Love & Basketball? The Fallen Romance With My Ex-Favorite Sport, Part 1

So early last week, Big Little Brother Scribbler sent me a text saying that he was on his way to Houston for the announcement of Allen Iverson's possible induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame along with four-time NBA champion Shaquille O'Neal.  When he mentioned those names, it reminded me of two things: 1) being happy when the Sixers took Game 1, but being disappointed when the Lakers swept the rest of the series; and 2) when basketball was still competing with football as my favorite sport.  Although Michael Jordan had retired for the second time in 1998, Dominique Wilkins (my favorite player of all time) retired a year later and Hakeem Olajuwon and Patrick Ewing were on the downside of their careers, the new breed that included Iverson, O'Neal, Kobe Bryant and Kevin Garnett were keeping the party going.  However, somewhere along the way, I stopped watching as many regular season games because 82 games just became too much to follow and I simply focused my energy on the playoffs--treating what was once my favorite sport with the same attentiveness that I give the MLB.  So what made me trade in what seemed to be an undying love for basketball for just a casual and sometimes strong like?  Well, in the first of what has become a two-part series, "Love & Basketball? The Fallen Romance With My Ex-Favorite Sport," I will discuss the more personal reasons why I am no longer as smitten with hoops as I was in the 80s, 90s and early 00s...

YOUTH AND FREE TIME ARE NO LONGER LUXURIES.  I used to collect Fleer, Upper Deck and Topps basketball trading cards and would be just as thrilled to get a card of an off-brand player as I would to get one of a superstar because I could tell you who played for who, who they used to play for and how many minutes, points, rebounds, steals and assists they were good for per game.  Throughout junior high school, I used to draw my own oversized collector's cards, one to represent the most outstanding players and the cities of every NBA team.  Although I could probably catch a football better than I could shoot a basketball at one point, I tried out for my high school basketball team just to say that I did it--knowing that I wouldn't make the cut.  For our first Christmas present when we moved to Southwest D.C. in 1994, Big Little Brother Scribbler and I asked Momma Scribbler for a basketball hoop for our backyard and it was perhaps the most memorable material gift that she gave us because it was something that we could always do together.  All throughout high school, my buddies and I would routinely play ball after school at one of the many spots we all called "The Cage" on the campus of George Washington University.  Between the swansong for our Super Nintendo and the beginning of a beautiful relationship with our Sony PlayStation, it was all about NBA Live 95, 96 and 97 as we would host our own mini-tournaments in our basement that made you think that we had actually laced up our Jordans and took it to the court for real.

However, quite a few things happened along the way.  In high school, I traded in my Crayola markers and poster board for keyboards and composition books, so drawing took a permanent backseat to music.  Hence, no more oversized trading cards, but I was rapping about as good as Shaq Diesel.  Instead of spending money on trading cards, my hard-earned allowances and work money went to The Wiz, Tower Records, Kemp Mill Records, Sam Goody, Columbia House and BMG.  When I went to college, neither did I have as much free time to keep up with even half of the NBA or NCAA regular season nor to shoot hoops anymore.  Because the "Baby Shaq" of our neighborhood dunked so hard on our hoop that he ripped it down almost like Shaq did with the Magic, we were forced to go up the street to the neighborhood courts--which were a little more dangerous.  (Apparently, there was one time when somebody came up there with a shotgun and said something to the effect of, "If nobody wants to die today, then y'all better leave right now!")  Also during that time, I remember my roommate talking about how the newer basketball video games just didn't have the same "fun factor" as the NBA Live games of the late 90s.  In fact, the last basketball-related video game that I played religiously was NBA Street Vol. 2 in 2003 and part of that was because 1) I was out of work for a month and had nothing else to do and 2) Just Blaze, one of my favorite hip-hop producers of all time, did a good amount of the instrumentals.  After a seven-year hiatus of not frequenting the courts, I began going to the court around the corner from my apartment nearly every morning before work in the spring of 2009 just to shoot around and keep my legs somewhat fresh.  However, the Fourth of July began another seven-year drought as my knees and the rest of my body harshly reminded me that I could no longer ball with teenagers anymore because I was no longer a teenager.

