The reason for this is pretty simple. Throughout the year players practice with their club team mates and are used to running the drills that their coach lays down. An almost telepathic understanding is built up between teams who get this right, and this is next to impossible to achieve in the short time the All-Star teams have to practise together. Nonetheless, the relaxed nature of the game does allow for players to try flashier moves in the knowledge that they will not be held too culpable if they don’t come off.
The All-Star game has become a centerpiece to the season, to the extent that the festivities go on over a weekend which features events as diverse as a slam dunk contest, an all-rookie game and a pro-celebrity game. Most of these activities will be covered on television, with the All Star game taking pride of place at prime time on the Sunday night.
A Place To Be Seen
It is a measure of the increasing popularity of sports that they have been adopted so readily by the celebrity crowds in recent years. One only has to take note of this happening in other sports – for example, Tom Cruise attending a few soccer games due to a friendship with the Beckhams – to see that, where sport used to be considered a mostly working-class pursuit, it has really broken through to a wider audience of people who may sometimes go to games to be seen.
Now, this is slightly unfair on some of the long-term basketball fans who have been attending games for decades. It is well known that Jack Nicholson is a Los Angeles Lakers fan and has been a regular at their games for some time.
The same is true of John McEnroe. The same may not be as true of Leonardo di Caprio and Bar Refeali. Meanwhile, it is well known that Spike Lee is a hardcore New York Knicks fan.
Of course, there is every reason to believe that this is just one of the perks of being a celebrity. Not everyone can be a celebrity, but can those of us who are not, and never will, really say that we would turn down the opportunity to have courtside seats whenever we wanted them to see our favorite team play?
A busy work schedule may mean you can’t be there every game, but should that stop you from taking the chance when it is there? As for the high number of celebrity Lakers fans … well, that’s LA for you.
One of the most frequent set pieces of a basketball game is the free throw. Awarded for certain fouls, and then for all fouls after a set number have been committed, the free throw is a penalty which provides the offended team with a chance to score some points, but may also be used by their opponents as a way of limiting the damage and stopping the clock. It is not uncommon to see tactical fouls committed by teams who have learned to see everything in terms of how it impacts the end result.
The truth is that some players are ace shots at free-throw time and giving them the ball with time to get their bearings and no-one getting in their face is tantamount to giving their team free points. On the other hand, some players are so bad at free throws that the opposition will be happy to foul them so that they are the ones charged with trying to score a point. If you are playing against a team with an ace three-point shooter, it makes sense to foul the guy on the team who has nerves of balsa wood on the free-throw line.
In some cases, fouling the free-throw expert is even a reasonable move. When time is running down and you need the ball back, committing a foul is one way of stopping the clock. Even if you know it might mean conceding points, you will want to get hold of the ball and try to score yourself, so it makes more sense not to give them twenty-four seconds to set up their shot.
As a child, your first game of basketball is a world of discovery. As you are not allowed to run with the ball it is important to learn to dribble it, and this is something that plays a very important part in the smooth running of the game. Many novice players, aware that they have to keep bouncing the ball, will feel more comfortable doing so with both hands. Once you are in a league game, though, this is actually against the rules, giving as it does an unfair advantage to the team in possession.
The “double dribble” rule is one of basketball’s more esoteric ones, and is rarely seen in action in the NBA due to the tactical importance of retaining possession until you are in position to score. The most common infraction under the double dribble rule is when a player comes to a stop and takes the ball in both hands before looking around for a pass, and continuing to dribble if they see no options. Once you have stopped still to look around, it is obligatory to either attempt a shot or pass the ball to a team mate,
The reason that this is so important is that carrying the ball is illegal, and stopping with the ball in both hands is a clear effort to retain the ball without the risk of an opponent taking hold of it. In basketball, the continued recycling of possession is an important part of the game, and for a player to effectively carry the ball with him is an unfair excessive protection of the ball.
It is true that Jordan was for much of his career part of a team that would make any player look good – team mates like Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman and Toni Kukoc would certainly have walked on to most other teams and been the star player – but that does not account for his many achievements, including a record six Most Valuable Player awards for the NBA finals and ten NBA scoring titles. He also showed he was no slouch on defense, winning nine nominations to the All-Defensive team during his storied career.
