Shamrock Thoughts: This NBA Finals Helps Justify My Disdain For The NBA

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Again!? Again.

Let me get this out of the way before we go any further, there is no parity in the NBA. Golden State and Cleveland again for the NBA Finals!? For the fourth freaking year in a row!? And I’m crazy for not liking the league?

The NBA has the most talent in the world, so this should not be happening every year. There should be parity. So why does this keep happening? This is not meaning to take away how talented both teams are, they absolutely are very talented, but in terms of talent on any of the rosters, they were not the best teams in their respective conferences.

Every one knows that I have publicly admitted for why I don’t like the NBA. Just read that link to refresh on why I don’t, but this is getting boring. Now I get it, having LeBron James or Steph Curry playing in the NBA Finals because they are one of the top names in the sport, which is great for the ratings (and the league does an exceptional job of marketing these guys) play in the championship, but I’d rather watch other teams (and that should be emphasized) that truly play the game rather than have squads led by these one man shows in these NBA Finals. The Houston Rockets would be a lot better than having the Warriors or the Cavaliers in the Finals for sure. Even the result of this year’s NBA Finals was predictable and the whole series was boring.

The other thing that gets me is the officiating. It’s horrific. Even I could call a better game than what these referees have been calling. It truly feels like that the referees wanted this matchup to be the one every year because they know it’s helps the image of the league, but the league has also alienated a lot of people from their fanbase. I being one of them. Get better officiating and maybe I’ll come back. But at this point it even feels like a conspiracy. I thought we were done with the Tim Donaghy-like refereeing in the sport.

I am so done hearing about how much a whiner LeBron James is or if whether Draymond Green will do something stupid. It’s drama and drama helps boost the ratings, I get it, but I am there to watch basketball and that’s it. It feels like I am watching a reality TV show rather than a sport. If I wanted to watch a reality TV show, I might as well watch Jersey Shore re-runs on VHS (however, I am a sucker for Kitchen Nightmare).

And I don’t even want to hear about the whole Boston Celtics-Los Angeles Lakers argument. Those guys actually had stiff competition to even win their conferences as they had to beat some really good squads. The last four years, this season was the closest it’s ever been for Cleveland or Golden State to even win their conferences, but it was predictable what the outcome was going to be. It felt scripted. When the Celtics and Lakers were doing it, it didn’t feel scripted. It was just remarkable. Besides, their teams would foul out every game if they played in this era. Had the Cavaliers or Warriors done it in the same fashion as Los Angeles and Boston, I’d have more respect and be a bit more incentivized to watch.

So here is a recommendation to the NBA: Please find a way to make me excited about the NBA Finals again. Make me love your league again. With stuff like this going on, you have to know that you will lose more fans. Just do something about it. Take advantage of the amount of talent you have in the league.

This isn’t even debatable any more as evidenced by this year’s Finals, once again, the NBA just is not great. Might have the best talent, but it just isn’t great. It’s boring. I can’t wait till college basketball starts up.

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