Boycott the NBA

The Chris Paul trade shakedown has been making headlines for over a week, and fans across the country should be wondering why they bother caring about the league anymore.

I've made fun of the NBA repeatedly in this blog (all I'm saying is give robots a chance), but I always took at least a passing interest in the quality of play and the performance of the Celtics. This past debacle may have just ruined the Association for me, and here's why.




I've ignored numerous failings with the NBA:

• Fixed games - I forced myself to believe that it was isolated to Tim Donaghy
• Flopping - this really seemed to grow into an accepted art form over my lifetime. I blamed Vlade Divac and begrudgingly accepted it (it's in almost every sport).
• Immature players - I can't remember the last time I saw a game where the players weren't whining about calls or throwing... I can't call them punches, what's a better term... wild, semi-clenched hand slaps?
• Bill Walton - his horse teeth give me the willies

The NBA's insertion into the trade talks for Chris Paul, however, represents the first evidence that the league itself, as a governing body, is ruining the league.

Escaped Gringots Goblin David Stern is pulling the strings (credit: Stephen Colbert)

As a fan, you want your team to have an equal shot at winning the championship. To have this, the league has to govern a framework within which teams can operate freely. The rules apply equally to all of them. If that is in place, then teams can make personnel decisions on their own and have a realistic shot at becoming the best team.

Now that I've beat that dead horse - we all know that that's not 100% true. The Clippers, Timberwolves, Raptors, and Kings have been bad for ages it seems, and the same teams seem to contend: the Spurs, Lakers, and blessed Celtics. Some teams are just more well-run than others, and some have the revenue to pay luxury taxes while small market teams can't.

Even then, nearly every team in the league has enjoyed a surplus of talent at some point in recent history. The Timberwolves had a beastly team with Garnett leading the way, the Raptors once boasted a team with Vince Carter in his prime and T-Mac emerging as a star, and the Kings were a perennial playoff team just a decade ago. The framework did work, and every team had its chance, whether or not they had the acumen and good fortune to capitalize on it.

All that has changed. Stern's blockage of a good faith deal positions himself as the driving force behind competitive balance rather than free market forces. Of course, I'm happy that the Lakers didn't get Chris Paul, and yeah, it's pretty sweet that Paul will be throwing alley-oops to Blake Griffin for the next couple years, but what's the point of rooting for a team that operates in a league under restrictions it has no control over? "Oh, the Celtics won the championship in 2012? OK, I guess good for them for not messing up amidst all the moves that occurred this year that were influenced by the Commissioner's Office to build the wealth of the league at the expense of free market conditions."

Am I overreacting? The fact I'm asking that means the answer is probably yes. The players will still play hard and the games will be entertaining enough to make fans not care about this incident. For my part though, this is a huge blow to a league already suffering from poor credibility, and I won't be bothered to care about it... aside from the unrelenting upward career trajectory of Ian Mahinmi.