Just when I thought I was talking to myself here, I get my first reader comment. (sniffs) Ahh, the sweet smell of success. Moving on,
Cavs-Wizards
I admit, I've only watched game 1 of this series. Talk about blah. The Cavs, hardly one of the NBA's elite teams, cruised through that game in regular season mode, and just made enough plays in the fourth quarter to win. From what I've heard, it's been this way all series. Since the games themselves have been unremarkable, time to bring out another axe to grind...
The Cavs-Wiz series is the posterchild for why the NBA season is too long. By extending the playoff to a 4 best-of-seven series format, the NBA has effectively made the cliche'd "second season" a reality. Throw in the nation team off-season commitment, and the league is physically demanding more from players, especially the stars, than ever before. What are the results of this?
-INJURIES. Fatigue makes ^#$^$#^es of us all. Based on my limited athletic experience, and from what I've seen and heard, fatigue is one of the biggest causes of injuries in sports. When you play tired, you start taking short cuts, get out of position more, and this leads you to getting hurt. To varying degrees, I would bet the injuries to Dwyane Wade, Lamar Odom, and yes, Gilbert Arenas and Caron Butler, were all caused by a combination of fatigue and compensation for other injuries.
-Regular season apathy. The last ten games of the season are throwaways for all teams not fighting to get into the playoffs. Why? Partly because the extra wear and tear on a good team's regulars is a greater risk than any marginal improvement in playoff position. Back in the day, when the playoffs rarely spanned more than 20 games for the finalists, teams didn't have to worry as much about resting their regulars because the playoffs were just icing on top of the long regular season. Also, from the players' standpoint, what's the best way to avoid getting too tired to make it through the playoffs? Hint: ask Tim Duncan (see:his first few months of the season), Shaq (see: roughly the last dozen years of his career, minus his first two championship seasons), and the Detroit Pistons (two of the last three regular seasons for the whole rotation, except maybe for Tayshaun Prince; I can never tell the difference between when he's not playing hard and when he's just in passive mode).
Why should the NBA care? After all, the reason they'll never shorten the season, since 10 extra games of even diminished revenue (from meaningless end-of-season games) is better than nothing.
The best reason is because the fans lose out in the current system. Last year's Cavs-Wiz series was great, because we got to see LeBron and Gilbert Arenas go head to head for six gut-wrenching games. Between the DVR and my sneaking out of work early, I didn't miss a game of the series. This year, we're stuck with LeBron against...Deshaun Stevenson. Not quite "must-see-TV." And if the Guru's not feeling it, what is the casual fan thinking? Is there a record for lamest crowd in a playoff game? I have to hand it to the fans in Cleveland, even with with the Washington Generals as their opponents, they represented better than Laker and Heat fans have in past years. They at least knew when the game was starting.
But I digress. Back to my point, if fans get a steady diet of sabotaged playoff series' and half-hearted regular season games, then they start to lose faith in the product. This is the exact kind of intangible loss in revenue that the league can conveniently ignore unfortunately.
I could go on, but I was supposed to talk about Wiz-Cavs. Well, even though the Cavs aren't very good, they've gotten to 3-0. I'll go out on a limb and say they end it tonight with the clean sweep.
Oh yeah, I mentioned MVP also. That's LeBron James. Not particularly close even. I'll have to pick up there next time.
