Thank you Jalen Rose! This past week the ESPN NBA Analyst voiced the same argument I’ve been making for years. Whether you like college basketball or prefer the NBA instead, you have to concede that college hoops is superior when it comes to this one attribute.
At college games, whether it’s the marching band or it’s “Turn Down for What,” the music stops when play begins. There is no noise during the actual in game action. That’s how it should be.
Jalen Rose agrees.
Via ESPN Media Zone, transcript from the NBA Playoffs conference call.
Jalen Rose: A couple other things I guess come to mind since you’re allowing me to get on a soapbox. I don’t like music during plays. I don’t want to be taking out the ball and hear Drake with three seconds to go in the game. I want to hear that before the game or after the game. Like how do you expect guys to concentrate?
P.J. Carlesimo: Didn’t we change that rule? I thought in the old days you weren’t allowed to do stuff when the game was on, or am I not remembering correctly?
Jalen Rose: Well, Coach, it used to be chants like “defense” or something like that. Now you’re taking out the ball, and you’re hearing the same music you hear in the club, and I’m like, how do you expect everybody to concentrate? I’m not a fan of that at all.
And the other thing people have been talking about is make your free throws. Let’s not change the rules of basketball for 12 guys to shoot 65 percent or below. Make your free throws.
Rose’s harangue began as a response to a question about playoff seeding changes, but that’s another debate for another time. His take on the free throw shooting rules is obviously in reference to the current debate surrounding the Hack-a-Shaq defense which has become so prevalent in the NBA Playoffs. Many are calling for the league to make rule changes that would curb such behavior.
The focus of that debate centers around DeAndre Jordan, after he cost the L.A. Clippers a game by shooting 6-17 from the free throw line. Jalen Rose made a really funny zinger about Jordan’s terrible FT% earlier this season.
Back to music during games. Yes, this is an obvious policy change that needs to be implemented immediately. If you need LOUD NOISES and party songs to keep you engaged in watching a NBA game, guess what, you don’t actually like basketball. Just like people who get extremely drunk to attend Jimmy Buffett concerts don’t actually like his music.
This worst offender of this….every NBA arena. The worst song snippet….”everybody clap your hands…clap..clap…clap…clap…clap…clap….clap…clap..clap..clap your hands.”
That’s from the horrid 1980s one-hit wonder “Cha Cha Slide.” I apologize on behalf of Chicago for that horrific scourge being brought into this world. Many things that are awful for you were born in Chicago: nuclear weapons, the cell phone, McDonald’s, Jim Belushi’s comedy, Kanye West’s personality…but the Cha Cha Slide is worse than all of them put together.
Paul M. Banks owns, operates and writes The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with Fox Sports Digital. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes to the Chicago Tribune RedEye edition. He also appears regularly on numerous sports talk radio stations all across the country.
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