There is no need to argue too much when stating that the NBA is the most popular basketball tournament in the world. With countless stars and a 75-year-old tradition of building and developing, the American professional basketball tournament is always in a unique position in the eyes of orange ball-loving audiences. However, is this really a place to honor real values?

Before getting into the discussion, let’s clarify one issue first. Playoffs in the NBA can be affirmed to be among the toughest competitions on the planet. This is where every player and coaching staff must strive to compete and rack their brains to win. The content of this article will mainly discuss the group stage or Regular season.

Opinions about the NBA gradually losing competitiveness in the group stage have been reminded by fans recently. Especially with the star players constantly taking a break from their tactics. Not only that, at matches broadcast on US national television, many times the audience turns on the TV to see a series of reserve names starting in the starting lineup. The outrage is unquestionable.

The audience watching on television was angry, perhaps the fans who paid money to buy tickets to watch the match live at the stadium were probably even more angry. The large amount of money they have to spend to bring back moments of watching idol players is looked down upon by those same stars, leading to a lot of frustration for viewers. Perhaps the NBA is too old by still keeping its long group stage system.

Each NBA team will play up to 82 matches a season, which means that the group stage alone has 1,640 matches. That is a terrible number even compared to any sports tournament of any subject. No matter how good any thing is, when there is too much of it, people will become bored. The NBA is really falling into that dead end.

The NBA elite have long recognized this. However, the huge amount of money from broadcasting rights and in-game advertising is lucrative for leaders to ignore. So they turned to a different way of doing things. That is to create stories and central character images for your tournament. And it’s great for them that NBA stars are a limitless source of material.

Looking back a bit at history, readers can realize that the NBA is a tournament powered by energy from the players. No other sports league in the world is built around individuals as much as this one. Compared to football, a player can be famous and excellent but the team’s interests are still number one, without exception.

However, in the NBA, the story is completely different. Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls would not do anything to displease their “black God”. The great “MJ” could be getting ready to go golfing or betting with his security guard right before the match started and no one would have a say. Even those details were polished up in the documentary about him later.

Returning to the main point, history has proven that the individual is what drives the NBA. Thinking back to the 80s, fans remember the confrontation between Magic Johnson and Larry Bird. The 90s were dedicated to the immortal Michael Jordan. The NBA in the new century is the transition between Kobe Bryant and LeBron James. Fans really care and direct their attention to the stories created by individuals rather than the game they are watching.

That creates an unquestionable huge source of revenue for the NBA. But one thing is that no matter how beautiful and skillful the stories are drawn, no one can fool the viewer. That’s why the NCAA March Madness student basketball tournament makes the whole United States so crazy. The dedication to the national flag and beloved fans from young men in their twenties is sincere.

Although the level of NCAA basketball cannot be compared to a corner in the NBA, the dedication of the student players is what makes this tournament special. They do every ball, every throw with boundless love for basketball without any profit when there is no salary here. Meanwhile, the NBA star can completely rest and enjoy a Sunday afternoon on the beach while his teammates go out to fight. Because it doesn’t matter because there are a ton more matches to correct mistakes.

A former NBA player, Mario Hezonja, recently made a notable statement on eurohoops.net. When asked about his plans to return to the NBA, the former New York Knicks player flatly refused: “No. There are so many things I don’t like about that place. I won’t go back there, that place never respected me the way I deserved. And besides, that tournament is more like a reality show than a real competition.”

There have been many voices suggesting that the NBA should reduce the number of matches in the group stage to increase the importance of this stage. At the same time, not everyone can update too much information about the tournament where no less than 3 matches take place every day. However, we all still have to wait for an answer from the tournament.

This article was not created with the intention of defaming the NBA’s image. Obviously, this is a great arena for basketball where top talents from all over the world show off their talents. However, because we love so much, we all need to know about the bad things to highlight for the ever-growing love tournament.