SamSaid!

SWISH

    Last week I attended an NBA game. It was the first pro basketball game I have attended for about 20 years. I was not impressed. Fortunately, the price was right  –  a freebie ticket.

    As a school boy, I always looked forward to the seasonal transition from one sport to another  –  football to basketball to baseball/softball. Our school didn't have sports like swimming, golf, tennis, wrestling, volleyball, etc. I was a bit scrawney for football, but played basketball and baseball respectably. If basketball was a favorite, it was likely because I was over 6 feet tall and enjoyed a bit of an advantage over my diminutive companions.  

     My first exposure to pro basketball occurred while working in Boston for 2 years. That gave me the chance to see the Celtics play on the parquet floor in the old, rickety, smoky Boston Garden. I became a Celtic fan all through the dynasty that stretched from Cousy, Sharman, Russell, the Joneses, Havlicek, Cowan, Bird, Mchale, et. al. After the Celtics fell by the wayside, pro basketball became a victim of my “delete” key.

     When Dr.Naismith invented basketball, he clearly de-emphasized the physical part of the game and put the basket above the reach of the players. He did not intend to create a variable of football played indoors without pads on a hardwood floor. But all of that has changed. Now pro basketball is a very physical game dominated by big powerful men. Very big. Are there skilled shooters and passers? Sure. But they are role players to the big guys who dominate the game. Dancing is described as a contact sport;  basketball is a collision sport. And new generation people ooh and aah over the althletic gyrations that precede a “dunk” which in my view is the antithesis of basketball. It may be entertainment, but hardly basketball. The game has changed dramatically from the rules to the players, but the basket stays at 10' above the floor  –  right where it was 100 years ago.

     All sports have their characteristic sound logos. In baseball it is the crack of the bat, in football it is the thunderous “touchdown”, in soccer it is “g-o-o-a-a-l”, and in basketball it is “swish” –  the sound of the perfect shot that hits nothing but the net. For me, the NBA sound logo is a faint click – the sound of changing the channel.

     Every 20 years may be a good interval to review change. Who knows, maybe by the then the basket will be at 12' where it belongs for the biological accidents plying their trade on the hardwood.  

     Come to think of it, “fore” offers a much better sound nowadays.