Basketball

Five Reasons I’m Not Interested in the NBA Finals

I’d do ten reasons that I’m not interested in the NBA finals, but I’m so uninterested that I don’t want to spend the time to put five more reasons to paper. I’m not a basketball hater, but I truly dislike what the NBA is in 2008, and this series represents much of what I dislike about the game today.

So here are the five reasons that I will not be watching the NBA finals.

1. Two of the most unlikable sports cities in the world are represented.

There are no fans more annoying that this generations Boston sports fans, and no sports fans as front-running and generally bad than Los Angeles sports fans.

Boston fans used to have that Cubs-ish “lovable-loser” thing going, but the day they started winning, they did all they could to try to become that asshole Yankee fan that they’ve hated for their whole lives.

2. The NBA bores the shit out of me.

If I don’t have money on it, I can’t bear to watch even a quarter of a game. Seriously, it’s nothing but a one-on-one skills competition, with an exciting final two minutes. The only things worse than watching an NBA game is being at an NBA game. The annoyance level attending a game is through the roof. Between the non-stop music during the game and the highest level of annoying fans, attending NBA games is the only things worse than watching them on television.

At least the college game still has passion. The NBA has about ten players that play with passion and winning as the top priority. After Steve Nash, I have to think to come up with the rest of the list.

3. Kobe is no Magic.

Can you imagine Magic Johnson running Kareem out of town because of his ego? Can you imagine a book being written by his coach detailing what a terrible teammate Magic was? Can you imagine Magic flying to Denver for his sexual assault trial? I can’t either.

About the only reason to watch this series is to root against Kobe Bryant, but that’s not exactly what watching sports is all about now, is it?

4. It’s been 21 years — it’s no longer a rivalry.

Just because there were some good Finals series’ back in the 80’s doesn’t mean that I need to be force fed that history and told why I should care about this series.

There is no such thing as a rivalry in the NBA. Player turnover is too high. Yes, the fans may hate other cities teams, but the players don’t care at all because none of them have any personal history. The Yankees and Red Sox have the only legitimate professional rivalry now, and the Red Wings and Avalanche are probably next. Otherwise, there are just teams with fans that don’t like each other. That’s not a rivalry.

Rivalries are when a player gets another chance at the team that defeated his team in a prior year. And it happens more than once. When every team is different each year, there is not chance for a rivalry to develop.

In 2008, the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers have absolutely no rivalry. Zero.

5. It’s Turned Bill Simmons Into an Unreadable Homer (yes, even more than normal).

I love reading the Sports Guy columns, but I can’t handle another Boston sports hog-sucking marathon. I don’t give two shits about his buddy Sal’s thoughts on the finals. Articles one, two, a podcast, and some archives of three past articles on the Celtics and Lakers are too much for me to handle.

There used to be a time when Boston sports teams invoked sympathy, allowing us to pull for those teams if we had no other rooting interest to reward their suffering fans. Now, those same fans have become worse than the worst Yankees, Bulls, Duke or Cowboys fans from their peak days. These are the same Boston fans who are all slightly mentally unstable due to their hatred for said Yankees fans. Now they are just as big of an annoyance as any group of fans ever.

Between the Celtics, Patriots and Red Sox, Boston fans like the Sports Guy have gone through a transformation over the course of this decade, and have not recognized it yet.

This NBA Finals is being forced down our throats like we’re supposed to drop everything and care. I’m sorry Mr. Stern, but your product is infinitely worse now than it was 20 years ago, and I just don’t care.

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