embarrassing moments.(Sidenote: Best Arch Rivals team? Tyrone, the defensive stopper, and Lewis, the pure shooter, who may actually have been Chris Sabo. While I couldn't wait to get this game in the home version, I have to say it was the second most disappointing coin-op to console conversion behind Double Dragon.)So how did the NBA come to be more about the player than the team? Expansion played a role in diluting the talent. More teams, fewer great players to go around. The Western Conference's dominance in the late 90's also hurt. But in my mind it comes down to three key concepts:1. Free Agency (aka The Easy Answer): Players simply don't spend as much time with one team anymore. With the Lakers-Celtics, you had a certain core group of guys you always knew would be there, making it easy for us to fall back on the great games of yore long after the rivalry should have been put out to pasture. Shaq, currently the league's most dominant presence when he's healthy, is with his third team. There is rarely enough time to build up intriguing story lines.2. The Shoes (aka The Odd Answer): Back in the pre-Jordan days, Converse marketed the Weapon behind the talent of Bird, Magic, Isaiah, Bernard King, and a score of others. But when his Airness came along and got his own shoe, it represented a shift in the way the NBA was marketed. Instead of having a group of talented players, you had one. One shoe, one player, one trademarked silhouette, one signature, one love for a new generation of hoop fans who learned what has come to be the modus operandi for the NBA: the talent of one is often more exciting than the success of a few. Which leads me to...1. It's all MJ's, or more likely David Stern's, fault (The Complicated Answer): As with every major trend, good or bad, in the NBA for the past 20-years, you can probably trace it back to Jordan. When Michael came into the league, the Lakers-Celtics rivalry was at its height, team basketball ruled the day. But Jordan represented the most individually talented player we had ever seen, he could do things on his own we never thought possible, and David Stern was right there to hitch his wagon to the star. Half the world instantly became Bulls fans based on reverse lay-ups and rock-the-cradle jams. But you can't blame Jordan for being good.Rather, the Commish was forced to make a choice: do I ride my new cash cow to the promised land, or do I try to uphold the traditional tenets of the sport? Not surprisingly, he went with the best business decision. (A good move for a guy who is essentially a CEO). Basketball has never been the same.The rise of Jordan has been tied to everything from the lack of mid-range jump shooting to the reliance on isolation offense, and now I'm attributing it to the lack of NBA rivalries. I was undeniably Jordan-crazy in my youth, but now, 20+ years later, I'm finally paying the price with meaningless mid-season match-ups.It's the reason why most of the casual basketball fans I know don't give the NBA a whiff before the play-offs. It is all about hype and individual achievement during the regular season, luckily we still have the postseason, where team play takes center stage and is the ultimate determinant in a team's success. But we're a long way off from the end of April.I think I'll fire up the NES, blow on my copy of Arch Rivals and punch Mohawk in the face. For me and for Dennis Rodman, who dyed his hair green years after Mohawk did and never recovered from the cries of unoriginality.woot
Nice find Tony, I really liked that blog. Expansion has killed the NBA. You could also add the fact that salaries are so ridiculous that guys lack that killer instinct...This is just so frustraiting watching game after game and you wonder why your watching....And everyones afraid to call others out in the media (blame ESPN and this ridiculous sports media).
I have said this plenty of times in the past: David Stern has done good for the NBA, but he's done bad for it as well. He's made it that National Pussy Association and he took away the competitive spirit/rivalries out of the game. Nowadays if you put your hands in the air and look at a ref, it's a technical. Excuse my language, but that's f*cking bullsh**.There is absolutely no real rivalries in the NBA anymore, and there never will be because Stern has taken that out of the NBA. You can't play physical anymore or it's a foul (hell, if you look at a superstar wrong he gets 2 shots), you can't trash talk or it's a technical, etc. Rivalries are shot down, and that's why the NBA was 100x better in the 80's and 90's.
Hmm. I think what that article is implying about free agency is actually the exact opposite of what I think of the NBA.Are players switching teams? Well, maybe. I hardly think it's at the rate that the MLB does it. I'm not sure it's a whole lot better for the NFL. Look at the guys that resigned with teams this year: Dirk, Hinrich, Dwyane, LeBron... And players often stay with teams for quite a while. Duncan, AI, KG, Kobe... the list goes on. Compare that to baseball. There are few players that have been on a team for a really long time (keep in mind that there are many more players on a baseball team, and they have much longer careers usually), it seems. I don't know... maybe it really does just seem that way. But think about this, one of the reasons the Sox/Yanks rivalry has kept up with the times is because they keep being able to spend big money without much limitation. I think if basketball had a similar system, there might be more rivalry building.HOWEVER, usually it seems like people see that as a negative thing. When you hear about salary caps, most people say it encourages competition and so on. I mean, I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but if there weren't any limitations, teams could afford whatever they wanted to stay above or keep up with whatever team of which they happen to be a rival. Does that make sense?
