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I'll never understand people that love basketball but don't like the NBA? Honestly, the last 10-12 years or so, the NBA playoffs for the most part have been phenomenal in terms of both story-lines and drama. I know it seems like LeBron (Heat/Cavs) and the Warriors have dominated as forgone conclusions, but both the Pacers and Celtics took LeBron's Heat and Cavs teams to 7-game series in the East and GS was taken 7 by OKC and Houston in recent years. We've had 3 7-game NBA Finals over the last 9 years, plus the drama that was the Mavs and Spurs beating LeBron's Heat, as well as a little mini renewal of the Celtics/Lakers rivalry as they met twice in the Finals. I grew up on the Celtics/Lakers of the 80's and the beauty at which those teams executed offensively, but I still say that if someone asked me to show them an example of how basketball should be played I'm throwing in the tape of the Spurs beating the Heat 4-1 in 2014. It was just an amazing display of team basketball by the Spurs. I don't love all the 3 attempts in the game now, so I understand that criticism, but otherwise the NBA has largely been awesome for the past 12 or so years.

Excellent post. From a time perspective, I don't have time to watch both college and NBA intently. I choose IU basketball as a muscle memory passion that hooked me decades ago. I read about the NBA but only spot watch it during the regular season. In the playoffs, I have more time for it with college and NFL gone. Having said all that, if I were 15 years old now, there's a good chance I would get hooked on pro hoops over college. IMO, the respective pro and college products have gone in different directions. The college game has fallen dramatically behind college football. Unlike football, you don't have many top teams staying together at an elite level and coalescing over time. I don't mean teams like the 1976 Hoosiers. I mean, in any given year, do you have wars between 10 or 12 damn good teams with veteran rosters with future pros clubbing each other? Meanwhile, the NBA game has excellent coaching and teams that play tremendous team ball. I have no problem with the three ball. Look at all the extra passes, plus all the excellent coaching when you look at guys like Pop, Kerr, Budenholzer, Stevens and others. Any of those guys could just kill it in college. We aren't talking about Shaka Smart. The NBA product is incredibly lucrative now with teams worth north of $2 billion. That's not happening because it is a crap product. Quite the opposite.

Couldn't like this enough. And this season's playoffs is off the charts with the competitive play and underlying story lines -- and all without LeBron, which is kind of wild.

Someone I know that has watched Kaufman a ton compares his game to a young, obviously less skilled version of Tim Duncan. I know for a fact he's the epitome of team player, a great kid, strong pedigree that grew up IU people. The question remains to me is what does HE want. IU's lack of success during his lifetime and UofL' s proximity and flash, I just don't know. I think he'll stay close to home because family is huge to him. If I had any say in the Hoosier coaching circle I'm pushing my chips in on Trey now before it's too late. I promise this kid is going to keep improving for years and years to come. He broke, I think, 2 bones in his right hand and he's working on dribbling, shooting, and passing with his left. I hope IU goes all in on him by end of summer.

