March is simultaneously the best and worst month for basketball fans.
The best: The NCAA Tournament continues to deliver the goods. While we haven’t had a ton of upsets/Cinderella runs – I have my transfer portal-related theories as to why that is – we have had a lot of hard-fought basketball, tourney heroes (Derik Queen, Walter Clayton Jr., JT Toppin, Chaz Lanier), and close finishes.
We can nitpick the extended review process – I think the last two minutes of Arizona-Oregon is still being played – and the relative lack of non-Flagg celebrity, but the overall March Madness experience has been terrific.
The worst: The NBA.
It isn’t just this March, either. It happens every March.
I love the NBA. It is my favorite professional sports league by far. As such, I tend to come down a bit harder on it than other leagues, just because it is human nature to be harder on the things you love.
Great NBA basketball simply cannot be beat. Unfortunately, greatness is extremely hard to come by in March.
If a team goes on a little winning streak in March? That’s fine, but don’t take it too seriously. Same for a team that drops a few games they would otherwise win.
Are the Cavs in trouble? No. It’s March!
Are the Portland Trailblazers for real? No. It’s March!
Most star-level players figure out ways to gain a little extra rest and/or sit out a few extra games to deal with injuries ahead of the games that really matter. Teams that are out of the playoff picture aren’t necessarily putting their best team on the court every night. NBA games in March often have no flow, no stakes, no drama, and very little momentum.
Meanwhile, the college game features nothing but high-stakes games with incredible drama and momentum (if not always incredible flow). Having the roughest part of the NBA schedule coincide with March Madness each year really brings into focus how much the league needs to take a long, hard look at the structure of ifs schedule.
We all agree that the regular season is far too long. These March games are where the seams really start to show. Expecting fans to pay full face value for NBA tickets in March is a negligent business practice – short-term gains for long-term losses.
I will never understand why the best professional sports league in the world continues to operate this way. They have the best stars, the best sport, the most global appeal this side of soccer. I can’t think of another circumstance where this much malaise and disinterest is built into the finished product.
In the meantime, NBA fans can take a breather of their own, catch up on the college game, and get pumped for the middle of April, when things really get good. A couple weeks after the NCAA title game, we’ll have the first round of what promises to be an excellent, wide-open NBA playoffs.
We just have to get through March.
And 1’s:
• Get well soon, JuJu Watkins. The USC superstar and potential Face of Women’s Hoops tore her ACL this week and will likely miss most of next season as she recovers. It is a particularly brutal injury, given Watkins’ slashing style of play, but she has youth on her side. Here’s to a full recovery for one of basketball’s most exciting rising stars. I’m still looking forward to her sneaker drop.
• Every Sweet 16 game looks good on paper. The lowest seed – No. 10 Arkansas – has more than a puncher’s chance against Texas Tech, and every other game has “potential classic” written all over it. Almost half of the field comes from the SEC, which doesn’t feel like a trend that will end anytime soon.
• Looking for a deep-cut draft sleeper this week? Might I suggest Arizona guard KJ Lewis. He doesn’t have the top-end scoring talent of Caleb Love or the explosive athleticism of Jaden Bradley, which is why Lewis often comes off the bench as a super-sub for Tommy Lloyd’s squad. But Lewis is an intense (occasionally too intense), hard-nosed defender with surprising rim-protection skills for a shooting guard. He is a prototypical 3-and-D guard who fits into an NBA roster much more seamlessly than some of his teammates.
