The NBA goes Hollywood

One of the best things about watching team sports is seeing the raw talent of many different style players being meshed together to build a nearly unstoppable force whether it is on the field or the court.  It did your heart good to see a well-played game come down to the final seconds and the true determination of a team willing itself to victory when it first looked like their number was up.  I’ve seen money, millionaires and corporations attach themselves to a sport and through their sheer will of influence turn a sporting event into a franchise played for the flavor of ownership and ignore those truly dedicated hard working people who pads their pockets, the fans.  The advantage used to be the team which wanted it more, now it’s more about the owners whose connections are better.

For the true fan, it is becoming painfully obvious that the NBA has gone the way of Hollywood and instead of pitting talent against talent, it’s turn against turn.  Many of us was looking forward to a high flying, high scoring finals featuring the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Oklahoma City Thunder but like all corporate owned entities, the decision of who would be in the finals and how it will play out was not made on the court but in some board room. 

Rumor has it that soon there will be four refs on the floor to call the fouls that three now miss but even that will not be enough for those times when it is clear that calls goes to selected teams and blatant calls against that team whose turn it is to lose are clearly missed.  It has been the format of conference games and finals before that the delay between games was two days but now it is three.  Players are now rewarded for flopping or acting on the court by getting calls not from what is seen by these representatives of corporate but by the best actor on the floor.  Instead of handing out trophies to teams maybe the NBA should consider red carpet and best actor and supporting actors’ roles.  The best actors roles should go to those whose star is so high that they cannot do anything wrong and of course the best supporting actors award should go to the refs whose eye sight is not as sharp as it used to be.