I appreciate the response and I have heard many of those same things over time as well. Some thoughts on the points you mentioned. 1. 48 minutes is a long game and the players are so talented. So when a team jumps out to a big lead, it's just numbers that the team missing a lot of shots is eventually going to get hot within the course of a game and come back. Also, this happens in college all the time. There's tons of times during a college season where a team goes up 10-20 points in the first 10 minutes and then by the last 5 minutes of the game it's a 5-pt game. Happens all the time. 2. This I can't really push back on. It's just a fact that the NBA season is a long season and you're traveling for 5-10+ days at a time (albeit with top-notch accommodations) playing back-to-backs, etc.. It takes a toll on the body and the mind. I saw this first-hand so I tend to give NBA players a break on it sometimes. I've been on road trips where we landed in Boston at 2:30am after playing in another city and then had a home game the next night. These guys beat up their bodies for 7-9 months, so I sort of get taking plays offs. Also, how many times have we complained about IU guys not playing hard? So, this one happens in college as well, probably for different reasons though. But, again I get what you're saying. That 11+ minute video from a couple years ago of Harden's bad defensive plays was insane. 3. I don't really get the Thomas Bryant part, but on your general point I think the NBA has had maybe the best run of any professional sport the last 10-15 years in terms of the likability of their stars. Yeah, they complain in the media and they don't always handle social media great, but name me a star in the NBA the last 10 years that's gotten in trouble with the law or had any off-the-court scandals? Outside of Kobe Bryant's legal issue which was almost 20 years ago, the current crop and the aging crop of NBA stars have been pretty clean and all seem like good guys. They do a ton in the community, etc. At the same time, they're playing in the most scrutinized era in terms of media and fan access. 4. I can't debate against star treatment, there's no doubt in the NBA that stars get away with way more than other players and they draw fouls way more than other players. The Big Market/Small Market stuff I don't buy as much, but compared to college that would be the same as the Blue Blood vs. little guys thing. Do the Lakers have advantages compared to the Kings? Absolutely. But Duke has advantages compared to Wake Forest in college. Milwaukee is currently a 1 seed. Portland and Denver are playing in the conference semi's. Over the last 10 years San Antonio has been to 2 Finals, OKC has been to the Finals, Orlando has been there and Cleveland went to 4 straight. 5. There is a lot to complain about in terms of NBA officiating (believe me, I can start that thread 😀), but NBA refs are infinitely better than NCAA refs. NCAA refs are the worst! I appreciate you bringing those points up, for me this is a fun discussion. I realize everyone likes what they like and everyone has a right to their opinion, but sort of what you alluded to is that I think a lot of the gripes against the NBA are perception, not really reality. I happen to be someone that loves college basketball and the NBA, but I always enjoy this discussion.

No question the players are incredibly talented. Here are the recent complaints I've heard, some of which I share, some are just common beliefs that I don't necessarily agree with, but seem to be widely-held... The games seems "scripted". Even if a team is down 20, they will often come back and make it a really close game, if not win it. Blowouts are uncommon even if a team jumps out to a huge lead. I don't necessarily agree with this but I've heard the NBA described in similar terms as pro wrestling (scripted). The tendency to take plays off. The effort, while at times intense, is not uniform. Players like Hardin and LeBron at times look like they don't even care about defense. (kinda agree with this one) Too many Russell Westbrooks and not enough Thomas Bryants. Everyone has a chip on their shoulder and act like they're too cool to show joy and excitement. Some act downright surly in interviews...just no decorum. (personally, I realize the frustration of being asked a dumb question, so I'd give several passes here, although at times, some players just seem to be acting like intentional jackasses). Big market vs. small market and star treatment perception. Maybe officiating is just that bad, but there's a perception that winners and losers are picked before the playoffs are even started. (likely untrue, but I can see why people think this) (somewhat related) Poor officiating/ignoring many calls that could be made such as traveling/palming/carrying. At times, just like in college, a LOT of contact is ignored. (about 50/50 on this one, personally) That's just off the top of my head, but those are things I commonly hear from people who don't like the pro game. My personal view is that their's likely some truth and some fiction in those five, but it does shed light on why people don't like the pro game. I'll always love a game that has Victor Oladipo in it. He's such a great ambassador of the game. If everyone played that hard with the off-court demeanor he has, I think the game would be more popular. (Not that I'm saying it's unpopular now.)

As a sort of aside, these first playoffs without LeBron have been as interesting, dramatic, and compelling as ever. In the East, do we know who will win it and move on to the Finals? I mean, at this point it seriously looks like it could be ANY of the Bucks, Toronto, Boston or Philly. There's no shoe in, by any stretch. And each of those series has been compelling, close, hard fought and with underlying story lines. Kawhii looking like the MVP again. Giannis as the MVP to be. Embiid, dominant, then sick but playing, but unable to take over. Boston's internal on again off again struggles, loaded but not firing on all cylinders, Kyrie playing hero ball instead of making his team better, but still lurking and capable. And btw Smart is back for the next game. In the West, man that Blazers - Nuggets series is a battle of hard-playing, fighting teams. To come back after a quadruple OT loss on the road and win the next one, on the road, down the stretch against Lillard? Hats off. Nuggets won't advance to the Finals, but I think they will pull this series out -- but am by no means sure, another battle series. Rockets - GS is a drama fest. GS will likely pull this out and maybe in short order from here on out, but not sure, Curry is bothered by the left hand finger injury and he's not separating himself for his shot like he usually does. Is he slowing down? So GS will probably -- probably --pull off another championship, but I can't say I'm certain of that either.