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Originally Posted by jayswin
The idea of it happening isn't bananas foolish as driveway is pretty much describing the NBA, currently, but I seriously question why anyone who cheers for a specific team, aka has a vested interest in the games would want that.
The NBA caters to stars so much that they're actually playing by a different standard. You can see examples on a weekly basis of scrubs getting called for travelling (3 steps without dribbling) while stars can be seen taking five steps with no call.
The NBA goes even further and all but crafts their bracket to the championship each year, selling a story line season with exciting super teams who dominate. This is kind of what driveway is pulling for and it already exists.
Oddly enough, this is the most successful the NBA has been in a long time and many speculate that it's the casual fans that are eating up the crafted, unfair play because the product itself is more fun to watch. Where as real fans that don't happen to be cheering for a "star" team feel really cheated and feel like they're not watching a legitimate sport, and they're kind of right.
I would stop watching the NHL if they went this route. When you start creating different standards for different players, it's no longer sport, it's theatre. As the NBA shows, theatre still sells, but I stopped watching the Raptors for that reason and I'd stop with the NHL, too.
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If you listen to the CBS radio 960 plays on weekends and other US sports stations even non-hockey fans comment on how the NHL playoffs are the best and that they can't turn away once they tune into a game. The NBA channels the WWE storylines to create drama because the parity is generally poor in the league compared to the NHL and NFL and the majority of teams have no shot of winning anything so the storylines keep the sport in the spotlight since you generally know that 2 or 3 teams are all matter. The NHL can never compete on a star level because it rolls four lines and the big stars aren't on the ice nearly as much as they are in the NBA. Also you are never going to see Kobe Bryant vs Shaq and all the off court stuff the NBA uses to create drama and sell tickets.