Most St. Louisans I know don’t care much for professional basketball.  The obvious finger points to our city’s lack of team.  St. Louisans have other professional sports and their own teams to focus on, like their beloved Cardinals, young and upcoming Blues and even the down, but not quite out Rams.  Perhaps we’re just too preoccupied living in the Gateway to the West bubble that we choose to not pay attention to sports that don’t have their own strong hold here.

 

Or it could be that the NBA has grown to be boring, predictable and unexciting.  I watch Sportscenter next to every morning, visit ESPN.com at least once on my lunch hour and I still have no idea who is playing in the playoffs right now.  Why?  Because I ignore any and all NBA news.  Why?  Because it just isn’t interesting any more and I have better things to do.  Like iron my shirt and brush my teeth.  Figure out how to pack a relatively healthy lunch with week old groceries.  Or take the “When Will You Get Married?” quiz on facebook (shameless, totally shameless). 

 

The NBA is as detached to the general public as most of our politicians are detached to what this country really needs.  Everyone is given three steps before they are called for a traveling violation.  Pivot foot?  Say wha?  I know there will be at least a dozen spectacular dunks in every game because most of the players are eight and a half feet tall.  I know a strong breeze will knock over a seven foot two bean pole of a man and then he’ll complain to the referee for not calling a foul.  I know I’ll see Matthew Perry or Courtney Cox in the crowd eating organic popcorn and talking on his or her insert latest and greatest technological instrument formerly known as “cell phone.”  I already know, you know?   There is no John Stockton.  There is no Magic Johnson.  There is no Scottie Pippen, Michael Jordan, Larry Byrd.  Somehow those guys seemed a little more real.  Today, it seems there are no men playing professional basketball, just marketers’ dreams.  Maybe it’s because I was younger and a fan of the Bulls in the Phil Jackson era (I had a Dennis Rodman jersey, again, shameless), but I wanted to be friends with those guys!  They seemed humble, for the most part and if they weren’t humble (ahem, Mr. Rodman), they sure were unique (book signing in wedding gown, anyone?) and could rebound with more ferociousness than a rabid wolverine.  I could envision them going through the McDonald’s drive-thru in something other than an Escalade with chandeliers and wings.  My brother (who really couldn’t care less about sports) told me he learned in a psych class that empathy was what drew people to sports.  People get lost in sports because they empathize with the players in the game.  It’s the same reason why girls keep Kleenex in business by simply watching the Notebook (I had to use my boyfriend’s shirt as a tissue , totally guilty).  But I’ve been known to cry watching the Little League World Series too.  Oh, and Olympic pole vaulting.  Not so much with the NBA.

I’ve tried to pin point when my interest in professional basketball started to recede and I think it may very well have to do with the league allowing zone defense in 2001.  It was kind of the straw that broke the camel’s back.  I love the game of basketball and during basketball season if I turn on the TV and find a college game, you’d be hard pressed to get me to leave my couch.  Sure, there is zone in the college game.  I understand this (in fact, I prefer the box in one, but, that’s another post).  But there’s also a lot more man to man (sometimes the NBA half court is so over crowded with giants that I can’t tell if there is a zone or man to man defense…), fewer giants, less razzle dazzle and more fundamentals (you can still find the pivot foot and triple threat stance watching a college game) and a lot more heart.  The college game connects people to the players still (if said college game has one of those half time featured personal stories about a player and how he rescued 87 dogs from a warehouse fire in East St. Louis when he was 3 so now he is playing college basketball to go to pre-vet school, I will be crying on said couch) and the players aren’t playing for their contracts or marketing deals. 

 

Oh, also?  It’s May.  Basketball game is a winter sport, last time I checked.  I don’t want my sports radar to be filled with winter sports when it’s 80 plus degrees outside.  Gimme baseball and a hot dog, please!  Anyone with me here?  I’ll be at the game on Monday, wearing my Molina jersey, not thinking about NBA playoffs and the come back of the sweatband.