Time to Card Players At the NBA Door
One of the first games played this season in the NBA was the Orlando Magic at the New York Knicks. The teams combined for a paltry 68 points at the half. The prior weekend, North Carolina played at Maryland and the two combined for 66 points at the half... playing football.
The scoreboard is all that needs to be examined to conclude that the level of play in the NBA is down. Scoring is down along with shooting percentages and the only reason turnovers are down is because coaches don't trust their players to play up-tempo anymore.
Players being drafted by the NBA are too young, but more importantly, most don't have enough high level game experience to positively impact the league. The NBA needs a minimum age requirement in order to improve the quality of play.
Scoring in the NBA is slowing to Balboni-esque pace and in the aforementioned Magic/Knicks tilt, Tracy McGrady eventually led Orlando to an 85-83 overtime win. That was the Magic's only win of the season until a 19 game losing streak was snapped this past week.
McGrady is the centerpiece of the Magic and during the lengthy slide, spoke out about the use of zone defenses in the NBA. McGrady said that he never learned to play against zone defenses because he never played against them in college.
Uh, Tracy? For your max contract, film study might be a good idea so you can learn how to play against a zone. You can even just watch college basketball where Dick Vitale will go on and on about ball rotation and utilizing the high post against a zone until... well he's still going.
McGrady's lack of knowledge is the reason why players need more experience before entering the league. One GM anonymously told ESPN, "At their age, with their lack of experience, they shouldn't be ready."
Joe Dumars has even said that Kobe, KG and McGrady shouldn't have been and weren't ready for the NBA.
Even with these sentiments, the recent influx of high school players into the NBA has changed the draft process of we know it. Superstars like Garnett, Bryant and Jermaine O'Neal have made the jump from prep to pro, but other phenoms like Korleone Young and Lenny Cooke have disappeared after being disappointed on draft night.
18-olds will continue to enter the draft early because of the money that can be made and they have every right to do so. My point is, the young players are hurting the quality of the NBA. Sure LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony and other rookies are making an impact on the NBA this season, but as players enter the league with less experience, teams are forced to play more of an individual game.
Except for most of the giants of the Western Conference and the Utah Jazz, NBA teams have limited their offenses to mostly pick and rolls, post ups and isolation plays.
Along with scoring, assists are drastically down across the league. This season, only Sacramento is averaging more than 25 assists a game, a mark that was reached by nearly half the league 10 seasons ago.
These numbers show that teams aren't playing good team basketball at the offensive end, it shows that coaches won't let their teams just play. Many of the lesser talented teams, read the Eastern Conference, give themselves a chance by walking the ball up the floor to limit the numbers of possessions. Teams don't run simply because the coaches don't trust the players to make smart, fundamentally sound decisions.
An age limit similar to the NFL would force players to find the highest level of competition to better prepare themselves for the league. Not only would this help players gain more game experience, but it would also improve college basketball, which has suffered as much as the pro game from kids not staying in school.
The one season that Anthony spent at Syracuse results in a National Championship for the Orangemen, and an enjoyable tournament run for any college fan to watch. Personally, I would enjoy seeing at least two years of these players in college before jumping to the pros. March Madness will always be one of the greatest events in sports, but the regular season in college basketball is not as interesting to watch as it was just 10 years ago because the talent level has declined as the best players aren't playing.
I don't dispute that these young players have a right to earn a living and I realize that an age requirement will be a hard thing to adopt for a league that is growing younger by the season. However, for the sake of the fans of the league, commissioner David Stern should push for it during the next collective bargaining session.
More game experience might not prevent teams from making some of the same fundamental mistakes, but if players are more fundamentally sound, coaches might be willing to give them more freedom on the floor. Would you miss seeing Eddy Curry backing into a double team with no awareness of where the free man is?
File last modified March 01, 2004
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