Except the huge basketball fans (like me) or sport nuts (again, like me), not many will be interested in the 2006 World Basketball Championship which is taking place right now. Given that USA hasn’t won on the previous two occassions, they want to give a strong performance this time. They took a much more solid team to meet this end as well.

The favourites, as far as I am concerned, are Argentina. They have always performed well at international basketball events. In the recent history, they have won the gold at Athens and came second to Yugoslavia in the World Basketball Championships in 2002. The Argentinean team works well together but more importantly, they are more adept to playing the international basketball rules play (which is quite different from the NBA rules).

As far as this championship is concerned, the big plus for Argentina is Manu Ginobili returning for them. Ginobili has some thing to prove too via the tournament as Draft Express wrote in their preview:

The tournament will be a great opportunity for Ginobili to show the world that he can be a legit go-to guy without the presence of a player in the mould of Tim Duncan.

The tournament will soon enter it’s knock out stages soon (August 26th) and a Spain-Argentina semi final clash and possibly Greece vs. US in the other semi final makes it interesting.

Whom am I supporting? The burger guys of course. The rise continues with a round of 16 spot secured. They face Argentina next and I can see Manu Ginobili is scared to death already.

Barry bonds is in the news again. I didn’t care. Neither do you I am sure. The reason is not because you may not be an American and thus not interested in a lot of what goes on in US sports. Even Americans don’t care as this poll shows. [Via Blogcritics]

The Barry Bonds don’t care maybe due to the constant over coverage in the media during his home run chase. Each time Bonds hit a home run, ESPN cut regular programming to cover it. The result was that people went numb when they heard the words Barry Bonds. The senses system told them - shut every thing or your brains will burst.

We saw some thing similar in India not long ago during the Ganguly-Chappell controversy. First, people were either in favour of Ganguly or Chappell. The issue dragged and the media dragged it along. By the end, people didn’t care any more. They just wanted to hear no more of the Ganguly-Chappell issue. Tendulkar is back once again in the Indian team. Got the don’t care feeling? I guessed so.

Constant repitition maybe cause this numbness. For example, how many of you got excited when Roger Federer won Wimbledon again this year? Even against a promising Nadal, most people new Federer had little chance of losing. Had the opponent in the final been some one else, the Wimbledon final would have recieved much lower television ratings. The don’t care phenomena would have been much more evident.

Some how, flawed geniuses excite us and help us avoid the don’t care phenomena. So, a Kobe Bryant will never fail to bore us. One day, he scores truck loads of points and we can’t get enough of his talent. The next day, we wonder if he failed. Breaks in successful performances avoids repitions. Would we have got as excited for the second Jordan three peat had he not had the gap to try baseball despite scenario in which he achieved the second three peat very different?

We care about our sports but only that much and no more. For, the don’t care stage isn’t too far off.

Update: Read Ravi Gurnani’s flawed sporting idols here.

Heat’s first ever title. Another title for Shaq. One for Wade and Mourning. Don’t tell me I didn’t tell you Heat will win it and Mr. Nowitzki will run out of steam. World Cup fever has meant that I have missed most of the NBA finals and an exciting NHL playoffs final series as well.

Dhoomk2 informed me that ESPN-star haven’t been showing the finals live in India. I was shocked by it as this is in complete contrast to the Jordan days where then showed all games live from around the Conference semis. When he switched on his TV set late at night, they were showing some aerobics or something. Bewildering.

It is true that the NBA has gone downhill since then but the current playoffs have seen a rebirth for the league. ESPN-star missed the bus to attract new viewers to the game and have a select audience. Live telecasts of the NBA don’t clash with other sports most of the time and had a more serious approach been given to NBA, I am sure it would have reaped long term benefits.

I kept seeing repeated ads of TNA between breaks of the world cup highlights show apart from the cricket ads. Surely other sports have their audiences in India apart from cricket, football and erm, wrestling? A few days ago, I saw an ad for Wimbledon thus -

The only time you get to see girls groan on grass.

Uh WHAT? How is that a good way to draw an audience for a sport? If people are interested in porn or have a soft porn mentality, they won’t switch on to a sports channel for the same. Even if they switch on to sports for a moment as a result of this, you are targetting the wrong kind of audience which isn’t sustainable.

It also shows that you are not confident in the sports viewing audience of the country. True, the segment is smaller than usual. But if you think having a Harsha Bhogle presenting the world cup will draw in the house wifes and the cricket following audience to follow football in India, you are missing the picture. It is similar to Mandira Bedi being called up by Set-Max though not as clearly identifiable.

If you do not take the audience seriously, it will not take you seriously. It will switch to the other sports channels whenever it can - some thing I am sure you would not like.

Every one wrote off the Pistons. Then, Ben Wallace blocked Shaq. Read more on the block here. So we definitely have two conference semis which will go to six games and the possibility of either of them, if not both going into game seven definitely exists.

The Piston’s were never as good as people thought they were? Ah the interesting debates in sport - always fascinating. My take is that they were good enough to win championships and you don’t win championships with just luck and because the opponents aren’t that strong.

Some reviews of the Pistons-Heat game 5:

• Detroit Bad Boys.
• 20 Second Time Out.
• ESPN.