I STOPPED COVERING BASKETBALL FOR A LIVING.  Whereas the rigors of college came in between my lifelong affinity for basketball, working for The Washington Informer for two years brought me closer to it again.  Moving through the ranks of covering high school and college football and basketball, I would eventually become the paper's primary reporter for Washington Wizards coverage in 2002 and 2003--which was during Michael Jordan's third run.  However, although it was awesome to be steps away from the G.O.A.T., every reporter in the D.C. area had their recorders in front of his face and very few got to speak with him exclusively.  (I may have shouted out a question from the back of the crowd once or twice.)  I found it more interesting to have one-on-one interviews with players like Rip Hamilton, Larry Hughes, Etan Thomas, Jerry Stackhouse and Tyronn Lue--who stood the same height as I did, so he was the one guy to whom I could vertically relate.  Going into opposing locker rooms was a bit intimidating at first--in fact, I remember somebody from the then-New Jersey Nets picking with me because they could tell that I was a newbie.  However, interviewing the likes of Tim Duncan and Paul Pierce--both of whom were very gracious--made me excited for the future of the NBA.  Interestingly enough, two of the most memorable highlights at the MCI Center had nothing to do with the Wizards: 1) the quadruple overtime thriller between Notre Dame and Georgetown, although the Fighting Irish tallied a 116-111 win much to my chagrin; and 2) the 2003 Jordan Capital Classic that showcased the talents of a young Chris Paul, Shannon Brown and the most popular No. 23 of the modern era in LeBron James, although his team lost 107-102.

However, seeing the younger, hungrier players in those two games was only one of the biggest indicators of a changing and possibly problematic league.  When the Wizards failed to make the playoffs during both of Jordan's years, it was the 2002 Washington Mystics and covering WNBA games that kept me even remotely interested in professional basketball.  Unlike more of the exclusivity and grandstanding that several NBA players engaged in--I wasn't even allowed near the Lakers locker room after they beat the Wizards one night because I wasn't from a more nationally-renowned news outlet--WNBA players just wanted to play the game.  Not even having Jordan playing before sold-out crowds every night could match the high intensity that was in the arena when Chamique Holdsclaw, Stacey Dales and the Mystics were in Ball So Hard mode and anybody they faced gave them just as much competition.  Heck, instead of being a section or two away from the nose bleeds at NBA games, I was virtually sitting courtside covering WNBA games and felt every bit of the electricity of the experience as if I were on the court--a rush that I just wasn't getting at the Wizards games.  Here are some rough, sad figures to highlight the potential difference: in 2002, the salary range in the NBA was between $350K and $25M versus $25K and $50K in the WNBA.  Hence, you can tell which league has a bunch of players who are perhaps performing out of a sense of complacency and which one plays with a bigger chip on its shoulders.  Perhaps many NBA players were more concerned with money, superstardom and egotistical posturing about whose team it was than playing as a cohesive unit or having an irrefutable enthusiasm for the game of basketball.  Maybe the league was reflective of the entertainment industry at-large at that particular time inasmuch as it was trying to reestablish interest in a sport in which many of the players seemed a bit disinterested.  That brings me to my final point...

CABLE TELEVISION BEGAN MONOPOLIZING THE ASSOCIATION.  Although my family has been fortunate enough to have cable TV since 1989, NBA games and associated programs were still largely accessible via network and local television stations.  The reason that I even knew as much as I did about basketball was because of The NBA on CBS and particularly when Dick Stockton and Hubie Brown were respectively doing the commentary and play-by-play analysis.  Truth be told, CBS was a huge amount of the reason that I was a Lakers and Pistons fan during the 80s because their coverage was top notch, especially during the Finals.  Despite my brother and I slowly but surely growing out of watching Saturday morning cartoons as we got older, our Saturday afternoon staple was to still watch NBA Inside Stuff on NBC when Ahmad Rashad and Willow Bay were the hosts--which really gave us the juice regarding our favorite players around the league.  However, one of the greatest audio visual gifts in basketball lore was The NBA on NBC.  First of all, the best thing that John Tesh did as a musician was compose "Roundball Rock", the iconic theme associated with the program that enjoyed a twelve-year run.  Second, much like he does in his segments on NBC's Football Night in America, Bob Costas knew how to set us all up for a showdown of epic proportions with NBA Showtime.  Third, two words: Marv Albert.  Let me tell it, there has been no one before or after him to bring as much color to basketball commentary whether he was simply exclaiming "yes...and the foul" or made it player-specific such as "a spectacular move...by Michael Jordan".  Since I had only been to like three or four pro games as a kid and teenager, having these fixtures on network television to satisfy my hunger for watching basketball was absolutely paramount to maintaining my interest.