There are other players who have matched Michael Jordan in certain categories, but none who have ever achieved the dominance he did in as many different categories. His Chicago Bulls years saw the team do the unheard of – twice winning three consecutive NBA titles in the space of one decade (the 1990s), and although he was able to call on the rare talents of a sublime supporting cast, Michael Jordan is the name most associate with that rare period of dominance.
Basketball Legends: Larry Bird And Magic Johnson
Although each player achieved enough during their career to legitimately have earned the title of legend by themselves, the story of Larry Bird and Magic Johnson is one that is more properly told as a two-hander.
The players were rivals in their college years as two of the most promising up-and-coming players and when they entered the NBA it was as part of the same draft in 1979 that both players joined. They would renew their rivalry there, Bird with the Boston Celtics and Johnson with the Los Angeles Lakers.
During the careers of Bird and Johnson, the Celtics and Lakers would meet in the NBA Finals series three times, with the Celtics triumphing in 1984, the Lakers avenging that result the following year, and an injury-plagued Boston team coming up short in 1987 as the Lakers won the series 4-2. Nonetheless, Bird would match a record held by only two other players in the history of the game at that time by picking up three consecutive league MVP awards in 1984, 85 and 86.
Perhaps united by their shared experience of a game that had been in the doldrums with the US public before their entry into the league, but was given a shot in the arm by their arrival on the scene, Bird and Johnson are now close friends.
After a spell as a coach at the Indiana Pacers, Bird is now a team president while Johnson, who tested HIV positive in 1991, is a charity spokesperson in the fight against AIDS. His HIV has never mutated into AIDS, and he has become a figurehead for GlazoSmithKline.
The provocatively-titled Hollywood blockbuster White Men Can’t Jump was released in 1992, and played on the numerous racial stereotypes surrounding the game of basketball. Many people blindly state that basketball is a “black man’s game”, despite the presence throughout NBA history of a number of Hall of Fame white players such as Larry Bird. An equally common stereotype is that the white players who do make a team are invariably the steady hands of the team rather than flair players – something Larry Bird also disproved.
In White Men Can’t Jump, Woody Harrelson plays Billy, a down on his luck former college ball player who has no job and makes his money playing ball against street players. In the most part these opponents are black, and assume that Billy will be an easy match because he is white. Billy does nothing to encourage this assumption, allowing the opponents to make their mistake without him needing to lie. Of course, Billy turns out to be a fantastic player and wins his fair share of cash.
The film is given its impetus by the acquaintance Billy makes with a man named Sidney, played by Wesley Snipes. Sidney is one of the many street ballers who loses to Billy, but unlike the others he decides to turn the situation to his advantage, with the two pairing up to win money from a string of opponents. As with all such films, the friendship goes sour, only to be rescued in the end by the bond that the two have struck up. The title comes from the assumption that white players are unable to dunk the ball, an assumption disproved in the end by Billy, who makes a dunk in the film’s crucial scene to win the pair $5000.
In basketball, though, a courtside seat really is a courtside seat. If a pass is slightly overthrown there is a good chance that it will land in your lap. You can’t keep it, but you will get to see yourself on the Jumbotron. But quite apart from your proximity to the ball, there is your proximity to the players. You can hear them calling for passes, you can hear their sneakers squeaking on the floor, and you can see the sweat beading on their foreheads. It really is disturbingly close to being in the game.
In one game in 2004 between the Indiana Pacers and the Detroit Pistons, a scuffle broke out on court between the Pistons’ Ben Wallace and the Pacers’ Ron Artest. A plastic cup was thrown at Artest, who entered the stands along with some team mates and sparking a player-fan brawl that ended in five players being charged with assault. Air Jordan: The Legacy Of The Great Players
Basketball is like any other sport in that it creates heroes for the viewing public. If you are a player with a great list of achievements you can expect to go down in club and civic history, and you can also expect to do very well financially from the deal. You may even leave a more lasting legacy. A legacy like that of Michael Jordan is one that the best players hope to emulate. During the 90s, Jordan was one of sport’s most bankable names, allowing him to make millions of dollars in endorsements, something which opened the way for the likes of Tiger Woods and David Beckham to do the same.
Alternatively, you might create a legacy of friendly rivalry between clubs. Although they competed three times for the NBA championship in the 1980s, there is no real enmity between the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers. What there is could be better described as a shared history – best exemplified by the continued friendship between the figureheads of each team, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. It is hard for the fans of each team to hate their rival when the players clearly do not.
