Off Topic Board

It's not a game it's a product. The rules are skewed to make it a one on one wank fest. The refs call it homie until the playoffs. Why even bother to watch until then?

And finally isn't the name "basket" ball a little out dated? The only basket I know about anymore is the Easter basket. Love those bunnies.

I don't follow the NBA at all. In fact I have gotten very cynical of professional sports in general over the years, mostly due to lock outs and strikes. Every major sport has experienced them and I abhore the selfishness of billionaire owners and millionaire players, and that seems to be even more prevelant in the NBA than other sports. (although they are catching up.)

I love the NBA as well for the reasons you mentioned. I do think the officiating is a major problem, more so than any level of any sport out there, but hopefully that improves once David Stern is gone in less than a year. One thing that confuses me is when people say they can't stand NFL or NBA players - those were the same guys those people rooted for in college. Some of them change once they start making money, but a lot of them are pretty much the same people.

used to love it now I don't really care for it. I haven't watched a game yet this year, maybe once the playoffs start I'll watch.

Regarding how much the refs let them play, it really depends on which game you're watching, and which part of that game that you're watching. You might have a handful of possessions, a full quarter or even a half where they do let them play. Sometimes it's on both ends of the court, and sometimes it's only on one end. But at some point, you'll see some wild officiating inconsistencies within almost every game. To me, that's by far the biggest problem with the NBA game right now - the officiating.

Just to follow up on that, I think one reason for that improvement is the media boom that we now see. It's a completely different world from what it was 10-15 years ago in terms of covering the NBA 24 hours a day. Because of that, players today are under a lot more scrutiny than ever before, and often get more credit than they deserve and more blame than they deserve as a result of that. But the best thing about that is that the players don't want to be criticized, so I think it gives them even more motivation to play well and - most importantly - win championships.

I think the CBA is structured such that teams can go as far over the cap as they want in order to retain their current players, so Miami should be able to keep its core together if they want to. Where it gets tricky is they may not be able to bring in any additional free agents to upgrade the roster.

I know the luxury tax penalty increased significantly, but you still have Bird Rights over all of your players that have been on the roster for a certain amount of time, which will include LeBron, Wade and Bosh. I don't think it'll affect them with those three, but it could definitely affect their ability to surround them with quality role players.

Once a player has been on your team for a certain amount of time (I think it's three full seasons), then you can pay them as much as you want. So, theoretically, if every player on your roster became a free agent at the same time, and they had all been there for the requisite time, then you could pay as much as you want to keep them. It impacts the cap in the sense that, if they wanted to, Miami could give LeBron, Wade and Bosh all max deals to keep them. Of course, then they wouldn't have much to give to other role players to surround them with. That's my understanding of how it works, but keep in mind that I know a lot more about the NFL cap than the NBA cap.

i have been starting to become a bigger and bigger supporter of our local teams in cedar rapids. With the Titans indoor football team coming in last year, I have gotten to meet many of the players, am facebook friends with a few of them and i just overall like the game and how cool it is to get to talk to and interact with the players. I have been taking my boy to more and more Kernels games over the past few years and I need to get to more Roughrider hockey games. I wish more people supported this level of athletics, instead of thumbing their nose at them (especially where the Titans are concerned) because of their pre-conceived ideas of the indoor game.

It is affordable, and allows me to get out of the house and hang out with friends or get my boy out of the house without breaking the bank. If you even consider going to an NFL or MLB game (i would imagine the same goes for NHL and NBA), you are dropping serious change for an outting.

I do agree with what you say about supporting local teams, and it being much much cheaper to go see them then any professional team. However, its cheaper because of the product on the field/ court. I'd rather pay more, and see RG3 play, then go watch Juice Williams play for cheaper. I used to go watched the CR River Raiders bball team, it was only like 8 bucks a ticket, but the best player was Dean Oliver. I'd much rather pay 60 for a ticket, and see a Kobe or Durant play. That's just my personal opinion however, its worth more money to see the best of the best play instead of some former college/juco athletes play.

Used to love it when I was a kid. Jordan retired and it got really ghetto (think AI). It has cleaned up a bit in the last few years and I am getting back into it. I have gone to ~10 Rockets games this year. Fun team to watch.

I played basketball for 13 years and refereed it all through college for money. I love the sport of basketball.