Somewhat surprisingly, Jason
Kapono has decided he is ready for the NBA. He's not, but there's no point
in trying to tell anyone anymore. Sooner or later though, the NBA will
figure out why their ratings are in the tank. It's not because Magic,
Bird, and Jordan are gone, though it is partly. It's more because the guys who
replaced them are, by and large incompetent, a fact underscored by game 2 in the
Lakers-Suns series, where the last five minutes was a comedy of errors. There
was nothing remotely thrilling about the one point game. It was one of the
worst performances we've seen in years from a high-level (supposedly) NBA
team. Shaq of course couldn't hit a free throw, Kobe got stripped more
than once, players were falling out of bounds with the ball. The old
theory was that Pat Riley had spearheaded a defensive revolution which put the
brakes on the offense, but the more accurate theory, to us anyway, is this: guys
are coming into the league with less skills, and less meaningful
professionalism, than ever before.
Look at this year. Jerome Moiso, DeShawn Stevenson, Erick Barkley, just to
name three quick ones off the top - none of those guys are finished
products. Multiply that by 5 or 10 years of drafts, and you see a lousy,
diminished, skill-free NBA. There are a lot of guys who are exceptions to this -
Stockton, Malone, Hill, Duncan, Pippen - but a lot of the top stars are guys who
have a weak sense of what the word professional means. The funny part is
that if it continues, it could have the bizarre side effect of making college
ball that much more attractive, which is not what people are thinking now at
all.
Needless to say, UCLA has been hit a lot worse this year than Duke was last year with Duke's three early departures.