I’m going to start this article by tying it in with the previous one about passion. Most would agree that college sports have more passion than professional sports and that assumption can be based on the fact the student-athletes are not getting paid. When you have nothing to play for but pride and championships, there will be more passion. There are very few professional athletes that have a desire to win more so than to accept their paycheck. One that comes to mind is Deron Williams of the Utah Jazz. You won’t find too many people that hate losing more than he does. He truly plays the game to win and strive for a championship. Whereas in most other cases they are playing so they can be rewarded with their paycheck.
This brings me to my point about how the NBA commission is a joke and how they strictly focus on money. The NFL looks to be headed for a lockout (and possibly the NBA as well), and when it comes down to it, the main hold up is money. In the past couple of days in the NBA there have been some fines handed out for obscene gestures. The most recent is Eddie House of the Miami Heat, who made an obscene gesture after what turned out to be the game winning three point field goal against the Oklahoma City Thunder. However, only two days before that incident, Kevin Garnett blatantly hit the Suns’ forward Channing Frye in the groin area, and what happened to him? Nothing! What is worse, hitting someone there or making an obscene gesture toward the same area? I would say that hitting someone there deserves more of a punishment. So why then did KG not get fined or suspended? It was because in two days the Celtics were going to play the LA Lakers. David Stern couldn’t afford to not have KG in the lineup for that game. If the Celtics were playing anybody else in their next game KG would have been suspended. Mr. Stern wanted better ratings which in turn make more money.
There are a lot of people out there that believe some NBA games are controlled by referees. After all, it is usually the same 16 teams that make the playoffs. The NBA is too concerned about making money and that is taking away from the game for the fans. The NBA needs to remain consistent in how they handle each situation, like the ones that occurred this past week. If the NBA really cared about the fans, then they would pay to have people in the dunk contest to make it more exciting. The only person that anyone cares to see in this year’s dunk contest is Blake Griffin. What happened to the good ‘ol days, when there were three guys that had a legitimate chance to take home the crown. The last awesome dunk contest has to be when Vince Carter wowed the world on 2000. By having the contestants that they do this year, just proves that the NBA could care less what the fans want and are strictly concerned about making money.
They can say all they want about how money has nothing to do with it. If that were truly the case, then there would never ever be a rumor of a lockout and a lockout would never happen if money weren’t the sole issue. Mr. Stern has an annual salary of around $10 million and for what? For him to complain about not having enough money. The NBA needs to be consistent in how they do things and not care so much about money. They need to show a consistent habit in their actions towards players and not favor the all-stars.
All we can hope as fans is that there are more players who care about winning and putting on a show, because we can’t count on the NBA to do it.
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