Saturday, December 21, 2019

Bring Back the Dunk!

I know I am Old School (and not ashamed of it). I know I am reactionary (ditto). Sometimes I am even very illogical. But if college basketball is wanting to compete in the shrinking market for fans in the stands, it needs to tweak the rules to emphasize dunking.

Remember Doctor J? Julius Erving. Taking off from the free throw line, hanging in the air seemingly forever until he finally swooped down with a thunderous, crashing slam? Remember when the big guys ruled the roost, slamming home dunks with regularity? Then the crowd would explode, folks jumping up and slapping one another on the back. Ah, those were the good old days. Now we get to sit around waiting for someone to (yawn) shoot a three-point shot.

Obviously, the game has changed, but it has not changed in a way that makes it more exciting. The Game Fathers have operated the last few years under the assumption that more points means more excitement. But the main thing they have done to accomplish that is to award more points per event (3PT shot), and the event they awarded is a less-exciting event.

Let's do some sort of a fix that brings back the dunk, all the time, in every game, big guys muscling into the lane and powering home a hammerslam. I don't know if that will bring back fans, because electronic media probably has stolen them permanently, but at least now Junior will say to Dad, "Let's go down to the arena and see how many dunks they get," instead of "Let's go count the number of three-pointers" (which they could do during warmups with about the same amount of excitement).

Tweak the rules so that the dunk comes back to prominence, and at least make the games more exciting for the fans who do show up.

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