Couch Slouch: NBA has serious problem with ‘unentertaining’ game

If I were running for president – nothing stopping me, actually, other than some outstanding student loans and an unwillingness to wake up before noon most weekdays – I believe my platform of “No More Intentional Fouling in the NBA” would win a lot of swing states.

One intentional foul at a time, the game is being ruined beyond redemption.

It’s bad enough witnessing the Nike parade to the free-throw line late in games – when the trailing team is trying to get the ball back – but it is Hubie-Brown, biblically bad surveying the scene earlier in contests when the worst foul shooters are bear-hugged every 24 seconds so they can go miss two foul shots.

This might be the correct tactical strategy, but it is incorrect marketing strategy. And I’m being polite here: This is actually CATASTROPHICALLY MUTTONHEADED marketing strategy, but I didn’t want to say “catastrophically muttonheaded” in a family newspaper.

Frankly, watching DeAndre Jordan miss free throws is about as captivating as watching a meter maid write parking tickets.

This situation reached a boiling point during the last postseason – in Game 4 of the Clippers-Rockets series, Jordan took a record 28 free throws in the first half, missing 18 of them.

It took 84 minutes to play the first half.

(Heck, “Beauty and the Beast” ran 84 minutes, and Couch Slouch guarantees you there was more action in that baby than in Clippers-Rockets.)

“There was no basketball going on,” Clippers Coach Doc Rivers accurately surmised afterward.

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver then said the league would consider a rule change in the offseason, but – after consulting, I believe, with Roger Goodell – made the wrong decision and stood pat.

Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, for one, has repeatedly argued against a rule change on intentional fouling; like many others, he believes a basketball professional should learn to make foul shots or not play.

“It sends the wrong message to kids everywhere,” Cuban once said, “that it’s okay to not pay attention to basketball fundamentals.”

(It’s amazing that Cuban – who sends the wrong message to kids everywhere by sitting courtside every game screaming at officials and opposing players – can be worried about sending a wrong message to kids everywhere.)

But the game is played largely for entertainment purposes – uh, they’re called “fans” – and it has become increasingly unentertaining to see a series of stoppages. It’s unentertaining to watch a player purposefully fouled every several moments. It’s unentertaining to watch them walk to the free-throw line. It’s unentertaining to watch foul shot after foul shot.

I think the key word here is “unentertaining.”

For sure, NBA players should make most free throws. But who wants to watch free throws, anyway? Plus some big men, like Jordan and Dwight Howard, lack that skill. Should they be benched? This might sound ridiculous – okay, it will sound ridiculous – but in football, if a wide receiver is fouled, would you ask him to make a 25-yard kick to move the chains?

As sports evolve, rules are changed, to make the game better and more fan-friendly.

In the NFL, they determined folks prefer offense to defense, so they made it easier to throw the ball.

In MLB, hitters once were dominated by pitchers, so, in 1969, they lowered the pitchers’ mound to create more 5-4 games than 1-0 games.

In the early days of the NBA, late in games team would hold the ball indefinitely if they had the lead; the only way to get the ball back was to intentionally foul. This led to the advent of the shot clock in 1954.

Now in 2015, it’s not a good product if 17,000 in attendance are watching endless foul shots.

I am reminded of how I used to love watching the U.S. Senate in session on C-Span. Government in action! But then one day in March 2013, Rand Paul went off on a nearly 13-hour filibuster to block the nomination of a new CIA director, and I hopped over to “Dr. Oz” in a heartbeat.

I haven’t voted since.

And if I were to run for president, I’d now know as little about how Washington works as all the other current candidates.

Ask The Slouch

Q. How do NBA refs decide when to call traveling? (Keith Swedo; Carmel, Ind.)

A. There is a three-times-per-month quota that has to be met.

Q. In light of MLB’s deal with DraftKings, coupled with the New York attorney general’s claim that DraftKings’ contests constitute illegal gambling, is it possible that MLB may be on the verge of reinstating Pete Rose and Shoeless Joe Jackson? (Sean Cleary; Potomac, Md.)

A. Pay the man, Shirley.

Q. Should the presidential debates take a cue from the NFL and the NCAA and adopt a system of instant replay, with an off-site replay official to clarify exactly what the candidates actually said? Should each candidate be allowed one red-flag challenge per debate? (Perry Clark; Princeton, W.Va.)

A. Pay this man twice, Shirley.

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