GuidoWorld

Stern Rule

June 16, 2008 on 4:27 pm | In General |

I’ve been a basketball enthusiast for the greater part of my life. It, therefore, pains me to see the direction the NBA has taken under the increasingly dictatorial and entertainment focus of commissioner David Stern.

The first major red flag that I noticed came in the early 90’s when Pat Riley decided to rest a few of his starters in a meaningless game before the playoffs. This practice is still popular in other sports such as football and baseball. The reasons for resting some of your most important players is obvious. One it gets them rested and healed for the upcoming grind of the playoffs. Two, it gives reserve players an opportunity to get needed experience in actual games with the least amount of pressure on them. And, of course, it prevents the key players from injuring themselves in a rather meaningless contest.

This style of making sure your players are rested and healthy and are peaking at the right time, is one of the most controversial and important decisions a coach has to make at the end of the regular season.

When Riley rested players such as Jabbar and Magic Johnson, the sportswriters immediately debated the relative worth and danger of the move. Is the rest and safety worth the risk of harming team chemistry and momentum going into the playoffs? Will the layoff make them rusty and ill prepared for the first game of the playoffs?

Such questions have been at the heart of sports psychology and training for centuries. How many races should a track star run before the Olympics, how close to a bout should a boxer continue to spar, etc.?

Yet, commissioner Stern did the most absurdly amazing thing. In one unprecedented decision he demonstrated both his stupidity of sports and his priorities. His response to this previously common practice was to fine the Riley and the Lakers organization for sitting out the players. His rationale was simply that the fans had paid good money to watch the “stars”.

In one fell swoop sports enthusiasts were transformed from fans of a sport to paying ticket holders of an entertainment spectacle. The members of the Lakers became performing artists and the fans became paid customers of a staged event. The NBA players were put on notice that they were no longer professional athletes who were being coached to execute the game plan and long term goals of their teams, but rather stage performers who must heed the phrase “the show must go on”.

It seems that Stern took too literally the tag of “showtime” to the colorful Lakers led by Magic Johnson and James Worthy. I guess its only fitting that Stern exposed himself as the entertainment mogul that he is in an event in Hollywood.

It appears to me that Mr. Stern idolized and patterns himself after the old early Hollywood film company presidents who cared only for image and not substance. Like, those men, Stern looks to manage and control the off-court “image” of NBA players by instituting a dress code. While I know of no specific morals clauses in any contracts you do get the feeling that Stern would if he could.

The image concerns of old Hollywood had some basis in reality for some stars did indeed lose their popularity due to their behavior or past. Yet, in today’s world such character flaws and personality quirks actually can increase one’s popularity. In Sterns rigid image world the most popular “stars” filling the seats and selling the merchandise are often those resisting Stern’s policies such as Dennis Rodman, Charles Barkley and Mavs owner Cuban to name a few.

Though finding this type of control freak image making personally repugnant and insulting it does not impact the integrity of the game. Yet, what is most disturbing about Mr. Sterns egotistical and promotional stance towards the game is its impact on the integrity of the sport. His actions and words were quite clear, “the stars” are what is important. Professional basketball is not a sport but rather a form of entertainment. It is something to be packaged and produced, and if done right it can be a very lucrative business and Mr. Stern can become an American success story icon.

The packaging and entertainment value became primary and the integrity of the sport became inconsequential. The stated entertainment need for the stars to remain on the court caused the games to be called differently and even the rules to be modified and altered. If the stars are to remain on the court, then they cannot foul out. This necessitated that less fouls be called, especially on stars. It is now expected that stars get the benefit of the doubt on close calls. If a star commits a foul an effort is made to assign the foul to someone else in the vicinity who s considered expendable in terms of entertainment value.

Since NBA stars are now packaged as super heroes we are routinely asked to ignore the fact that they have traveled or pushed off with their non dribbling hand, as they slam the ball in the basket (or was that leap tall buildings in a single bound).

The warped rules of basketball have found their way into the street game where the Shaq bowl over people to dunk the ball move became a desired and fair play. Or the push and hold strategies of NBA stars become entitlement moves. Likewise the absurd cry of “let them play” to endorse basketball anarchy is echoed in YMCA’s around the nation when someone tries to hold an opponent accountable for trying to replace skill and athleticism with brute force and dishonesty.

In the next post I will continue to examine Mr. Stern’s reign of terror, by addressing both his misplaced attribution that the popularity of basketball is due to his business acumen and how the current basketball scandal is a natural outgrowth of his entertainment over sport philosophy.

Jim Guido