2014 NBA draft No. 2 overall pick Jabari Parker is playing basketball for FC Barcelona of the ACB league this season, and he has some thoughts on the NBA and what he sees as a “watered down” product. Does he have a point or is he just bitter he’s no longer in the NBA?
“I just want to be a part of something legitimate. I want to be a part of ‘every game matters,’ Parker said when asked why he chose to play in Europe. “Sadly, the NBA is a business and there are 10-12 teams that try to win every game and the other half try to get a draft pick. Where does that leave good players? You either have to be super good or bad, to lose games. It’s no excuse to see DeMarcus Cousins, Dwight Howard, or John Wall, guys who are potentially going into the Hall of Fame … seeing those guys not have a job? We are seeing the league getting watered down, unfortunately. It’s a lot of things that are out of our control. Euroleague and the fans are expecting a lot, and we as players expect a lot from ourselves and we want to compete.”
The NBA Is The League The Best Players Want To Be In
Let’s start at the beginning. If an NBA team was willing to sign Parker he would be in the NBA right now and not in Europe. American players who go overseas to play can do well and can have a great time. Barcelona is one of the great cities in the world.
But don’t get it twisted. The ACB league isn’t the NBA. The best players prefer to play in the NBA.
NBA Is A Business
It is true that the NBA is a business. Parker is not wrong there. Some franchises, albeit a few, are well run and in the business of winning. Most are poorly run and for a player to thrive and succeed in those environments it is largely on them to make it happen.
As to why Boogie Cousins, Dwight Howard and John Wall are not in the NBA, it’s clear that none of the teams believe either of those players can help in whatever the team’s stated goals are. Though the Golden State Warriors did bring Dwight Howard in for a workout this week and the team looked to be close to signing him.
Is the league starting to look homogenous in its style and what it looks for in the skill set of players? Yes and no.
Every major sports league is a copycat league. The team that wins the title and or starts a dynasty, owners of other teams pressure their team executives to come up with ways to beat said team.
Making It In The NBA Is Not Easy
But the Denver Nuggets, Warriors, Milwaukee Bucks, Los Angeles Lakers and Toronto Raptors (the last five champions) all play a different style of basketball. They all had one thing in common, a transcendent superstar player.
It begins there.
Do teams want as many players who can shoot from three as possible? Yes. But that’s because it makes sense. The more elite shooting you can have on the floor, the more space your transcendent superstar has to operate.
Guarding an elite NBA player in space is a nightmare.
Parker’s NBA career didn’t turn out the way he wanted. Is it the league’s fault or his fault? Likely both.
The Bucks clearly didn’t give him enough of what he needed to blossom into his full potential. But that same team drafted Giannis Antetokounmpo a year earlier, and he managed to develop just fine.
