What the NBA Should Learn From the Florida Gators
Everyone who knows me gets sick of hearing me say this (but I have to say it here again)… the NBA is broken! There is obviously something fundamentally wrong when high schoolers can immediately get huge salaries and play as starters at what is supposed to be the highest level of the game. Where else does this happen? Sure, high schoolers get signed to other sports like baseball, but never go from high school to the major leagues in one step. Guys occassionally make the leap from college to the majors but never high school to the majors and skip the minors. Football, the college game generally serves as the minor leagues as well as NFL Europe. The NBA seems to be an anomoly of the professional team sports. Why? I think it’s because the NBA focuses so much on individual players instead of teamwork. That’s what needs to be learned from the Gators.
The Gators accomplished something never done before, repeat championships with the same starting five. They certainly have to remembered now as one of the all-time great modern era basketball teams. Yet the team has no quippy nickname (like Phi Slama Jama or the Fab-Five). The media has tried (but somewhat unsuccessfully) to link the team to Joakim Noah. But the more time that has passed, the more they continue to struggle to find a single player to represent the team. And that’s exactly as it should be. Sometimes its Noah, or Brewer, or Humphree, or Horford, or Green, or Richard, or even Hodge. The team is defined by the fact that they are a team. The only time folks really “get it” is when they talk about the Gators unselfish play. That’s why they win. And that’s where some lessons need to be learned.
Getting back to the broken NBA… there is another reason I think the NBA is broken. Not only are high schoolers making the leap to starters, but when you take what are supposed to be some of the better players and throw them all together to create the US National Team and you lose, it again points to a significant problem. Of all the sports, basketball is truly our game. Yes, baseball is supposed to be the “national pasttime”, but the era of video games and soccer moms and decades of passion in many other countries has dilluted the US into just another baseball playing country (obviously another blog topic here). But basketball, despite its popularity in other countries should still be dominated by the US. And to me, it all points back to the failure of the NBA to play “real” basketball. Everybody is looking for the next Michael Jordan, and yet they seem to forget that it wasn’t until all the pieces were in place in Chicago that the Bulls became dominant. When Jordan first hit the league and was putting up insane numbers, they weren’t always winning. It’s like Kobe now. Just because Kobe puts up 50 or 60 points in one game, doesn’t mean the Lakers will win. It might sell tickets, and generate interest, but it suddenly doesn’t have to do with truly winning or the team. It’s about image and ticket sales and entertainment. Is it any wonder why our NBA stars are not doing well internationally? Not only do they suffer because they’ve not played together as team much but for most of their NBA careers they are rewarded for highlights and not playing for the team. The NBA rules themselves encourage this too, with “illegal defense” and shorter shot clocks. Trying to make the game higher scoring and more entertaining for the fans, they have poisoned basketball.
Returning to Gators again, people go on and on about Greg Oden at Ohio State and how he’ll be the number 1 pick in the draft and Kevin Durant at Texas as the obvious number 2 choice. They talk about how Oden managed to keep his team in the game against Florida. But that gets right back to my point again. It’s the Kobe thing all over again. A single player does not make a great team. A great team requires a great team. So give me a starting five like Florida’s over any single great player. Certainly, Oden showed himself to have great skill. But honestly, any of Florida’s big guys, while maybe not quite as powerful, are more prepared to play on a team. Perhaps the next time somebody is really putting together a national team or an NBA team, they’ll start thinking more about building the best team instead of just getting the best players.
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