The Independent's take on the o2 game

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The Independent's take on the o2 game
Topic Started: Oct 7 2009, 11:01 AM (401 Views)
Scatman	Oct 7 2009, 11:01 AM Post #1
Bench Player Posts: 127 Group: Member Member #835 Joined: October 14, 2006	http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/general/others/basketball-nba-dazzles-london-to-plug-american-dream-1798564.html Eww. Please feel free to voice your displeasure beneath the piece.



skeg	Oct 7 2009, 11:19 AM Post #2
Sixth Man Posts: 456 Group: Member Member #353 Joined: July 29, 2006	To be honest i agree with a lot of the article. It's all that stuff i hate and is, as the article says, a distraction to the game or the game becomes a distraction to the "entertainment". You have to ask yourself that with just over 3 mins to go and the game now on the line at crunch time that the crowd was more concerned with doing the mexican wave and booing when a certain section of the crowd did not join in. Heavens above, maybe they were watching the game. In a much reduced level the BBL tries to do the same thing, you know, it's a whole family entertainment package. Lost count of the amount of times the players have come out of a timeout waiting to get back on court but can't because there are two 6 year olds who can't get out of the go karts they have just raced or still haven't got a shot within 4 feet of the basket to win a t-shirt. I may be wrong here, i'm sure someone else on the boards will correct me if i'm wrong, but i don't think you get any of that #### in some of the good european leagues, because ITS ALL ABOUT THE GAME and not something to entertain the kids for 2 hours cos all they are worried about is looking at the mascot.
	GUILDFORD HEAT since 2005 League champions - 2007 Playoff winners - 2008 National cup winners - 2007 Trophy winners - 2008 Brian Dux #6


Mr Flea	Oct 7 2009, 11:53 AM Post #3
Rookie Posts: 66 Group: Member Member #10,059 Joined: January 19, 2009	Although i do agree with much of the article in I think it misses the point a bit. The game was a preseason 'friendly'. The game is about getting players back on court fighting for minutes and seeing where they are at. The results do not matter too much. It was about selling a package, a version of Basketball, and in someways the game is not what it is all about. As it happend the game was a quiet hard fough with a great climax. As a spectical the 'event' had to be about more than the basketball as the match actaully meant nothing. Try getting that much excitment out of a preseason match between Birmingham and Stoke (not that they tend to play rivals before the season starts).



The_Great_One_23	Oct 7 2009, 11:58 AM Post #4
Bench Player Posts: 142 Group: Member Member #788 Joined: October 8, 2006	I wasnt at the Bulls - Jazz game at the 02, but have been to Knicks-Bulls and Knicks Warriors at MSG and imagine the article is on the money in terms of entertainment taking over from the basketball. If the article is correct and there actually was a 'disco cam' and a 'kiss cam' and even a 'smile cam' then i feel sorry for anyone who went to watch the basketball rather than the NBA sideshow. You must feel cheated - i probably would! I certainly agree that this is filtering down to the BBL in a much reduced fashion. At Lions we usually have a dance group that come out in crazy outfits and take up the entire half time with poorly rehearsed routines, the players then come out to warm up for the second half and find they cannot get on the court because the dance group still want their moment in the spotlight. We've had both lineups on the court and all refs on the court waiting for the 'entertainment' to get out the way so the match could continue - its ridiculous I'm not against having some form of entertainment during the breaks, but it cant take over and run over the time they have been allocated.



Sam_H	Oct 7 2009, 12:48 PM Post #5
Franchise Player Posts: 3,146 Group: Moderator Member #78 Joined: July 13, 2006	The kiss-cam, smile-cam etc is nothing new though - they had all that in DC when I was there a while back. They also had the trampoline dunkers before the game and during a quarter break. They didn't have all those games where people won stuff but I think last night those were done because of the sponsors - each game seemed to be organised by a different sponsor and obviously they only had 1 chance to get their name out there. If we had a Euro conference and NBA games were being played regularly at the o2 I doubt you'd get all that stuff. Agree about the mexican wave though - the first time, fine, a bit of fun. But after that and especially near the end of the game, I actually asked the guy next to me if that means everyone is bored, which I couldn't work out since the game was a nail biter.



gdizzle	Oct 7 2009, 02:06 PM Post #6
Rookie Posts: 27 Group: Member Member #10,545 Joined: September 24, 2009	Cant say i really agree with the article's negative spin on the entertainment. What needs to be remembered is that there are a whole lot of stoppages in an NBA game, so the gap HAS to be filled with something a little different and sometimes over the top, if only to hold the interest of the not so hard-core fan. Seems to me like another writer who knows very little about the sport itself, and most likely is their first experience of an NBA game, taking a cheap shot at certain US basketball traditions to stand out. Objective achieved i suppose!



Scatman	Oct 7 2009, 02:19 PM Post #7
Bench Player Posts: 127 Group: Member Member #835 Joined: October 14, 2006	gdizzle Oct 7 2009, 02:06 PM Cant say i really agree with the article's negative spin on the entertainment. What needs to be remembered is that there are a whole lot of stoppages in an NBA game, so the gap HAS to be filled with something a little different and sometimes over the top, if only to hold the interest of the not so hard-core fan. Seems to me like another writer who knows very little about the sport itself, and most likely is their first experience of an NBA game, taking a cheap shot at certain US basketball traditions to stand out. Objective achieved i suppose! That's the point. We had an amazing finish to the game, with Luol as the top scorer and the fans going away just happy to have been there. And yet this writer spends 90% of his article talking about kisscams and the like. It's sad that a great night for basketball's potential popularity in Britain will be remembered by Independent readers as some kind of sham/mockery.



