Pros vs. Amateurs - NBA vs. NCAA

An Aficionado's Case for the NBA

April 14, 2008

March Madness is over, Kansas reigns supreme thanks to a last-second three by Mario Chalmers and a meltdown on the free-throw line by a better Memphis team. Everyone’s bracket is busted, the office pools have been distributed and spent. It’s finally time to move on and concentrate on what’s really important: the upcoming NBA playoffs.

There is a large divide between followers of college basketball and the NBA but somehow the only voice that is heard is that of grey-haired commentators that praise the virtues of honourable student athletes against the backdrop of a rotten world of indifferent, overpaid professional players. I think it’s time to right the ship and shift the balance in the NBA’s favour. For – in my book – the NBA is far superior to college basketball in almost any aspect of the game.

Let’s take a look!

The Case for the NCAA

The arguments for college ball are well known and easily rehearsed.

Student athletes feel honour and pride to compete for their institution of learning and play their hearts out every night before taking a bus back to the dorm to do their homework. NBA players live in a carefree world of charter planes, five-star hotels and guaranteed contracts. They are modern mercenaries that follow the money and only play hard when a new contract is up for grabs.

In college, basketball is still played the right way. There is a team concept that everyone has to adhere to, the coach is the unquestioned authority that dictates his team’s pace, style and length of shorts. In the NBA, the game is focused on isolation plays for a star player that tries to make something happen one-on-one. That same star player – call him LeBron James – holds much more leverage over his franchise’s direction than his coach – call him Mike Brown – who earns a fraction of the star’s salary and is always on the verge of being fired.

So far, the standard babble. Now let’s take a look at reality.

The Case for the NBA

I’m not even going to delve into the obvious hypocrisy in the NCAA’s self-portrayal. The whole industry of recruiting high-school players is more crooked than running a presidential campaign. And once you have managed to steer a great high-school player (and his entourage of hustlers and false friends) to your campus, it’s unlikely he’ll spend too much time in the library. How could he? After all, it’s his job to practice every day and to play several televised games a week for his alma mater’s glory. Not to forget his coach, of course, whose salary compares to the university’s top micro-biologist like Kobe Bryant’s salary to the last guy on the bench. And how much cash does the player get for his efforts: nada!

But that’s not the essence of it all. A lot of things surrounding the NBA don’t smell that kosher, either. So, let’s keep it empirical; our eyes solely on the product on the hardwood.

To me it’s blatantly obvious: an NBA game is of much higher quality and much more fun to watch than a game of college basketball. No college team could equal the play of the Phoenix Suns for even a single quarter. This shouldn’t come as too big a surprise as the NBA features the most athletic and most skilled players in the world (I’m on David Stern’s payroll, in case you’re interested), many of whom starred in college. There may be some truth to the notion that the League’s talent pool has been watered down through expansion but still everyone except for the D-League Miami Heat would easily beat the Kansas Jayhawks in a 7-game series.

As for the competitive nature of NBA games, any critic that dismisses NBA players per se as satisfied millionaires hasn’t watched any games in this year’s Western Conference playoff race. The regular season has already been wildly entertaining and the playoffs promise to be a feast. Which brings us to the NCAA Tournament: In contrast to the NBA playoffs that drag on for months, the NCAA champ just has to win six consecutive games. There is the eternal allure of Cinderella – a small, unheralded team that believes in itself and beats the big boys: like Villanova defeating Patrick Ewing’s Georgetown in 1985.

Well, this year’s Cinderella Davidson made it to the Elite Eight as a 10-seed. The Final Four, however, was an elite affair with all No.1 seeds advancing. Basketball elite that is; Harvard didn’t qualify for the NCAA tourney. Kansas, North Carolina, UCLA and Memphis have a combined 18 titles and spend millions to make it back to the Final Four on a regular basis. So much for parity – the NBA’s salary cap, by contrast, ensures at least some form of level playing field.

Another irritating facet of the college game is that more attention is given to the coaches than to the players who actually go up against each other. It’s nice and well that Mike Krzyzewski and Bob Knight discussed strategy over dinner in 1973 but I’d rather hear about Derrick Rose and Tyler Hansbrough, about Eric Gordon and Michael Beasley. Then again, maybe the grey-haired TV analysts have an easier time relating to men in their age-group…

Quality of play? Intensity and tension? The tournament’s first rounds provided some memorable endings – in particular Belmont almost upsetting mighty Duke – and many boring blowouts. The much-hyped Final Four matchup between Kansas and North Carolina under former Jayhawks Coach Roy Williams was over well before halftime. Only some incredibly sloppy play brought North Carolina back in it but overall the game was hardly a pleasure to watch. Memphis-UCLA’s result was not as lop-sided but the Tigers’ victory was never in doubt. This game also highlighted another weakness of college basketball as the 35-second shot-clock (instead of 24 in the pros) led to endless dribbling far behind the arc – most of it by Darren Collison – without threatening to score.

The Final between Kansas and North Carolina at least was intense, entertaining and thrilling in the end. But here’s another thing: I may be in the minority but unless I am rooting for one side, I want the better team to prevail – not the luckier one. If Kansas and Memphis were to play a best-of-seven series, Memphis would surely come out on top. What made Golden State’s upset of No.1 seed Dallas in last year’s playoffs so memorable was that they beat the Mavericks four times – not just once on a lucky trey…

At the end of the day, no-one is going to change his mind or preference because of this article. But as a true NBA aficionado, I am looking forward to the best basketball the world has to offer.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the NBA playoffs.

- Ole

currently 4.50/5 1 2 3 4 5 4.5/5 (2 Votes)

Created by: Ole