After watching and sleeping through most of the NBA finals it is obvious the zone defense does not belong in the NBA. It not only slows the game down, but it also cuts back on the skill of the athletic players in the league. The zone defense was put in place to stop Shaq, but it is ruining the NBA in my opinion. And I'm not alone, the NBA ratings dropped 40% from last season because of the terrible offense, largely due in part to the zone defense. Kidd didn't have the space to make creative plays and watching pro players brick open jumpshots over and over again gets boring, fast. The zone is good for the college game, but in the NBA it should be man on man. I really hope the NBA reconsiders getting rid of the zone defense and brings back the free flowing offenses they had back in the 80's. Another disturbing trend is the lack of stars it takes to win a title. In the past the it took 3 star players to win a championship. Whether it was Bird, McHale, & Parish, or Magic, Worthy, & Kareem. Later on it took only 2 players to win a title whether it was Jordan & Pippen, Thomas & Dumars, or Shaq & Kobe. But this year it took 1 superstar to get the title, Tim Duncan. There was no doubt the NBA Finals MVP would be Duncan or Kidd. Sure other players had good games, but no one else had a consistent game and no one else on either team is a superstar in the league. The talent of the NBA has been diluted and when the new franchise comes in, it's going to get even worse. The NBA needs to make some changes to improve the product, and the first step begins with eliminating the zone defense.