The focus now shifts to Suns-Mavericks. It sure is exciting!

Tonight is the night which promises the end of a Pistons dynasty. There are weaknesses about the Pistons the experts are speaking about and fans are irritated over but I am just going to say that the Heat have been that good. I was watching the Heat-Pistons game 4 and even though it was looking close at the end of the first half with a point separating the teams, the Heat looked firmly in control.

It showed as the gap opened up in quarters three and four - gaps which looked much bigger than they actually were at points in the game. A lot has been spoken on Dwayne Wade. All the praise is rightfully deserved but more impactful for me is the combination with Shaq and the rest of the guys - that damn good for me to win the championship this year. First, the Pistons dynasty must end.

The victory for the Suns to tie the series 2-2 was important because we needed at least one series to go into a game 6 if not a game 7. Else, we could have faced the situation of March Madness - good early on only to fizzle out when it mattered most. The fear was so big that Matthew Sussman even suggested the playoffs to close when the conference semi finals ended. The Suns resurgence is very promising.

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Starting this week, we have a new feature at Sportolysis. In Visitors, I invite one person each week to share perspectives on a sport, a sporting event, sporting aspects or any thing in between. This week, Jon Reed of Complete Sports joins us to give his thoughts on the NBA Playoffs 2006 till the conference semi-finals and looking ahead at the conference finals.

By Jon Reed

What have we seen so far? Try 9 OT games, lots more that were decided by 1 or 2 points, and the biggest young star in the NBA proving that he can get the job done in the playoffs. Ah yes, the rebirth of the NBA.

We’ve seen one of the best conference semifinals ever, when we had arguably the top 2 teams in the NBA (San Antonio and Dallas) square off in an incredibly well-matched series, where only one game could be considered “not close.” We saw a series between Cleveland and Washington that featured Cleveland making 3 game-winners in the last 5 or so seconds. We’ve seen running and gunning from Phoenix throughout the playoffs, and we’ve seen tight defense in Game 7 when the Pistons needed the win.

We’ve seen countless incredible performances from stars. LeBron got a triple-double in his first playoff game. Tim Duncan did everything but drain a couple 3-pointers against the Mavs (incredibly without drawing a foul), but even he was topped by the heroics of Dirk Nowitzki. Dwyane Wade’s been knocked down many times, but he has the Heat in the conference Finals. Shawn Marion has played over 40 minutes a night, guarding guys like Kobe Bryant, Lamar Odom, Chris Kaman, or Elton Brand, and all the while he’s been the Suns #2 scoring threat. The individual performances have been incredible.

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A lot has been said on Brown. I like this form of expression better. [Via NBA LJ]

LeBron Jones has been superb in his first play offs. Yes, it is his first play offs if you have forgotten that in all the craziness. I understand it caught every one’s fancy as James took the Cavaliers to almost eliminating the Pistons. What I don’t understand are the reactions over James.

First, people tried to compare him to Jordan and took that expectation level to the highest level possible in NBA terms. Let’s get this clear - no one comes close to Jordan. At least not any one I have seen. Actually, it is unfair on James when people even compare him with Jordan. I guess it is also the biggest compliment and he cannot help people raising their bar of expectation that high.

Now, people are ruing that he couldn’t crush the Pistons. LeBron James is just 21 years old. He isn’t yet the best player in the league for what it’s worth. People will take a Bryant or a Wayde or some one else. I don’t get why such aspects like LeBron is a king without a kingdom should be even pondered over at this stage of his career.

He has MANY more years ahead of him - and that, should be the end of that.

This is the tme when the NBA playoffs reach the clutch stage. If you don’t start watching now, you never will. Every one is trying his hand at basketball now. Even Bush.

Yay Sports catches the general atmosphere when they write:

Cleveland fans are doing the typical over-reaction, screaming that the entire team needs to be torn apart, and whining Shot/Fumble/Drive. This wasn’t one of those games, c’mon…

Game 7 should be a war, and it somehow seems fitting that if the Cavs are going to do this, they do it in that fashion. That’s about it - it was a tough loss, but it is what it is. Both teams worked hard, both made some key plays, and both made some mistakes. That’s what the playoffs are.

Will LeBron screw up? Will San Antonio screw up? Will Detroit screw up? What will happen in Suns versus Clippers? I am really excited about the Clippers but Suns are always attractive to watch as well. Clippers are no laughing stock any more.

Who will reach the conference finals? It should be exciting drama before Heat, Shaq and Wayde and the rest sweep over whoever comes in their way ;)

Series break downs: DET-CLE, SA-DAL, PHO-LAC.

Kobe Bryant, for all his brilliance, could not get the Lakers past the Phoenix Suns in the clutch game 7. A lot of people have said that Kobe has failed. Complete Sports, a sports blog I have come to enjoy over the past month said this:

Instead, he was beyond passive. In the 2nd half, he was 0/3 from the field. He scored 1 point, which came after a 3-in-the-key technical foul on Phoenix. He didn’t even look to shoot. He looked like a young Vince Carter after taking a hard foul…

Let’s just say Kobe failed.

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