The Bulls are playing their best basketball of the season as they steam toward the playoffs, but they have abandoned the United Center on back-to-back weekends so the college kids can play the big room–the Big Ten tournament last week, first- and second-round NCAA tournament games this week.
Tribune staffers have mixed feelings. Dan McGrath, who majored in watching basketball at Al McGui . . . Marquette University, is an unabashed honk for the college game and plans to be at the UC. Fellow curmudgeon Sam Smith, who in his mind and in print has traded every player who has worn an NBA uniform at least once during his two decades covering the league, much prefers the pros and won’t go near the place until the kids are gone.
The following is a transcript of a recent exchange between our guys.
McG: Well, Sam, after sitting through the four-day slogfest that was the Big Ten tournament, my faith in the superiority of the college game began to waver ever so slightly. It’s not that I don’t like the NBA. I do even after being around the Sacramento Kings, when their go-to guy was Spud Webb and he’d fit in your pocket.
But I do think you get more effort from the collegians, especially come NCAA tournament time, when it’s one and done. The Bulls may be an anomaly in that Scott Skiles gets them to play hard most every night, but still, each game is one of 82, and I’ve seen too many third-game-in-four-nights displays where some guys flat-out take the night off and others don’t justify their salaries or the ticket prices with their effort.
Your thoughts?
Sam: Dan, you ignorant slut. Sorry for the “Saturday Night Live” reference, but you sound like Shana Alexander watching a back-pick. You have no idea what you’re talking about.
You get more effort with Memphis-Portland than in the NCAA title game. The players are so superior that it can look casual. There probably aren’t seven college players who could absorb a Jamaal Magloire screen and not wind up in traction. And he doesn’t even set screens well.
This “playing hard” thing about college ball is a canard. The players are in poor shape–they don’t play or practice as much, and they’re weaker. The coaches are overcontrolling–they believe they’re the stars (Tim Floyd can suddenly coach again?), so players are often automotons. And just because there are 2,000 kids with painted faces screaming off-color insults at opponents, don’t confuse that with real game excitement.
McG: Excitement? The kind you get from the fabled “two-man game,” the “iso” plays that are an absolute staple for every NBA team east of Phoenix? How much coaching genius is involved with installing that offense? And what do the other three guys do while the two-man game is being executed? They stand around. That’s less entertaining than the 10 games of mud wrestling that made up the Big Ten tournament last weekend. Who’d pay to see that?
Admit it, Sam, you don’t like college ball because nobody gets traded. You’d have nothing to do if you covered it.
Sam: Dan, Dan. You’re falling for the Big Lie. Watch a game–unless, of course, you’re counting up NCAA recruiting violations. What do you mean no one gets traded? They simply take away their scholarships or treat the kids so badly they leave. How do you think Bob Knight had such a good graduation record at Indiana? He ran off everyone he didn’t like.
Hope you watched Phoenix-Dallas on Wednesday night: Not only did you not see isos and two-man games, you saw UCLA with Walton and Kareem, UNLV with Larry Johnson, North Carolina with Michael and Worthy, Georgetown with Ewing. The problem is the level of talent is so bad in college today because the pros strip-mine it like some West Virginia hill so thoroughly, all that’s left is the accent. Watch the Suns, Wizards, Bulls, Raptors, Warriors–heck, even Jeff Van Gundy’s Rockets. The rules changed a while back, and the ball moves. There’s more action in an NBA timeout than in most college games.
McG: Sure, they strip-mine the talent, all right, and then they don’t teach it anything. The influx of high school players is the worst thing that’s ever happened to the NBA. For every Kevin Garnett or Kobe Bryant, there’s Korleone Young. What’s he doing now? You don’t think Tyson Chandler or your pal Eddy Curry could have used some time in college to maybe learn how to pass out of a double team or move without the ball? Or play hard? Play smart?
These kids today, Sam–they just don’t know how to play basketball. Darius Miles is another one. A scout whom we both know and respect said he’s “the worst basketball player I’ve ever seen for a great athlete.” There’s more to being a great player than great athletic ability. The one-year rule will probably help the pro game some, but it will damage the colleges even more. Unless he’s Greg Oden or Kevin Durant, would you bother recruiting a kid if you’re only going to have him for a year?
Sam: Lack of fundamentals? Wonder where that comes from? I’m sure John Calipari is going to be working on them in Memphis with the Chicago kid, Derrick Rose, who somehow decided there’s no better place to live and get an education. And you know O.J. Mayo is going to learn the game from Floyd in his few hours at USC.
Don’t blame this one on the NBA. They want kids in college learning basketball, if not Shakespeare. And if not for the NBA, they wouldn’t go to school at all. It’s the players association which for some goofy reason keeps fighting this thing, and the NBA isn’t going to kill itself over it. Given the corrupt AAU/shoe company system that teaches less than college, players don’t really learn until they come to the NBA, where coaches like Skiles, Van Gundy, Avery Johnson, Jerry Sloan and Mike D’Antoni are teachers. They have to be.
Look, we know why the NCAA tournament is really popular: betting. Really, who is watching Nevada and Creighton in December? But if you’ve filled out an office pool . . . If you could do a mud-wrestling pool, it would be on TV and Dick Vitale would be screaming.
Sure, games are close, but they are at the “Y” too. Quick, name one player on last year’s George Mason team? The new CBS tournament ad: Watch coaches who can’t get a job in the NBA berating players who can’t play in the NBA in front of fans who can’t afford to watch the NBA. I guess that’s it–cheap thrills. Enjoy, Dan, and wake me when it’s over.
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IN THE WEB EDITION
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