NBA Limits Pregame Rituals to 90 Seconds Because Association Is Against Fun
There is an evil that has spread far too virulently across the NBA, and it means players having too much damn fun before each tipoff.
Thankfully, there will now only be 90 seconds of fanfare before games begin, not the usual overabundance of handshakes, daps and chalk flying through the air.
The NBA has heard the millions upon millions who have asked for this. Because they have, right?
ESPN.com reports, "There will be 90 seconds put on the game clock, and teams will be expected to be ready for tipoff after that time."
Think of all the time we will save on our way to watching the actual game where traveling violations are never seen, fouls are capriciously called and far too many timeouts are utilized by coaches who still think a nine-point deficit can be chipped away by fouling late in the game.
But, hot damn, at least we got rid of all those handshakes most TV viewers never see and those in the home arena can't get enough of.
NBA, you get me.
Here is a video of some awful time-wasting going down as the raucous home crowd completely disagrees with what is happening.
You can hear the anger in the thousands of screaming voices.
Or how about what Kevin Durant told The Oklahoman:
"I personally don't like it. Every player in this league has routines they do with their teammates, rituals they do before the game and before they walk on the floor. The fans enjoy it. You see the fans mimicking the guys who do their stuff before the game. To cut that down really don't make no sense.
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Snark aside, teams do take a while to get things going. The ESPN.com report issues that some rituals take up to five minutes to complete, and it references a routine started by Shaquille O'Neal when he was in Phoenix as an example.
Even CBS Sports' Matt Moore has some valid points:
"It comes down to fans show up to watch tipoff. And if you think a few seconds don't matter? Consider the fact that if they waste 10 seconds for every game and you as a fan watch 82 games, that's 820 seconds, that's 13 minutes of your life gone. Now imagine you watch those 82 games for 10 years. You've just lost more than two hours of your life. Yes, you're going to waste a lot of your life anyway. But if you ask me if I want those two hours back? I do.
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I have wasted far more time of my life during TV timeouts and through some egregious uses of 20-second timeouts at the end of games.
If the NBA really cares about time, there are better ways of taking care of it.
Will I lose sleep over such a rule and the loss of handshake moments? No. Of course not. I'm not that nuts.
But the imposing of such a rule when there are so many other things wrong with NBA presentations seems arbitrary to me.
Hmm, I guess that is fairly par for the course considering the league.
Follow me on Twitter because, like Michelangelo, I'm a party dude.
