What is wrong with the NBA?

Listening to the radio the other day, a question was brought up about how to improve the NBA.  Personally, I think the NBA is worst of the 4 major professional sports leagues, and offers very little excitement or reason for me personally watching.  Yes, the players are extremely athletic, and they make incredible plays look incredibly easy.  But it does not offer the entertainment that other sports can.  There are no hated rivalries (Bird vs Magic), there are no coaching masterminds (Belichek, LaRussa, Babcock), there really is no sport.  The competition is pathetic, and each game seems more like an exhibition than the last.

 The thing that probably most upsets me is how much EACH player whines to the refs about someone looking at them wrong… oops, should be a foul.  I mean, come on, the NBA refs have taken away half of the rules already and yet the players still find a need to complain?  Watch a B1G college basketball game, and then really see if you have reason to complain.  A few weeks ago during the MSU vs OSU game, Tom Izzo’s strategy on Sullinger was to get into his head at all costs.  He threw big guy after big guy at him, and as he went up for every shot, the MSU player would hit his left arm.  It technically doesn’t affect the shot, but since the refs called it 1 time the entire game, it made Sullinger try to play against the refs instead of MSU.  This sort of thing happens in each B1G game, refs let physical play go.  The refs in the NBA let players get away with a 3.5 steps without calling travels, if you get fouled at the three point line take 2 more steps then shoot the ball and somehow it is continuation and a 2 shot foul (WHAAAAAAAAT?!?!?!), every single point guard carries the ball constantly, and if you are lucky enough to be one of the NBA’s players of the week… you have the refs in your back pocket.  Enjoy getting every call and being able to shoot 10-15 free throws in each game. 

If you take a look at the other professional sports transitions from college, minors, etc.  Each sport gets harder for the athletes.  College football cannot compare to the physicality of NFL, each tackle is like a car crash.  The players are bigger, faster, and stronger.  An “open” receiver in the NFL would be considered blanketed in college.  MLB seems to continue to make the strike zone smaller, outfields bigger… oh yea and they use wooden bats people.  Yet, the NBA thinks adding a couple feet to the 3 point line is a good substitute.  I get so sick of these privileged athletes complaining more to the refs than just trying to play basketball, that the NBA is unwatchable.  How about you enjoy playing a game that you are getting paid well for (and if you weren’t playing the majority of these guys don’t have an education or a back up plan), shut up, and just compete against your opponent and not the refs.  Some games it almost feels like it’s the two teams against the refs, this is the main competition.  I don’t want to waste 3 hours of my night to watch this crap.  If I want to see someone complain to the refs I will watch an  MSU game. 

Probably the biggest crapshoot in the NBA is the draft.  If you are an NFL team , regardless of your drafting position you are likely to get at least 2 eventual starters in each draft (whether its your first 2 round picks or a diamond in the rough).  In the NBA, some teams in the top 10 get a player that will barely ever see the floor (Darko, Hasheem Thabeet, Kwame Brown, etc).  Of the 60 draft picks each year, only about 20 of them pan out as a legit NBA player.  This is ridiculous.  Something is wrong with the system.  When bad teams are supposed to get the best player, yet they have a 1/3 chance of getting someone to contribute.  I personally think that the NBA should do away with the mandatory 1 year college rule (either change it to 2 years like NFL or just take it away).  If a player doesn’t want to go to college, they should be able to enter the NBA draft and get paid a similar amount to a European player (40-50k).  They should be entered into a sort of minor league system, whether that’s the D-league or something new.  Then if you choose to go to college, then I think it should be mandatory to stay at least 2 years.  After either 2 years in the D-league or 2 years in college, then another NBA draft will happen.  This will give the teams the ability to look at all of these European unknowns play against like competition and see if they are really any good.  I think this will at least give each NBA team a legit shot at getting an instant player in the first round of each draft.  Right now so many teams are bad (Pistons and Cavs for example), but they are also so young.  The entire NBA franchise will have to grow along with these inexperienced project players (Monroe and Knight).  Since they have invested so much money into these guys, they have to see the floor even if it doesn’t give the team the best chance of winning each night.  So the current system in the NBA is really unable to improve teams through the draft like every other league can.  Bad teams will continue to be bad until one of their draft picks is 2-3 years in the league… or they pick up a key free agent.  Look at the Pistons run of 6 straight Eastern Conference Finals.  Who was drafted by the team, and who was picked up through trades or free agency?  Prince was drafted.  Billups, Wallace, Wallace, Hamilton all picked up the latter.  The only team right now in the entire NBA that has built a franchise based from the draft is the OKC Thunder, because they had 3 top 10 picks in 2 years. Along with 2 more high draft picks in the surrounding years. This makes up the core of their team Also they got lucky that Portland passed on Durant and took Oden first.  There is a lot wrong with the NBA, and I doubt it will ever get corrected.  Right now it seems like a bad organization from the top down, and sometimes with badly run companies it is best to just let nature take its course and the company to go out of business.