Malas na season para sa NBA

Tatlong malaking kaso ang bumulabog sa NBA sa taong kasalukuyan. Halos di pa humuhupa ang epekto ng isa, nasundan agad ito.

Una, ipinatatag ng liga ang "zero-tolerance" policy para sa mga reklamador na manlalaro. Unang umangal dito at hindi nakakagulat, ay ang Detroit Pistons.

"What happens if I am one of the captains?" tanong ni Rasheed Wallace, na tinamaan ng 16 na technical noong nakaraang season."Does that mean I can’t talk to them? You can’t talk back to them like they’re your mom and dad. It’s like they’re saying, ‘If you say someting to me I am going to put you on punishment.’ That’s how it is. I will come up with some way to tell them how I feel."

"It takes away from your natural reaction, the things that make basketball what it is," sabi ni Jerry Stackhouse, ang Dallas Maverics’ player representative. "You think Bill Bradley never hit the support after he was called for a foul? That’s the model citizen of all former NBA players. It’s just a natural thing to do. "If it’s a technical foul, all right, penalize the team. But don’take guys’ money for natural reactions toward heat of the moment things. We’re not robots. They would say they don’t want us to become robots, but that’s what it’s becoming."

Kasunod nito, binago ng NBA ang bola, mula sa dating leather ball, sa isang micofiber composite ball, at hindi tinanong ang mga player. Natural, marami ang nagalit.

"I think the new ball is terrible," sabi ni defending cham-pion Miami Heat center Shaquille O’Neal. "It’s the worst decision some expert, whoever did it, made... The NBA’s been around how long? A hundred years? Fifty years? So to change it now, whoever that person is needs his college degree revoked. It’s a terrible decision. Feels like one of those cheap balls that you buy at the toy store, indoor-outdoor balls. I look for shooting percentages to be way down and turnovers to be way up, because when the ball gets wet you can’t really control it. Whoever did that needs to be fired. It was terrible, a terrible decision. Awful. I might get fined for saying that, but so what"

"You can shorten our shorts, tell us how to wear wrist-bands, things like that. Change the dress code. But the one thing we care about is the basketball," pagdiin naman ni LeBron James ng Cleveland Cavaliers. "When you start changing the thing we play with every single day, it doesn’t make sense to me -- at all."

"Bring the old ball back," mungkahi ni Houston Rockets’ guard Tracy McGrady. "I don’t care about old rules, the defense, I don’t care about any of that. Just bring the old ball back."

"They’ve changed our weapon," dagdag ni two-time MVP Steve Nash ng Phoenix Suns. "I’m having a hard time holding it and making some passes."

Sumunod dito, nagrambulan naman ang New York Knicks at Denver Nuggets. Lamang ang Denver ng 19, at mahigit isang minuto na lamang ang nalalabi, nang ihagis sa sahig ni Knicks rookie Mardy Collins ang sumasalaksak na si J.R. Smith. Nagkagirian ang dalawa, makipag-away si Nate Robinson kay Smith, at inupakan naman ng patalikod ni Carmelo Anthony si Collins.

"Yeah, so I tod my guy to foul someone. Big deal," the Knicks head coach admitted. "If a guy’s driving the lane for a fantastic dunk in the warning seconds of a home blowout, he’s getting fouled. This is the old way. This is the way we used to play. We policed ourselves and settled our own scores. This team is going to go down swinging, like my boy Nate Robinson."

"We need to send a message to these players that fighting is unacceptable," sabi ni NBA commissioner David Stern. "If you foul somebody, help them up and say your terribly sorry. If someone is running up the score on you, tell them ‘congratulations’ and enjoy the show. After the game you can take out your frustrations by listening to your violent ‘hip hop’ music and punching a pillow or something. That will see you the embarrassment of having your awkward, girl punches show up on YouTube the next morning."

 Ano kaya ang susunod?