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[QUOTE="OttoMets, post: 75945, member: 716"]
Agreed. I guess I'm opening Pandora's box by a.) comparing two different levels of basketball and b.) admitting that I don't watch much NBA ball, but it's hard not to make a value judgment on two different scenarios:

2010, last week of the seaon. Syracuse is #1 in the country and likely has a top seed in the tournament locked up. We get a raucous 27,000 for our final home game (and paying fans see maximum effort from our players), then see a sell-out in Louisville (and get maximum effort from both teams).

Any year, last week of the season for the top team in the Eastern or Western Conference in the NBA, which has locked up the top seed and home-court advantage for the play-offs. Starters play limited minutes in front of 18,000 somnolent spectators while canned music is piped in during game action in a futile effort to engage them.

The atmosphere of the NBA is inferior. Of course when their players give full effort, the level of play is much better (I'll happily admit it's nice to see games where players make 80% of their free throws and a mid-range jumper isn't an adventure). But basketball doesn't lend itself to an 82-game regular season. There is little duller than a basketball game where guys are playing half-speed, and the schedule is peppered with those. Combine that with the league's insistence at maintaining teams in horrible sports towns (not talking about New York or Chicago or Boston, of course), the atmosphere isn't so good at times.
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