Reggie Miller to bring lack of skills back to NBA

7 Responses to “ Reggie Miller to bring lack of skills back to NBA”

1. snissen

   August 8, 20075:54 pm

   I’m NOT a Pacer’s fan. In fact, I think the NBA is largely low-grade nonsense (and not because of gambling refs).

   But Reggie had 15 straight seasons with 100 three pointers, giving him the all time made record. He also ranks in top-20 for both all-time points and all-time post-season points. Dude’s got more all time points than C. Barkley.
2. PostmanE

   August 8, 20075:58 pm

   I didn’t mean to imply that Reggie wasn’t a good player (even though I realize I did exactly that); I simply mean to say that he is not going to be a good player now. At the very least, on the Celtics, he’ll be a completely redundant one.

   Miller was a great player. I enjoyed watching him, even when MJ was stomping all over his heart (bias revealed!) every May.

   And the NBA as low-grade nonsense? Eh? What’s high-grade?
3. Matt D

   August 8, 200711:16 pm

   Eammon, I can no longer read your blog in silence, you’ve gone too far. To insult Reggie Miller to a Hoosier is like making fun of Mohammed to a Muslim.

   I demand you make a retraction and or at least send a personal note to the Miller family begging forgiveness.

   If Miller comes out of retirement to join the Celtics I will drop out of school, burn all of my Pacers memorabilia and go into hiding until I die from starvation or dehydration. It means that much to me. Good day.
4. Copy

   August 9, 200710:50 am

   Whoa, whoa, “if Miller indeed has a legacy to tarnish”? Ask the mid-90s Knicks about that.
   True, he probably won’t bring anything of value to the Celtics, but who knows.
   As a (former) Pacers fan, a part of me might die if he does join the team.
   And I agree with Sam: low-grade nonsense
5. snissen

   August 9, 200711:45 am

   Not out of wanting to belabor the point (though I will), but high-grade is refs who at least appear to call games based on the rules, not momentum; high-grade is parity (NFL), or at least competition (baseball, for all of its problems), or underdog-laden winner-take-all (NCAA football and basketball, for all of their problems); high-grade is attempting to right your wrongs with sensible policy (cycling), or at least punishing the morally indefensible (NFL).

   College football has problems, but even that UTEP-TCU or Texas A&M-Utah is likely good fun. NCAA basketball has its problems, but at least the playoffs are interesting and fun (and there are no conferences!). The No Fun League (should be the less acronym-friendly Court of Public Opinion League) has its problems, but a winner-take-all system where a team game must be won by well-rounded teams far outpaces the NBA’s median action. And the NFL, for all its innumerable problems, doesn’t refuse to, say, cut down its schedule because that would cut ad revenue. And it, as with college conferences, punishes refs publicly who don’t enforce the rules (think: travelling) and changes bad rules every year.

   The NBA’s not all bad, but they need some serious rethinking – all leagues change significantly over time – but David Stern seems to think the formula that brought us the Mike Jordan (a.k.a. just hope for another MJ) will save the league from a tepid regular season that serves better cut down to a highlight reel and a post season that favors a boring brand of basketball.

   And the “No Fun League” crown should be worn by the NBA. These quasi-racist bastards force dress codes on players who dress too urban and think Jermaine O’Neal gets two weeks on the bench for defending himself from a drunk, charging (white) Detroit fan.

   But, as you say: blog on, brother. You know I’ll love a spirited football-vs-basketball debate any day.
6. PostmanE

   August 9, 200712:15 pm

   S:

   There’s a lot to unpack there, most of it entirely legitimate, but nowhere in there do I find an aesthetic rating of the game, which is mostly what I figured you were referring to. Moral and practical disagreements with the NBA aside (and I agree with probably half of what you say, and agree that major changes are needed in plenty of areas, but the same is most obviously true of college football; and let’s not hold up the NCAA as a bastion of integrity) the argument I tend to hate about the NBA is that it is not a quality game, or a quality product, on a nightly basis. That’s obviously a matter of opinion, but I find it hard to believe that any real basketball fan would consider the actual games, or the athletes therein, substandard by any stretch. They are the best basketball players in the world, and the vast majority of them match their breathtaking athleticism with competitive desire. The speed of the game, the technique at its highest levels, that’s why I spend all my winter Thursday nights watching TNT.

   There are practical problems with any league. If the NBA is “racist” (and I don’t think it is at all, unless mandating a slightly professional appearance for the benefit of marketing is racist, in which case all of our employers have some answering to do) the NFL is willfully careless about the crippled old-timers its bloodlusty fans regale at every retirement ceremony. College athletics are drenched in lofty rhetoric about student-athletes while most programs just barely nudge their athletes through and then leave them to fend for themselves, sans a true education, not to mention the nasty recruiting practices that every successful coach has to engage in. Major League Baseball … let’s not even go there.

   At the heart of all of this for me, still, is aesthetic value. I like the NFL as an entity, but I don’t enjoy the actual games nearly as much as I enjoy basketball, either college or NBA. I disagree that East Texas vs. BFEU is likely still fun; that sounds tedious, and that’s probably where we differ. That’s perfectly acceptable. But that doesn’t mean the NBA is the only league with serious problems; it just means we can intelligently enjoy them anyway and hope they improve the overall product in the future. If we criticize the NBA for its problems, the NFL and Major League Baseball and the NCAA and basically every professional sports league on this planet has to answer for its own problems, too. All of it, in my mind, cancels out, and it becomes about the games again, and our preferences for each. And that’s when I’m at my happiest as a sports fan.
7. snissen

   August 9, 200712:53 pm

   No, you’re right about the players are legit and basketball’s awesome. The league just happens to employ a certain smattering of problems that detract from the game more than other leagues, for my viewing pleasure. Blog on, blog on.

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