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    Point Guards, Playoffs and The Future of Football
    Point Guards, Playoffs and The Future of Football
    Point Guards, Playoffs and The Future of Football
    Ebook68 pages1 hour

    Point Guards, Playoffs and The Future of Football

    By Ben Sullivan

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    About this ebook

    A collection of eight sports essays that delve into some of the most important topics of sports right now. From football to baseball to basketball and more, there is something for every sports fan. Thoughtful, in-depth and even at times funny, Point Guards, Playoffs and The Future of Football is for any fan of sports today.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBen Sullivan
    Release dateApr 27, 2013
    ISBN9781301344444
    Point Guards, Playoffs and The Future of Football

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      Book preview

      Point Guards, Playoffs and The Future of Football - Ben Sullivan

      Point Guards, Playoffs and The Future of Football

      A Collection of Sports Essays

      By Ben Sullivan

      Copyright 2013 Ben Sullivan

      Smashwords Edition

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase a new copy.

      Send any questions or comments to the author at bensullivan52@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @bensullivan52

      This one is for my parents. This book, and everything else in my life, would not be possible if it weren't for the two most supportive and selfless people I will ever know.

      Table of Contents

      Getting to the Best Part of the NBA Season

      Life Imitating Madden

      Los Angeles Lakers, a Season in Their Own Words

      The Evolution of the Modern Point Guard

      The Future of America's Favorite Sport

      If Football Fails, Who Wins?

      Revisiting the NFL Collective Bargaining Agreement

      The Shame Bet

      Getting to the Best Part of the NBA Season

      Americans like to get to the best part of everything, and right away. We don’t like to wait, we don’t like a slow burn, we just want the payoff right now. It’s the reason we don’t know how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop, because no one has ever been patient enough to find out.

      We’ve all been there, you get about halfway through, with all of the best intentions, and eventually give into the temptation and just bite down, immediately being rewarded for our impatience. One of my favorite recent commercials is even based on this. It’s the KFC one with Tracy Jordan, where he announces that Americans didn’t like the shape of chickens, so we changed them to nuggets. Makes me proud, and hungry.

      This same desire to get the best of everything takes over the sports landscape too. It’s the reason that soccer is the most popular sport in every other country in the world, but not in ours. Soccer is a beautiful, elegant game. When played at a high level it is a symphony of movement, ten players moving as one amorphous organism, and when goals are scored they’re most likely the culmination of a multi faceted, complex system of passing and positioning.

      Sounds great, doesn’t it? Well that appeals to most in this world, but not to Americans, because it only comes together rarely. You might have to watch a whole game to get to enjoy this payoff just once or twice. We don’t have the patience for that, we need something to get us off our seats right away. Like now. I mean, you probably already want me to get going with this, get to the point. I’m getting there, trust me.

      The sports we like have frequent intermediate goals. In football you don’t have to wait for a touchdown to cheer, you can root for the next first down. In baseball you may only get a few runs scored each game, but you can always get excited about the next time your team gets a hit or strikes someone out. Basketball may be the best example of a sport with intermediate goals. You have somewhere close to 200 possessions in every NBA game, with a chance to score on every one.

      American sports are built around this need for immediate satisfaction, except for one aspect, playoffs. Playoffs are a uniquely American creation. Our professional sports, and most of our amateur sports, are designed around a slow build up of each season to a crescendo of excitement at the very end. We slog through regular seasons, sometimes interminably long, just to widdle down the field of teams to a select few who will get to play for the chance to win a championship.

      And that makes playoffs the best part of every season. They have the most excitement, the highest level of play, and the games are must see for the fans. We even describe worthy regular season games as having a playoff atmosphere.

      So if the regular season is just an excuse to get to the playoffs, why do we even need it? Why do we put up with so many meaningless regular season games just to get to the good stuff? Well, for a few reasons, the biggest being money. Regular season games bring in money for the owners, fans pay good money for tickets, buy concessions and pay for parking, even though most of the games aren’t worth the time to see them, let alone the money. It also serves a purpose to eliminate the teams that aren’t good enough to even be in the discussion of the league champion for that season.

      But here’s the thing, I get the money aspect, the owners need to profit from their teams and money will always trump everything else in sports, and

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