An NBA Fan Makes Due with College Basketball

There’s a reason basketball fans are referred to as “junkies”—we want as much as we can get, and despite regularly complaining about overly long seasons, the remotely serious hoops heads among us will just keep on coming back for more. Seconds, thirds, fourths, whatever.

Except there’s one key caveat: We reserve the right to hate college ball.
 
I know we usually don’t bother with the NBA/NCAA breach until March Madness. That’s when the entire nation watches, enthralled, as teams trip over each other to rack up football scores and win in triple-overtime through either endless free throws or miracles that will make a believer out of anyone. Meanwhile, NBA fans wonder why no one wants to notice their sport, which is warming up for the stretch run. NCAA purists—and indeed, most of sports nation—shoot back that the NCAA stresses respect for authority, sound fundamentals and teamwork, as opposed to the iso-crazy world of the pros.
 
There's nothing new about the NBA/NCAA breach The NBA/NCAA breach was used to lead the first previous paragraph. What makes it worth discussing right now is that, for the first time since 1998, it's a one-sided debate. It won’t resolve itself. There's usually a familiar rhythm to the debate. During March Madness, NBA partisans get salty; college fans smirk and claim world supremacy. When it's over, they go into hibernation, sated and secure. Maybe they busy themselves with stalking top recruits.

Meanwhile, the NBA playoffs arrive, and cranky pro fans no longer have to snipe at poor fifth-year seniors to feel good about themselves. The playoffs blow through like a month-long torrent, purging the air and making it impossible to think about anything other than pressing questions like “Does LeBron James suck?”

Except this year, there’s no choice. The college players are arguably more exploited than NBA players ever were, but they've got no choice. The NCAA has product, the NBA has been reduced to hawking glum news conferences about the lockout negotiations or showing games from decades past. For fans who swing both ways, this is a downer. For NBA partisans, it’s an outright tragedy. The question is, is no basketball at all better than NCAA ball?
 
Here’s a novel idea: How about using the NCAA for NBA purposes? Get a jump on scouting, if you’re one of those people who only really learns about prospects through the tourney. Watch a lot of teams like Kentucky and UNC that, despite their strong coaches and persistent systems, feature multiple future pros pushing themselves hard. Terrence Jones and Harrison Barnes could have been top-10 picks this summer; staying in for another season can’t help but tilt the quality of play a little more toward what NBA fans might consider watchable.

Or, to be more bleak about it, these are 2012’s top rookies. That’s the best we’re going to get these days, unless you religiously track down every single stream of every single player-mounted exhibition games. Sorry, NBA players. I support you, but it’s hard to convince anyone these games matter. College ball, even if I couldn't care less about the outcome, at least provides a high-pressure context to see players truly tested.
 
Their talent is neither raw, nor in the process of being molded by authority. These are nearly mature athletes, ready to leave their imprint on the sport—wherever that is.

Baylor has two players on the Naismith watch list: Perry Jones and Quincy Miller, both guaranteed lotto picks whenever we get another NBA draft. Is it the same as watching them at the pro level? Of course not. But at some point, talent shines through. We may not get another Kevin Durant-like one-and-done campaign this year, and yet Ty Lawson’s play in college was both electric and a fair predictor of his game at the next level.

This doesn’t mean we have to become converts to the cause, or suddenly acknowledge college basketball’s inherent limitations are in fact strengths. It’s perfectly possible to praise certain teams or players in NBA terms, while thumbing your nose at the standard, cloying NCAA rhetoric.

And yet at the end of the day, unlike the annual March Madness wars, this period is all about common ground, if not similarities. We can find something to use, and they can acknowledge that hey, they like it, too. It really doesn’t matter if, underneath it all, there are major rifts or disagreements. We have something in common and, best of all, everyone gets to maintain their sense of dignity.