Appreciating "boring" basketball

[Lurker]

An article that many here will truly appreciate (at least I hope so)...

My Love Affair with the Game
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By Preetom Bhattacharya
for HOOPSWORLD.com
May 30, 2007, 16:22 
 
 
This is my love letter to the game of basketball:

I'm sure you haven't been feeling well lately, so I figured I'd take some time to check in and make sure everything was okay. You are, after all, the game that means so much to so many.

I have to admit, though, it's hard to see you this way, but you don't have any reason to shy off in shame. Yes, ratings are down and people seem to be losing interest in your incarnation as the Western Conference Finals, but they just don't know what they're missing out on. It was another great game on Monday night, a heavyweight battle with both teams delivering their shots and absorbing their opponent's best until the Jazz simply couldn't take anymore. The Spurs stood victorious, winning 91 to 79 and taking a commanding 3 - 1 lead in the series.

Keep your chin up, though, because they'll come around to seeing it the way I do eventually.

All this means is that people don't really know who you are and maybe they're not sure why they fell in love with you in the first place. Don't believe the critics that say you aren't deep enough because those are the people that have been enticed by the shallow flashiness that too many people exhibit through you. All those attention-grabbing dunks and long-range shots are a part of who you are, but I think we both know that there's so much more to you than that.

Just remember that what makes you so beautiful is your complexity combined with your intrinsic ability to synthesize such scrupulous minutiae into the game we see before our eyes.

I think I know why people have slipped away from you lately, though. There aren't as many of those superstars that the NBA built itself upon left in your annual tournament and the high-octane, frenetically-paced teams have been eliminated, taking the perceived fun out of the postseason. I can see the distraction of a set of ping pong balls that will shape the future. I understand that star players making demands for change because of their team's elimination is what makes headlines. I can see that the slower pace and more physical nature of the games have a difficult time competing against the knockout right hand from Quinton "Rampage" Jackson.

But the same game that people are seeing as "boring" now is the one I've been devoted to since I was eight years old. Beneath all the glitz, glamour, and offensive gimmickry lies a primed surface waiting to be appreciated before being painted upon. It was that plain grey canvas that first fueled my adoration and now holds me tightly bound to you still.

It all started with understanding that you were the simplest of games, needing nothing more than a bouncing ball and preferably a pair of rubber-soled high-tops. Those weren't always available, so dudes rocking their Airwalks or church shoes would step to your court because it didn't really matter. It was all about the ball - we didn't need bats or pads or cleats or cups. All we brought to the court was our own skill and desire.

Everyone learned to do everything on that court because that's what you demanded of us. You're not like those other games that require players to take up a certain responsibility and stick to that. With you, we had to learn how to pass, shoot, dribble, rebound .. we had to do it all on those blacktops. You forced no one into any kind of chore at that time like football did, where you either pass, throw, carry, or block. Everyone undertook a broad range of tasks, everyone learned the essentials, and everyone had to be respectable in each area to have any success.

And as we learned how to play your game, we began to invent. People had always been inventing things throughout the course of human history, either with the purpose of improving an aspect of their lives or just stumbling upon something accidentally that had that same effect. But you were born in an age where invention became rapid because it was a deliberate pursuit, a time when a guy in Massachusetts was bored and wanted to find a way to pass his days. There was a problem and Naismith solved it by inventing you, just as The Wizard of Menlo Park was fulfilling pre-existing needs in New Jersey.

Similar to the fashion you were invented with the purpose of improvement, we all used our creativity and imagination to invent the moves and stylistic dribbles that we felt would improve our game. We looked towards our idols on television and replicated their actions while adding our own spin to it, hoping that we'd establish our own signature on the game. We used whatever acrobatic ability we had to figure out how to dupe our defenders and win those meaningless games on the blacktop.

Then things changed - suddenly we were playing games on hardwood courts inside of the high school gym on Sunday mornings. Now the disputes that we had about the score were settled quickly by looking at the digital scoreboard. Referees started calling these things called fouls and we had to learn a more organized game with some guy we called coach.

Now, more than ever, there was a need for coordination between us and our teammates. You demanded it from us because when we failed to be on the same page as our team, you'd give the win to our opposition and we were forced to bitterly go home, riding in the backseat of our father's car as he tried to cheer us up and we sipped our juiceboxes.

Boy, did you teach us the importance of being a team.

We had to learn that the whole was greater than the sum of its parts. We realized that to play your game and have the optimal effect of the skills we honed earlier, we had to harmonize our actions like an a capella group does their voices. Coach had to teach us how to work as a unit on the fly because there weren't pauses in the game for us to huddle up and set things up. You became a game of vertical management with our coach at the pinnacle in practice, but horizontal coordination reigned supreme during games when we each served as units working with one another, independent of our superior until time outs and breaks.

Those lessons in spontaneous coordination, more commonly known as teamwork stick with me today. The chemistry of teamwork is what makes you so damn beautiful and nothing can ever change that.

