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State of the Hoops Union
Posted: Wednesday January 20, 1999 12:53 PM
My Fellow
Fans:
As we stand midway through the basketball season, we should assess what has been
a rather unusual time for the sport. First, the NBA.
The two things we've heard over and over about the lockout have been: 1) nobody
much cared, and 2) the owners were the big winners. Now, if indeed that is so,
then it's good news for the NBA, because it suggests that if the fans didn't get
all hot and bothered during the lockout, and if they don't think the players
robbed the candy store, then there won't be as much anti-player sentiment as
there usually is in these cases. Perhaps the fans will return quickly and
without holding a
grudge.
The ramifications of Mr. Jordan's departure are another kettle of fish.
Certainly, the national TV ratings will be depressed, inasmuch as Jordan's
reputation roped in the fringe fans and the merely curious. But often as not,
these people had no abiding interest in basketball to start with. Most people
who go to see the Taj Mahal are not particularly attracted to architecture in
general. So whereas there's bound to be an immediate negative post-Jordan
effect, it does not necessarily follow that his retirement will reverberate far
into the
future.
In fact, while the NBA cannot replace Jordan, what it desperately needs is some
team to assume the position of power and glory that the Bulls enjoyed. An
attractive team can do wonders to fill the void in a league suffering now from
that awful athletic disease, Parity Syndrome. If the New Jersey Nets, a young,
dashing outfit led by the charming Jayson Williams -- he being sort of a kinder,
gentler Charles Barkley -- can step up, then the NBA may be able to overcome
much of its melancholy
start.
Women's basketball suffered, primarily, a blow to its image with the folding of
the American Basketball League. The consolidation of the best female talent
into the WNBA will certainly make for a more accomplished product come June, but
so long as the WNBA is summer stock then women's basketball retains a
second-rate image.
It's funny about women's sports. At least till now, they've depended more on
personalities for their success. Why, for example, does women's tennis keep
producing celebrity stars, while even in the middle of the golf boom, the best
women golfers fail to catch on with the general population? Likewise women's
basketball, which needs its first real crossover figure to catch the broad
public attention and take the sport up a notch. In the meantime, at least for
aficionados, the college rivalry between Tennessee and Connecticut is better
than anything the men
have.
Men's college basketball has, in fact, been grievously wounded because so many
of its best players leave early for the pros. Quick: Name a college star. The
game lacks that kind of sustaining buildup it used to have, as we got to know --
and to root for -- returning players and teams.
College basketball also suffers this year in that Connecticut appears to be much
the best, but UConn is a tease of a team that always collapses in the NCAA
tournament. In any sport, it's best to have either a royal juggernaut at the
top or an exciting surprise newcomer challenging. The worst situation is to be
stuck, provisionally, with a No. 1 team that invariably disappoints when it
counts -- and that's what college basketball suffers right
now.
In fact, for all of basketball, we find ourselves in something of an
interregnum, waiting to see what powers and personalities will
emerge.
These commentaries, which appear each Wednesday on National Public Radio's Morning Edition, are posted weekly by CNN/SI.
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