NBA VS Premier League

This is a cross post between myself and billylayman@blogspot.com on the NBA vs the Premier League. His well intentioned piece of hippy propaganda in favour of the NBA is below,  my embittered rant is below that.

Bill says:

I love the Premier League but you silly English bumpkins have made some crucial errors. We need to look at our clever-dick pals in the US to see how an entertaining and fair professional sports league is really run.

Salary caps, it seems embarrassingly obvious, are better. Next year there are two or three teams that could win the Premier League. Fine. But the problem is that won’t change unless another club is lucky enough to be purchased by a gizzilionaire.

A salary cap means equality across the league. There would still be great clubs and terrible clubs but the difference would be the terrible clubs have nothing to hide behind. Players are less likely to be sucked up by the top teams. And, best off all, no matter what shit-house club you support it’s only a few well managed years away from glory.

There are some horrendous things about the NBA – national anthems and fireworks before every game – but overall it’s a more enjoyable competition to follow.

If you were designing a league from scratch it would be on the NBA model. Sure, there are difficulties in bringing in salary caps. As there would be with other possible improvements like a draft system but that doesn’t mean the league wouldn’t be improved by it.

Not only would a salary cap fix football it would cure all of England’s social problems. Teams would exist on an even playing field and we would all finally live in a beautiful socialist paradise.

I say:

For some reason a non-contact height competition became one of America's favourite sports. Basketball is a sport that developed from pure boredom and didn't develop that far.

When bored one might absent-mindedly toss a paper ball into the bin, we wouldn't say that made us athletes. When at school some of the crueller and taller members of the playground might play piggy in the middle or rather the you-can't-reach-the-item-I-have-stolen-from-you-because-I-am-holding-above-your-head-and-look-I-can-even-afford-to-throw-it-to-my-equally-freakishly-tall-friend game. Didn't make them clever.

Combine the two and you have the start of basketball. Now add a set of rules each designed to increase the score without adding anything to the pleasure of watching. A game that makes even scoring numbingly repetitive has gone seriously wrong somewhere. You can't pass back behind the line, you can't spend six seconds in the D, you can't touch anyone else, we all have to get time-outs when we're tired, all right already auntie what's next a bike helmet for every player, thermos and blankets for us watching.

The Premier League is an open no-holds-barred market of sporting perfection exported all round the world to the delight of every nation. It's the magic of battle between men wearing leather, using brains, needing balls and taking deadly shots, it's basically the wild west without the dry heat. The NBA on the other hand is like modern LA, pernickety yet bankrupt, crass yet pretentious, with a field of play so over-crowded you can't tell the difference between parked cars and a commuter lane.