However, when Marv Albert ended up pleading guilty to misdemeanor assault and battery charges stemming from a 1997 incident in a Pentagon City, Virginia hotel room, I knew that the death knell had been spelled for NBC.  Five years later, they lost the rights to broadcast NBA games to ABC.  Now I could sit here and tell you about the statistical drop in ratings once that transition was made or how the number of regular season games per year on network television went from about 33 on NBC to less than 20 on ABC.  From a fan and an audio visual geek's perspective, I was not as impressed with the coverage or the presentation--not to mention that the product itself was just not as palatable.  I mean, come on...John Tesh offered ABC "Roundball Rock" since everybody associated the NBA with it by that point, but the network wanted something completely different.  That something different meant using nine different themes during the first two seasons--three being traditional sports themes, six being works by contemporary artists.  Yeah...they just came out the gate losing.  Moreover, before the complete transition from analog to digital transmissions in June 2009, more and more nationally-televised games were shown on ESPN and TNT--which meant that a lot of folks who either couldn't afford or refused to get cable were missing out on many of those marquee games that were once saved for CBS or NBC.  Between 2006 and 2009, I was one of those people who didn't have cable primarily due to 1) not wanting to deal with Comcast's deplorable customer service and 2) not seeing the benefit of paying over $100 per month for a triple play package when I could get phone and Internet service for about $40 per month with Verizon.  On top of all of this, the NFL was winning the war against the other three major North American sports as they marketed their product much better, had a more marketable product to begin with and...wait for it...still broadcast most of their games on network television, including the advent of NBC Sunday Night Football in 2006 when Monday Night Football went from ABC to ESPN.  Watching the Skins was a piece of cake as most of their games were shown on FOX whereas I would've had to watch Comcast SportsNet if I wanted to see most Wizards games.  Let's do a quick Libra balancing act...watching a loser of a football team that was still my team regardless for free versus paying to see a team that I didn't even claim as my team until I came back from college that might make the playoffs, but would probably get bounced out by LeBron and the Cavs anyway?  Easy choice there, slim.


In an attempt to recapture a piece of my youthful vigor, I recently went to Target and purchased a Spalding Street Basketball and it took me over a month to finally get to the court.  Whereas I couldn't hit the broad side of a barn during my first time at the court in nearly seven years over a week ago, I started hitting some better shots and finding more of a rhythm this past Sunday--not to mention that the wind wasn't taking away all of my shots.  Now let's be clear: please don't ask me to join some 5-on-5 charity game or a random pickup street game.  As evidenced from not making my high school squad (which was pretty bad without me stinking it up), I have never been that good and my knees are still mad at me for subjecting them to such torturous impact for the past two Sundays.  Furthermore, it's not like I'm getting back into collecting trading cards, drawing posters of LeBron James and Steph Curry or wasting $40 for a copy of NBA 2K17 when I'm still trying to beast out in Ultimate Team mode on Madden NFL 16.  Now I could very well get back into writing for a publication and (hopefully) cover any level of basketball to help me get my love back, but that would probably be the only way that I would watch more than five to ten regular season games all year.  In the meantime, you can catch this 36-year-old brother with sore muscles on a basketball court near you still trying to hit that turnaround fadeaway like Hakeem the Dream in 1994, but missing just as many free throws as he did in 1984.

Please come back next week and read the second and final part of "Love & Basketball? The Fallen Romance With My Ex-Favorite Sport".  In the meantime, please feel free to share some of your own personal memories of any and all things basketball.