Scatman	Oct 7 2009, 02:21 PM Post #8
Bench Player Posts: 127 Group: Member Member #835 Joined: October 14, 2006	By the same token, if an American writer came to experience a Premier League game for the first time, and the game happened to be a lively, exciting encounter with a last minute winner, then football fans would rightly be perturbed to see him write only about the fact that there was no leg room, no beer and the hot dogs had run out by halftime.



BacktoBasics	Oct 7 2009, 04:18 PM Post #9
Bench Player Posts: 240 Group: Member Member #1,032 Joined: November 25, 2006	I wasn't at the O2 but BBC's coverage focused so much on the entertainment in breaks and interviews with celebs I'm surprised anyone at the Independant or otherwise knew there was a basketball game going on. Unfortunately we live in a world where the game is not enough for some people. I seem to remember reading something about the NBA is the early 90's as more and more half time shows and game intros were being used and each team had to submit their half time entertainment schdule to the league office. Red Auerbach sent a note saying "a ball boy will wheel a cart of balls to the halfway line". Now that's entertainment!



Noel Edmonds	Oct 7 2009, 04:34 PM Post #10
All-Star Posts: 1,449 Group: Member Member #464 Joined: August 8, 2006	I read this article in the paper this morning and what especially jarred me was the following quote... "Perhaps the fact the NBA envies the riches currently being generated by the Premier League, especially in the much-coveted Asian market". Not only is this false, but the complete opposite is actually true. The Premier League lags far behind the NBA in Asia, especially China. I wish journalists still bothered to do research.
	Champion.


Sam_H	Oct 7 2009, 06:04 PM Post #11
Franchise Player Posts: 3,146 Group: Moderator Member #78 Joined: July 13, 2006	Dennis Rodman wrote about this in his book (first one I think) complaining about loud music and fans being distracted by 'other' forms of entertainment. Phil Jackson accused Laker fans once of being too busy looking for celebrities in the crowd to worry about supporting their team. The problem is that there are a number of breaks in the game, unlike football where you have only halftime to worry about. Would fewer or shorter timeouts be the answer? Probably not because TV (especially in the US) has to bombard us with adverts. The problem arises when the game itself becomes secondary, such as with 3 minutes to play when some fans were more bothered about the mexican wave than who was going to win. I think music and even an on-court game is ok during timeouts because otherwise fans will be sitting around with nothing to do, but I think cheerleaders are a much better way to fill the gaps and that is what they are for afterall. Ultimately though it's more important what the journalists write and at the moment 95% of them in this country don't have a clue about the sport and therefore probably feel quite daunted having to write about it (which may explain the abense of more than couple of paragraphs on the game in the Sun and the Metro today) so they write about what they know, i.e. a mixture of opinions and made up rubbish with little facts mixed in. At the end of the day though, you have to ask - is bad coverage better than no coverage at all? Alluding to the newspapers above which I had a look through today, I would preferred to have read something about the game than nothing at all/endless football stories that don't interest me. Edited by Sam_H, Oct 7 2009, 06:05 PM.



Scatman	Oct 8 2009, 12:19 AM Post #12
Bench Player Posts: 127 Group: Member Member #835 Joined: October 14, 2006	Sam_H Oct 7 2009, 06:04 PM At the end of the day though, you have to ask - is bad coverage better than no coverage at all? I don't think so. All the negative stereotypes Brits have of NBA basketball are only strengthened by articles like these. I've come across countless people who have never watched a second of NBA action but can tell me that the game is nothing but a "spectacle".



Scatman	Oct 8 2009, 12:20 AM Post #13
Bench Player Posts: 127 Group: Member Member #835 Joined: October 14, 2006	BTW, there were very good articles in the Guardian and the Telegraph today (with photos of Deng featured on the front page of their sports pullouts).



shyners	Oct 9 2009, 02:41 PM Post #14
Rookie Posts: 39 Group: Member Member #362 Joined: July 30, 2006	Oh dear oh dear oh dear......



dessire_luvals	Oct 9 2009, 06:02 PM Post #15
Bench Player Posts: 164 Group: Member Member #505 Joined: August 14, 2006	I assumed the scoreline was scripted. Just a bit strange that the crowd favourites should come back to take the win by a point in the last seconds. I certainly wouldn't have paid to watch this.



Sam_H	Oct 9 2009, 06:48 PM Post #16
Franchise Player Posts: 3,146 Group: Moderator Member #78 Joined: July 13, 2006	Like i said before, I dont understand why the fans, who presumably wanted a Bulls win, were booing Utah at the foul line then cheering when it went in. Even so, they loved the finish so hopefully that will get sme of them wanting to go to see more games (ie their local team). Definitely a good way for the game to go!



Big Jock	Oct 10 2009, 08:57 AM Post #17
Rookie Posts: 43 Group: Member Member #5,634 Joined: December 15, 2007	I have no interest in what these guys think to be honest. His half cocked comments about basketball in general merely re-enforce my opinion. I spoke with a journalist from Edinburgh who was at the Stern press conference, and he openly admitted that he knows sports correspondents who will write about football all the time because anything else is outwith their comfort zone. An example of this up here was evident a couple of years ago when Lawrence Tynes, who is from Greenock, helped New York Giants win the Superbowl. This was an incredible achievement from a Scot who had never even played the game till he was 13, and yet it was hardly mentioned, the papers giving their usual 10 page coverage of the old firm! I found this really sad, yet not surprising.



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