The NBA is facing a huge problem.
It has been reported that Chris Paul is requesting a trade to Orlando, Los Angeles, or New York, so he can join forces with another star player in his pursuit of a championship. Paul is doing the same thing his good friend LeBron James did in signing with the Miami Heat.
This is bad for the league unless they start doing what is done for small children when they participate in sports, that is, give everybody a trophy. Maybe commissioner David Stern can hand out participation “rings” to all players at the end of the season.
That way, everybody will get what he wants.
First of all, since when did winning a championship become a divine right? It’s a difficult thing to do, and it should be earned, not given to anyone. The current batch of NBA stars seem to think they should just show up and get a ring, and not work for it.
Does anyone wonder how Charles Barkley, Karl Malone, Elgin Baylor, Patrick Ewing and John Stockton feel about this? These guys left blood and sweat on the floor for many years to try and win a title.
These current NBA stars think after they’ve put in six or seven years in the league, they should be playing for a championship. They don’t take the responsibility of making that happen. They seem to want it to be handed to them. They are entitled.
Stern should re-think his strategy of promoting the league’s great players and talking about how many titles they win, because right now, these guys are out of control.
The other problem is it makes teams in the Midwest superfluous. Teams like the Cavaliers, Pistons, Bucks, and even the San Antonio Spurs once Tim Duncan retires, will be relegated to being the Washington Generals to the Lakers, Celtics, Heats’ Globetrotters.
Those franchises will not matter anymore except to be schedule fillers for the big boys. And that doesn’t bode well for the NBA.
The same argument is true for baseball. No one wants to see the Yankees and Red Sox play 162 games per year. If those two teams played every day, the games wouldn’t sell out any more. Baseball needs to have 30 teams, and the elite teams have to know that.
Basketball is soon going to have the same thing. The only games that will matter will be when the Lakers play the Heat, or the Magic plays Boston. The only games in Cleveland that will draw will be when one of the “super” teams visits The Q.
A game between the Bucks and the Cavs simply won’t matter.
The national media (read: ESPN) says these super teams are good for the game. Of course, they feel that way, it would be great if Paul went to New York to team with Amare Stoudemire to make the Knicks relevant again.
However, is it really good for the league to have three or four great teams and 26 arenas that could be ghost towns? The television ratings will suffer as well because outside of the cities involved, no one will watch a steady diet of the Lakers, Heat, Knicks, Magic, and Celtics. Seeing them all the time makes it lose its uniqueness.
Perhaps that’s irrelevant for the new bosses in the NBA…World Wide Wes and LRMR.
JK
Cleveland Sports Perspective 