I just read some silly lout dissin’ the game of basketball and I had to put fingers to the keyboard and tell it like I think it should be...
well he/she/it just reminded me of the poor ol fox who literally couldnt jump high enough for the grapes and thus walked away claiming them to be sour...first of all the review wasnt even about basketball...it just went on about the too rich players being corrupt and how many time outs they have and other absolutely irrelevant baseless points...it was like saying ’well I dont like baseball ’cause they serve lousy hot dogs in the bleachers!’ Hello!!! whoever wrote that...wake up and smell the cappuccino; the year is 2003 and people by default are corrupt or violent or usually both...
i have been an ardent fan of the game since my conception...ok a lil later maybe...and the barrier of a fact that I stand just 5’6’’ above terra firma has never been able to hold me down...when you play ball what matters is if you can bring it on!!!
and the sheer joy of shooting a three pointer, a lay-up well conceived and executed, the swish sound the ball makes when gliding smoothly through the net (clink if you are playing streetball)...sigh...its just poetry in motion...
while its fun to watch nba matches, the ncaa is a showcase of upcoming talent and can present extremely edge-of-seat action at times...but one thing which nba can have in abundance is personal ego’s! I mean picture this...you have a small space of a court crammed in with ten giants; who are famous for defying gravity and making it seem irrelevant a concept; and then they have a game to win apart from being adjudged the MVP...and then again you can have your own fortes...
Mutombo from the atlanta hawks used to claim that no assist or lay up or dunk was happening as long as he was there ’guarding his house’! and he was proving it well to in a certain match against the la lakers where he had blocked O’neal and Bryant several times...the final shot came when Bryant converted while slickly passing by Mutombo and as he walked away declaring that ’he walked everywhere’ he knew that he had scored more than just a basket...
and that was just one instance...i cant even start about how many matches have been turned around in the last two or three seconds of the last quarter...
but then I somewhere do admit to the sports commercialisation which HAS taken away from the pure joy of playing it simply...but its not all that bad...players endorsing products, all the rap and hip hop grooves, the clothing lines and accessories amongst other paraphernalia which one can get ones hands on nowadays wasnt always around...it is rather recent and probably a bigger revenue earner than the matches itself!
but I feel every sport which attracts crowds will very soon morph itself into a commercial activity...its happened to cricket in india, football in europe and american football and baseball in the states...its only a very natural transition of affairs and one can do nothing about it...as long as a sport is famous it will get commercialised...even the newer sports like X games are so much about the attitude, the clothes and the music that more people actually portray the image without ever having got onto a bmx!!!
the only thing a bit troublesome about all this money activity is that the players end up losing focus and it can seriously affect their games...the pressure under which all players today need to perform no matter which sport is phenomenal and if they can play their matches sincerely, round up their advert. shoots for the day and come home to relax with their loved ones, I think they have earned themselves a place in my hall of fame!