Then there are other names which, no matter what the player may achieve in the course of his career, will always be linked with something stupid they did. Latrell Sprewell, a hugely gifted player with a reputation for giving a hundred per cent on court, took exception to his coach P.J Carlesimo asking him to put a bit more into his passes. Unwilling to take criticism, Sprewell wrestled his coach to the ground and strangled him for 15 seconds. He may be a 4-time NBA All-Star, but he’s a 4-time NBA All-Star who assaulted his coach.
Alternatively, you might create a legacy of friendly rivalry between clubs. Although they competed three times for the NBA championship in the 1980s, there is no real enmity between the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers. What there is could be better described as a shared history – best exemplified by the continued friendship between the figureheads of each team, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. It is hard for the fans of each team to hate their rival when the players clearly do not.
Then there are other names which, no matter what the player may achieve in the course of his career, will always be linked with something stupid they did. Latrell Sprewell, a hugely gifted player with a reputation for giving a hundred per cent on court, took exception to his coach P.J Carlesimo asking him to put a bit more into his passes. Unwilling to take criticism, Sprewell wrestled his coach to the ground and strangled him for 15 seconds. He may be a 4-time NBA All-Star, but he’s a 4-time NBA All-Star who assaulted his coach.
Basketball is a sport which can seem to the outsider as though it is just two teams marching up and down the court scoring baskets, with the winner being the side who miss less often. While some games may occasionally get like this, a really competitive game will involve more action and set-pieces than just about any other sport. One of the classic sights from a basketball game is the “alley-oop” slam dunk, which is received with rapturous applause and cheers by fans for its sheer exuberance.
The “alley-oop” is like a typical slam dunk with the subtle difference that the player does not carry the ball to the hoop, but rather has it passed to them by a team mate, catches the ball as it is just next to the rim and plants it through the net for two points. For the best effect this should be done with shuddering force, and if done properly it is one of the moves that never fails to get fans on their feet cheering and hollering. If done incorrectly it’s just embarrassing.
The alley-oop is one of the best photo opportunities in all of sport. As you watch the shooter make his break to get in position underneath the basket, and the tem-mate throwing him the ball, you know that in less than a second the player will be in mid-air with arms raised high, about to ram that ball through the hoop for one of the coolest moves in any sport. And for two points, of course.
Basketball is considered to be one of the fastest ball sports there is, and there are a number of rules in place to ensure that this remains the case. One such rule is the shot clock, which is used in the NBA and most professional and amateur leagues to ensure that teams do not simply play possession basketball when their team is in the lead, making it impossible for their opponents to get the ball back quickly and without attempting an offensive move.
The shot clock is in place from the moment a team gets possession of the ball, and counts down from twenty-four seconds. After that time has elapsed, the team in possession will be penalised if it has not attempted a shot at the basket. The clock is reset the moment a player attempts a shot at the basket or loses possession of the ball. Once the ball is back in the hands of a player on either team, the shot clock resumes counting down from twenty-four seconds.
If a team does keep possession without attempting a shot, the ball is turned over to their opponents at the sideline nearest to the point where the infraction was committed. This ensures that at any given time the team in possession of the ball must be looking to complete an offensive move by attempting a basket before their twenty-four seconds are up. Teams in the lead by a small score with time running out will still endeavor to use all of the shot clock before attempting a shot, but cannot do it for any longer than the specified 24 seconds.
Although absolutely central to the way that professional sports are played in the USA, the draft system is largely unique to America – over the Atlantic in Europe players sign with a club as an apprentice during their schooldays and afterwards can only move when the club which covets them pays compensation to their current club. This makes the draft system all the more a part of American sport, and something which takes on as much importance as almost anything else to do with the sport.
Due to the extensive scouting system in place – many colleges will offer scholarships to particularly gifted high school athletes – it is usually easy to spot the players who will come out of college into the NBA with a chance of success, but this does not mean that every player picked early in a draft will turn out to be an NBA superstar. The step up between college and professional hoops is quite considerable and brings with it not only a more complicated, competitive game but a lot of additional pressure.
When a team drafts a player, they cannot just look at their game statistics and decide that they are good enough. They also need to consider how the player will fit into the team camaraderie and whether they will be a disruption to team morale, whether the player fills a need or whether they will create friction with another player in the same position. Not least, they will need to have some idea as to whether the player who put up such great numbers in college can do the same in the big leagues, and whether their attitude matches their ability.