Because you flow like a river - continuously, with no significant stoppages or necessary switches of the field from offense to defense - we were forced to make decisions under pressure and in the moment. Our coaches could call plays all they wanted from the sidelines, but the in-game execution was on us, serving as a manifestation of hours of preparation through drills for skill development. All our coach could do was cultivate an environment that favored what he hoped would become a natural synchronization on our team.

Which brings us all the way back to where we are today, watching the conclusion of Game Four between the San Antonio Spurs and Utah Jazz come to an end with Gregg Popovich forced to pry Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili away from reporters as debris rained from the stands.

All these two teams have been doing for a week now has been playing fundamental, pure team basketball - artistry in motion in paying tribute to you on the premier hardwood courts of San Antonio and Salt Lake City.

Duncan's angled bank shots are brushstroked lines, the utilization of the most fundamental skill in the game, adding only to his greatness with his humility in using them. Pick-and-rolls between Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer exemplify the colorful chemistry you encourage. The plays drawn up by Popovich and Jerry Sloan on those whiteboards during timeouts provide the shape of the offensive and defensive schematics for both teams that foster necessary organization. Tony Parker's fearlessness when driving to the basket, contorting his form in the lack of space between the forest of big men in the paint, epitomize the creativity and athleticism you demand. And lest we forget the sheer physicality that is leaving these competitors bruised and battered, adding texture to their skin in the form of scars, scrapes and cuts; Ginobili looks more like he played a game in Anaheim on Monday night instead of Salt Lake City.

I know that it must pain you to see people not responding positively to the way the game is being played by these two teams, especially when you consider that this is the way you want the game played. The Jazz and Spurs have fully embraced their coaches' preaching the "together, everyone achieves more" gospel, as so many different players have the ability to contribute to the ultimate goal of winning on any given night. They believe in one another, don't put pressure on themselves, and have each other's back in the same manner as team's of yore.

So really, I don't see what's so boring about the product we see on the court. With the synthesis of all that minutiae and what not.

I don't have any answers for you or reasons for why it is this way, but I hope you feel better in knowing that at least there are some people out there who still love you for you and not the bastardized version that we're fed all too often. I guess, with things being the way they are right now, people have just forgotten what they should be looking for.

I promise I'll do my best to remind them.

[westkoast]

Awesome article and great writing.  Problem?  This is one quality article compared to the hundreds of reports (especially all this Kobe BS) that seem to be the norm.

To me I never understood comments that teams like Detroit and SA play "boring" basketball.  To me, the fact that they execute so well and play tough defense actually makes it more exciting.  Just like the writer mentioned it makes it more of a pro heavy weight fight as oppose to a all over the place street fight (see PHX vs DAL)

People call defense boring but fail to realize how much harder it is to be a good defender in this league now.  It is pretty much taken for granted.  Great offense always beats great defense and since there are plenty of great offensive players in this league it really is weird how defense gets labeled as "boring"  Even the league is condoning it by trying to get teams to score more points.  Watching Bruce Bowen or Ron Artest is exciting to me.  Actually seeing Okur give Duncan fits is much more exciting to me then watching Mr. I just got out of bed shoot a 3 pointer after a drive from Deron.

[WayOutWest]

To me I never understood comments that teams like Detroit and SA play "boring" basketball.  To me, the fact that they execute so well and play tough defense actually makes it more exciting.  Just like the writer mentioned it makes it more of a pro heavy weight fight as oppose to a all over the place street fight (see PHX vs DAL)

It's more like watching a heavy wieght fight vs a middle weight fight.

[JoMal]

It's one thing to win boring, but if you caught any Kings games this past season, losing boring is an absolute fan base killer.

[westkoast]

It's one thing to win boring, but if you caught any Kings games this past season, losing boring is an absolute fan base killer.

   Isn't most losing boring for the fans?

WOW...Middle weight fights can still get pretty technical and game plans can be executed just the same.  The Suns remind me of a street fighter where they are kind of all over the place, go pedal to the metal instead of pacing themselves for a long fight, and just do whatever they feel like at any given minute as oppose to sticking to execution.

I honestly have not seen a boring SA game in the playoffs.

[JoMal]

It's one thing to win boring, but if you caught any Kings games this past season, losing boring is an absolute fan base killer.

   Isn't most losing boring for the fans?

Before the Kings' run of success, they were a very entertaining team to watch, but lacked true talent to be very good. They lost, but were anything but boring doing so. Now.....yeech.

[Derek Bodner]

I started to read the article, but it was too long and boring.

[westkoast]

I started to read the article, but it was too long and boring.

 

[rickortreat]

The only thing that made these games boring was that they were blowouts.  When the lead is going back and forth in a closely contested game- that's exciting.  The style of play has very little to do with it, except I'd much rather see a dunkfest than Timmy posting up somebody.

Spurs fans may love a timely 3 pointer by Finley or a nice drive down the lane from Parker, but there are no high-flyers on the Spurs.  (Or on Utah for that matter)

Instead of Dr. J we've got Kirilenko and Bowen.

Cleveland is the most exciting team left, with LeBron and Larry Hughes. Still possible that the Cavaliers will take this series with Detroit.  I hope so. Is anyone else getting tired of these guys?