This commentary is dedicated to my
nephew, Krishen Clemente, who died unexpectedly on Friday, May 26. He was an
avid NBA fan and will be sorely missed by all who knew him.
My friends think it is a bit daft when I stay up until 1 am
to watch two back-to-back NBA playoff games. After all, we have no local skin
in the game. Professional basketball is
not a sport that garners much attention in southwestern Pennsylvania.
I am not as dedicated as my NJ family who all season long
follow the New York Knicks with great passion. However, when the NBA playoffs
roll around, all the games are must-see entertainment. For two months, political
talk shows, streaming my favorite programs, and reading novels take a back seat
to professional basketball.
Three events in the spring and summer of 2020 made me a
permanent fan of the NBA playoffs. First, the pandemic interrupted other sporting
events normally on the broadcast schedule. The NBA finished its regular season
and the playoffs by creating a bio-secure bubble at a live-in facility near Walt
Disney World. Nearly $190 million was invested to set up a secure environment
where players and their families could stay until their team was eliminated.
The league
produced a rulebook of more than 100 pages to protect its players in an attempt
to salvage the remainder of the season. Strict directives included isolation
protocols, testing requirements, and the potential for financial penalties.
Isolated players had to forego participating in the games until they were
medically cleared.
The experiment
was a great success. Sports fans like me who rarely watched the NBA were stuck
at home with little to do. Many of us
became enamored with the sport and quickly learned that 2 ½ hours of NBA
playoff basketball offered ten times the excitement of a major league baseball
game.
The second
event took place on August
26, 2020, when the NBA Milwaukee Bucks canceled an in-the-bubble playoff game
against the Orlando Magic. This action was taken in response to the shooting of
an unarmed Black man, not far from the Buck’s Milwaukee home court. The
bubble-confined players realized that basketball was not the priority until the
NBA could collectively agree on how to respond to police shootings of unarmed
Black men.
Within hours, the NBA was effectively shut down for
several days giving the players, coaches, and owners time to reflect on racism in
America. In solidarity, games in other
professional sporting events were also canceled. Many professional and college
football teams suspended summer practices to show their support. White players, without hesitation, backed
their Black teammates.
For two days, I divided my attention
between the NBA channel, ESPN, and the radio sports talk shows. The discussions
were profound, emotional, and cathartic. One after another, strong, proud,
normally stoic athletes bared their souls and explained what it is like to grow
up Black in America. I came to appreciate Black athletes for more than their
athletic abilities and to admire their advocacy for social justice.
The third event
was my introduction to “Inside the NBA”
on the TNT cable channel where many of the playoff games are broadcast. It did not take long for me to agree with the
critics that this professional basketball program is among the best sports
analysis shows on television. Inside the
NBA has won seventeen Sports Emmy Awards since its inception. No other sports show has the level of knowledge, experience, and
humor. It caters to both casual observers like my spouse and to die-hard fans.
The
chemistry on the set of Inside the NBA
provides the right mix of wisdom and wit. The ringmaster is longtime mainstay
Ernie Johnson, the son of a major league pitcher, who is a statistical genius,
and the perfect straight man. Kenny Smith, the smooth New York City point
guard, provides real-time analysis. Charles Barkley, “the round mound,” often
disagrees with the consensus and drops explosive observations. Lastly,
Shaquille O’Neal plays the quiet agitator, an unexpected role given his large 7-foot
frame. No matter how one-sided the actual basketball game, Inside the NBA, always provides a pre-game and halftime performance
that has listeners talking the next day.
I belong to the
camp of sports fans who believe that the regular NBA season is too long and
mostly irrelevant. Sixteen teams make the playoffs. Each team plays 82 regular
season games to determine seeding and home-court advantage. During the regular
season, the best players are often withheld from competition to avoid injury.
Many regular season games are one-sided lackluster affairs.
Once the playoffs begin,
all bets are off, and the intensity of play is ratcheted up. Players are diving for balls, taking brutal “charges”
and “going to the rim” through a defensive gauntlet of arms and body blows. To
keep up the adrenaline, playoff games are usually won or lost in the final
minutes of play.
With
the help of the announcers from Inside
the NFL, the complex strategy for each game comes into focus. Coaches strive
to dictate the pace of the game. The speed and athleticism of younger teams are
up against the fundamentals and defense of more veteran players.
Similar
to the NCAA March Madness Tournament, I enjoy watching the playoffs with little
regard for the teams that are playing. There is always a storyline to make each
game exciting. When the playoffs are over in June, I can console myself with
the fact that there are only three months to the beginning of football season.
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