The Not Basketball Association

On Sunday night, I went to Oklahoma City to see the Thunder. A buddy had offered me a free ticket to go with him and a group of his friends and, being the hoops junkie that I am, I took him up on his offer. I knew that the basketball wouldn't be fundamentally sound, but I figured I could ignore that enough to appreciate the talent of athleticism of guys like Kevin Durant.

When we got to the game, I felt like I had just stepped into a Vegas casino. There were just too many barely dressed 'dancers' (yeah right) and lights for my taste. The video intro was flashy and the horde of fairweather fans slid into their seats just in time for the game. They gave half-hearted cheers to guys like Nenad Krstic, but they nearly threw up when they announced Kevin Durant's name.

Then, right before tipoff, the Ford Center became an insanely annoying sea of inflatable plastic boomsticks. I got hit in the head four times before I finally turned around and told the guy behind me to shove his clappers under his seat before I shoved them somewhere he didn't want me to shove them.

The game started and, within the first few minutes, 34-year-old Andre Miller drove down the court past four Thunder players who thought 'transition defense' was some kind of foreign term. Miller's rickety knees carried him to 24 points that night, primarily because nobody cared enough to stop him.

The most disappointing part of the game, though, was Kevin Durant. I remember the Durant Era at Texas (which lasted all of one year), and it was fun to watch. As a Longhorn, Durant was a guy who played so hard that you started sweating just watching him. He had heart, intensity, and any other cheesy word you can use to describe that intangible 'it' factor. Now, as the Thunder's superstar, Durant was a lazy diva. He jumped around every two seconds to call for the ball, played defense five feet off his man, and took contested 30-footers that were bad shots even for him. On one possession, teammate Russell Westbrook took a wide-open shot while Durant was calling for the ball. Only a few ticks later, Durant stormed over to Westbrook to give him a piece of his mind.

Only one player really played like he cared: Eric Maynor, formerly of VCU. Watching the game, I loved how Maynor played. He never came out of defensive stance, had good pace on offense, and was smooth with the ball. Everything Maynor did was smart and with effort. But, as I walked out, I realized that all of that is likely because he is only a rookie. Just because he is not yet corrupted by the NBA money tree doesn't mean that he never will be.

With a minute left, and the game still slightly in question, Thunder fans headed for the exits. Their team was down by 8, but they hadn't really come to see basketball anyway. They had come to see the booty-shaking Thunder girls, clap some cheap inflatable sticks together, and get drunk off $6 Bud Lights.

All of this leads me to one conclusion: NBA fans aren't fans of basketball because the NBA isn't real basketball at all. It is an overhyped, oversexed, money-corrupted league where the rich get richer and the fans are naive fools who want only to be entertained.