By Justin Powell
ProBasketballNews.com
There’s no other situation in sports where you, as a fan, develop as much hatred for your opponents than during the NBA playoffs.
That might not be a very PC thing to say, but it’s the truth -- and there’s not even a close second.
I’ve noticed that this season not only by my looking at my own situation (an admitted Orlando Magic fan who grew increasingly annoyed with T.J. Ford during the first round), but by talking to friends across the country who root for a wide variety of teams.
A lot of those friends are Cavs fans who despise pretty much the entire Wizards roster right now. That’s easy to understand -- that’s about as chippy a first-round series as you’ll ever see.
But Cavs (and Wizards) fans aren’t alone in hating their opponent right now. It’s popping up all over the place.
I’ve come up with several reasons why fans loathe the other team in the NBA playoffs more than, say, the NFL or MLB playoffs, any college game or even in an individual sport like boxing.
1. Most NBA players come off as whiny bitches.
Yes, NBA refs make a ton of bad calls each game, and yes, we’re all sitting at home cursing the officials at every opportunity, but that doesn’t mean I like watching players doing the same thing.
I get annoyed when the guys on the team I’m rooting for complain, and it’s obviously 10 times worse seeing the other guys whine non-stop.
There’s no question that there’s more complaining per second in the NBA than in any other sports league anywhere. The front office needs to put a stop to this. It’s really getting out of hand.
2. There’s a small number of players on each team to hate.
Unlike the NFL or NBA or even hockey, when you have a lot of guys to root against, most NBA teams feature eight or nine-man rotations, and usually there’s about two or three guys on every team that jump out as being incredibly less likeable than the rest. Just taking the Eastern Conference, for example …
Boston -- Paul Pierce, Sam Cassell
Detroit -- Rasheed Wallace, Chauncey Billups
Orlando -- Hedo Turkoglu (although I love him)
Cleveland -- Anderson Varejao
Washington -- DeShawn Stevenson, Gilbert Arenas
Toronto -- T.J. Ford
Philadelphia -- Reggie Evans
Atlanta -- Surprisingly, no one bothers me here
3. In basketball, there are so many good plays made every game, there’s much more opportunity to celebrate than in other sports.
In football, there’s not much I hate more than watching a guy on the other team do a little dance after scoring a touchdown.
In the NBA, people are scoring several times a minute. And although they don’t always do little dances after every bucket, there’s enough finger-pointing and head-nodding after every point that I find myself disgusted a high percentage of each game.
4. There’s not supposed to be much contact in basketball, but there is -- especially in the playoffs.
Our favorite players in the NBA aren’t protected by pads. They’re not supposed to get clobbered.
So when you’re a Cleveland fan watching your only good player get hammered several times during a series, you get a lot more upset than you do watching a running back taking a pounding during a playoff game. You know it’s going to happen in basketball, but it still comes as more of a surprise every time there’s a hard foul. And there have been a ton of hard fouls already this playoffs, and we’re only in the first round.
Those are just a few of my reasons. Suffice to say, there are many more, but writing about them is only going to get me angrier, which is something nobody wants.
Especially my dog, who gets frightened every time I throw the remote during a Magic game (which happens quite often).
The bottom line is, I’m extremely happy Orlando sent Ford packing, and I can’t wait for the next series to begin so I can find out who’s going to annoy me the most. (Odds are, it‘s ‘Sheed).
RANDOM STUFF
I’ll finish with a few quick thoughts on some actual playoff action so my editor doesn’t yell at me for writing solely about players I dislike.
* I know I’m going to sound like a broken record here, but Toronto absolutely needs to find a way to get rid of Ford this offseason. Jose Calderon is one of the best point guards in the league -- he’s not a Chris Paul or Deron Williams yet, but he’s at least top 10. Yet he’s essentially splitting time with a guy who makes his team worse. Literally.
Sure, you can look at a box score and think Ford played OK if you didn‘t watch the game, but he takes way too many quick shots, he has a lot of really stupid turnovers, he doesn’t play much defense, and when he’s in the game, he’s so selfish that other players just seem to lose interest.
The exact opposite is the case when Calderon is in the game.
To top it all off, the only reason he was starting is because he told Sam Mitchell he didn’t want to come off the bench. The clearly superior Calderon said he would do whatever the team needed him to do.
Give me a break. I don’t like booing for players on my own team, but if I was a Raptors fan, I’d be booing the living crap out of Ford.
(I don’t think “booing the living crap” is an actual expression, but I’d still be doing it).
* I actually felt a little bad watching Steve Nash struggle down the stretch in that Game 5 loss to the Spurs. All those San Antonio guys have been there and won a million times before, and although I don’t have problems with any of them, I think they’re getting a little spoiled. It would have been nice to see the other guys advance for once.
That being said, Parker outplayed Nash by a WIDE margin this series, and that’s the main reason San Antonio is advancing.
Before the series began, I said Manu Ginobli was the key, and the Spurs couldn’t win unless he played well to complete the Big Three.
He didn’t play very well in Game 5, but if Parker is dominating the way he was that game, the Spurs will be just fine regardless. Parker is one impressive player -- and just think, he still doesn’t even have much of a jump shot.
* Utah was embarrassing in Game 5. How does the most physical team in the league get pushed around and out-rebounded by eight when it’s playing a team that doesn’t have its dominant center?
The Jazz better finish that series out at home in Game 6, because if it goes back to Houston with the Rockets solely in control of the momentum, there’s no way Utah advances.
Either way, the Lakers will dominate either of these teams. It won’t be a sweep, but the Lakers won’t be tested in the second round. I think it’d be a five-game series against either squad.
The Western Conference finals are a different story. Los Angeles’ best hope is San Antonio and New Orleans beat each other up and get worn down, because that’s likely to happen.
A lot of analysts were writing New Orleans off before the Dallas series, which I thought was ridiculous. The Hornets can play -- and it’s not all Chris Paul, either.
Everyone expects San Antonio to roll through the finals after beating Phoenix, but it won’t be that easy. New Orleans is a much better team than the Suns (whom the Hornets swept in the regular season), and I think if Paul can outplay Parker in the series, the Hornets will advance.
* Ending on a high note for me -- the most impressive thing about the Magic’s series win (other than Dwight Howard’s amazing three 20-20 games in one series) is that they advanced without shooting the 3 well.
This is a team that thrives on its outside shot, but it won by gutting out some close games and playing good defense.
And Turkoglu, who has been amazing for the team all year long, really struggled from the field. Don’t think that will happen in the second round. If he gets on track at the same time Jameer Nelson and Rashard Lewis continue their fine play (especially on defense and on the glass for Lewis), that series against the Pistons should be a good one.
Justin Powell is the assistant editor of Pro Basketball News. He can be reached at pkmpowell@yahoo.com.
NBA: April 30, 2008
Notebook: Hatred and the postseason
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