The NBA is turning into the WWF...

I mean, let's be honest the story lines are way bigger than the game, everyone is trying to create coalitions, and there are actually no rules enforced at all.  Do I need to continue? 

No, but I will.  David Stern, the NBA commissioner, has done his best to market the individual over the game in an effort to up popularity.  What he got was a more visible game, and a crappier product to people that actually understand the intricacies of basketball.  It's a tragedy that the best players, and the most popular are completely different.  I'm not into name dropping, so I won't but to be specific only two individual "superstars" have won a championship in the last ten years, the real success has been reaped by team playing, defensive minded teams.  With respect to the Lakers and the triangle offense, that team has a system that works and keeps opposing defenses honest.  It is completely fathomable that if Phil Jackson never came back and coached that team, or if they didn't get handed an elite big man for nothing, they wouldn't have two of the past three championships.  It's clear in my eyes the best teams of this past decade, Spurs, Celtics, Pistons, Lakers, Mavericks, Suns play a team style of play that is more effective than a superstar holding the ball.  Jersey sales amongst these teams are probably average or below that.

The daily hype about this player going there, and that player going here is exhausting.  It really is incredible to me how large-market franchises get spoon-fed  marquee players for next to nothing.  It seems, in some circumstances, that these franchises don't care about assembling a winner as long as they have a marketable face in their franchise.  It's funny how a lot of these players can only function properly when they are handed the ball and are allowed to do what they please.  Well, in their defense, the NBA has tried to take away team play and benefit the one-on-one player since the Jordan era.  It won't be long until the NBA mutates into five guys slashing to the rim, no more point guards and centers, just big slashers and small slashers.  In the words of Kevin Mchale, "The post player in the NBA has gone the way of the Buffalo."  Well Kevin, the true point guard is going the way of the Whooping Crane, the perimeter player that can actually move without the ball is going the way of the Komodo Dragon and the concept of team defense and rotation has disappeared like the Velociraptor.

 I guess the game might be better to watch.  Me personally I think a lot of these players are better off on the And-1 mix-tape tour with the other side show acts.  I would rather see the game played the way it should be, the way the teams that win play it.  Let's be honest though, most fans of the NBA are more concerned about what comes out of a player's twitter account, or what tattoo he has, than how the guy defends the pick and roll...