04/20/24
December 03, 2007
Walton, Stern, and Moralizing the Lig.: An examination of the NBA landscape, and the message of morality in the league.
Recently I posted a link from PhDribble about a recent Bill Simmons podcast featuring Bill Walton. Walton expounds upon his views of the League effusively, and at length, and hits all of the major verses of the old-school basketball theology. If you’ve ever heard Walton broadcast, you wouldn’t be surprised by the tone, tenor, or message. There is by turns, the excitement, love, and pure joy of a true hoophead reveling in the beauty of the game and the disappointed, saddened, and somber eulogizer of lost fundamentals, communication, and leadership. Extolling the values of the game, whilst condemning its current state. PhDribble soundly takes apart Walton’s criticisms of the game for the reader and comes to several interesting conclusions, one of which I will cherry-pick:
“He (Walton) is not simply out-of-touch and out-dated, a hopeless romantic whose time has passed. The inconsistency between his criticism of the League and the reality of the League does not come because he's out-of-touch. In fact, it comes because his view has become accepted, even consensus. And that view has prevailed in the game itself. Walton just doesn't seem to notice. And this is important. His views have become consensus.”
What PhDribble touches on, and I hope to expand upon here is that Walton’s views are part of a larger narrative of the League. A narrative that has shaped our perceptions, for good and ill.
Before addressing the big picture, lets address Walton’s part in this narrative for context, as he is our entry point to discussion. As a UCLA alum who played under John Wooden, it is no surprise how strongly Bill feels about sports as an extension and celebration of life. Nor is it surprising that he adheres to a strict belief of “how to play the right way”. He played 10 seasons professionally over a 14 year HOF career. Walton was drafted in 1974 and played until 1988. But we’ll come back to Bill in a moment. David Stern was General Counsel to the league in 1978, and in 1984 became the Commish. The Commish talked about the early years of his stewardship (funny enough, Simmons again) and provides the beginning to our narrative. It has been established that when Stern took over the League, that the public perceived that the game was getting physical and drugs were starting to take their toll. So, like a good Commish, he implemented new policies in an effort to clean up the game. Yet…
“BS: When you took over, the number one problem was drugs, in terms of the perception of what was going on, as well as the fighting …DS: By the way, people screw up the timing -- remember, I didn't become commissioner until 1984. The best thing that happened to us was that in April of 1983, we made a collective bargaining agreement with the players, and we came up with the salary cap for the first time. And there was more of a notion of a partnership between the owners and players. And separately, we came up with the anti-drug plan. Back then, people really appreciated the fact that the players and the owners were addressing both the financial issues and the drugs issues. It wasn't so much that we cleaned it up, because it wasn't as bad as everyone said it was, it was that we addressed it. At the time, everyone said, "Oh, it's the NBA, too much money, players making $250,000, that's ridiculous, they're black …
BS: The drug thing was pretty bad though. You guys had a lot of good guys wiped out. Spencer Haywood, Micheal Ray [Richardson], Bernard King, David Thompson …
DS: Everyone was saying it was only us -- it was in the schools, in the prisons, the hospitals, the law firms, it was an item of public and foreign policy. I mean, America was in the grip of something, we were sort of the harbinger of what what happening, that young men were engaged in using drugs. No question. And our guys, we happened to have a young age base, our demographic fit it. So as a result, we have one of the earliest employee-assistance programs on the subject. It ultimately got outvoted, but at the time, it was the first attempt to deal honestly with the problem.
BS: So, looking at the problems since you took over -- the fighting and the drugs -- that got settled, the games got a little too chippy in the late-'80s, you fixed that …
Stern knew that the problem with drugs wasn’t specifically a “basketball problem” but a societal issue, so he addressed it. This gave Stern the leeway to take the next step, marketing his stars. It seems like a no-brainer now, but at the time it just wasn’t done (at least not to the extent that Stern envisioned), games were still on tape delay, hell the Finals were on tape delay for a time. By cleaning up the game, the Commish could hold up the players of his game and champion them as STARS. Entertainment. You couldn’t do that in a sport with the reputation the NBA had, not with any reasonable expectation of success. Of course it didn’t hurt to have Jordan, Magic and Bird around either.
Walton’s playing career spans the period before and after Stern’s appointment, so he knows as well as anyone the trials and tribulations the League has endured. What is astonishing is how he holds that period in the NBA in such stark relief to its current state. According to my admittedly shoddy research, during his playing career, there were on average 1 to 2 legal incidents involving NBA players and just under 8 league disciplinary actions per year. But lets examine that more closely. In Walton’s career, prior to Stern-as-Commish (1974-1983), the league levied 3 disciplinary actions PER YEAR. That’s suspensions and fines folks. Post Stern-as-Commish (in an admittedly small sample from 1984-1988) that number nearly sextupled to about 19 per year. Since Walton has retired the league has expanded, not quite doubling the number of teams there were when he was drafted. As a result, the number of infractions has gone up. The average number of legal incidents of NBA players is slightly less than double the 1.5 per year, which is to be expected. The average number of disciplinary actions levied against NBA players during the same period (1988-2008) is 7 times the average during Walton’s career. That’s 56 disciplinary actions per year. For a little more perspective, assuming a player from the “modern era” played as long as Bill (14 years), and retired today, say Jason Kidd or Grant Hill (class of 1994), the league average for disciplinary actions per year during their careers would stand at 77, that’s 11 times the average during Walton’s career.
Does that mean Walton’s right? Is the modern game merely a shade of its former glory? Judging by its popularity, and monetary success, obviously not. The perception that the NBA as it currently stands, is the lesser son of greater sires, or greater sports for that matter, is largely fed by the marketing that led to its surging popularity to begin with. In short, the game itself hasn’t changed too much, but the forces that shape our view of it have. The game, if anything, is more business-like. The increase in infractions over time, when viewed closely, isn’t the result of an disgruntled pool of players, so much as a reflection of an increasingly image-conscious League. A League where a dress-code is enacted to reinforce the veneer of its business aspect, but harkens back to players like Walt ‘Clyde’ Frazier and Connie Hawkins wearing the most garishly stylish outfits known to man. A League in which the very survival of the business is dependant upon branding, image, and perception but is paradoxically skewered by some of its most beloved stars. How is this possible? Because the revisionism of commentators young and old keeps the sport relevant and fresh, while aligning the fans view to conform with their concept of the oft discussed “values of the game”. While some may find the excoriating of the current talent in light of the League’s historical norms problematic, it does make a certain kind of sense. By making comparisons between eras the League can, in effect, draft its own legacy. Like Odin, sacrificing himself upon the World Tree, to himself.
posted by lilnemo to commentary at 07:36 PM - 0 comments