NBA Shoots Itself in the Foot Again

My wife primarily only watches the NFL. Which means that most of the year, she has little to no interest in most other sports and pines away for the return of football season each year. I enjoy both the NFL and the NBA, so can make it nearly year-round with watching sports I like. I have tried to entice my wife into watching and, hopefully, learning to enjoy the NBA but so far she hasn't been able to.

The NBA should be a fluid game filled with constant action and little contact. It should be fun to watch these superb athletes play this sport. It isn't. The NBA has gone rule crazy to a degree that has whistles blowing all the time, which stops play. They have a means by which players are kicked out of the game so fans can't watch their favorites play. They hire athletic thugs and allow them to absolutely beat up on one another in this low-contact sport. When they are simply playing and the whistles aren't sounding, my wife does get into it. But that doesn't happen enough.

The owners have agreed that players complain too much after calls. While I agree, the egregiously bad calls that have been going on for over a decade now do warrant some complaint. However, the owners response for this upcoming season is to pretty much make any show of emotion over a bad call worthy of a Technical foul, which means free throws, a stoppage of play, and potentially quicker exits for players from the game. This was seen in a microcosm this week during preseason when a technical was called in the New York/Boston game, which Kevin Garnett argued, giving him a technical, and then he said something about that call and was ejected from the game. I'm missing someone, but in the course of about 20 seconds of this game, four technical fouls were called and one super-star was ejected. Meanwhile, Stoudemire was complaining nearly every trip down the floor, arguing with referees and no technical was called on him. (cite)

The rules changes to allow refs to call technical fouls sooner seem to be too subjective. What constitutes demonstrative and continuous displays of emotion to one ref may not be to another ref. So the players won't know when, how far, or how much they can show emotion on the court. One ref may feel the player's reaction is in the heat of the moment and not over the top, another may differ. (cite)

This all boils down to: players will get more technical fouls and those who get technical fouls are more likely to miss playing in that game and in future games (since the NBA has a limit on how many technical fouls a player can get during a season). Which defeats the NBA's stated goal of "growing the brand." It also puts more stoppages of play into the game, which none of the fans like or want. And, lastly, and possibly the worst result, it means the refs decisions can decide the outcome of a game. (comments from someone who sat in on the refs overview of the new rules)

All of these things cause my wife to shy away from getting involved in the sport. It likely means other wives don't want to watch it either. It likely means that new people have a harder time getting into, understanding, and enjoying the sport, so don't start watching. Which, in the end, means that the NBA is shooting itself in the foot yet again.