I’m not even going to lie here—I fucking love the National Basketball Association.
In addition to being from Cleveland, where things have been going alright for my Cleveland Cavaliers over the past 12 months—I may get an ass tat with the words, “I’m Coming Home” if we win a title—the league boasts the biggest superstars in all of sports.
Go ahead and argue that prettyboy quarterbacks like Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers are the most popular, but who can beat the dominance of LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant… shit, I’ll just stop there because no one can top that trios star-power.
Unfortunately, there aren’t as many folks out there who share the same enthusiasm with the Association as I do, with many claiming the league is rigged—something about a frozen envelope during the 1985 Draft Lottery—guys don’t play defense until the playoffs start and, worst of all, the front-office is incompetent thanks to some past embarrassing moments.
Sure, the league office has had its share of bad ideas, like that pleather basketball they tried making million-dollar athletes play with years ago, but is that really as bad as Roger Goodell suspending guys a couple games for doing something asinine?
As much as I’m handing praise to the NBA, though, there’s something that was brought to my attention today that completely made me get pissed off. Like, seriously, almost-threw-my-coffee sorta of outrage.
That would be the rule that, during the league’s Summer League games, there’s actually sudden death scoring in place for contests that go to double overtime.
Pause for a second and think about that.
How quickly can a bucket be scored in a basketball game? Now imagine professional athletes having the outcome of a game in which they’ve risked their health and livelihood during being determined by the first basket sunk.
Sounds sort of, well, dumb as shit if you ask me.
I know, Summer League games are nothing more than organized pickup games that are just a little bit more competitive than the full-courters going on at the university rec center, but still, come one NBA, there has to be a better solution.
Hell, if this sudden death thing is going to be a rule, why not make it more entertaining and have players from both teams just choose who they want to play Jump 21 against one another? At least that would be a bit more fair than first person to score.
OK, I’m done with my NBA dumbass rule of the day, but that doesn’t mean I’m not concerned that Commissioner Adam Silver might actually considering this in regular season games, stating it, “will be fun for the game and keep a youthful audience in the seats for the entirety of contests.”
Good Lord, I can just see it happening now, with the Cavs being the first team in which it affects for a championship. #GodHatesCleveland.