Sportsmanship.  While watching the NBA finals the last week, I saw an event that repeated itself over-and-over again.  When the Lakers attempting a three-point field goal near the Celtics bench, you could see members of their bench yelling at the shooter and even jumping and clapping their hands to simulate a blocked shot.  More often than not, this behavior was done by Sam Cassell—an NBA veteran with 14 years of experience.  Now, to be fair this could have occurred when the Celtics were shooting; I do have a pro-Lakers bias. 

With that said, the fact that this is happening is troubling for the NBA.  This practice demonstrates an obvious lack of sportsmanship and is a poor example for youths competing in leagues around the country.  I personally have lost a lot of respect for Sam Cassell, and it has really cast a bad light on the Celtics franchise, as a whole.  A blog post like this should not have to be written.  Players, organizations, and ultimately the league should self-regulate this behavior.

Now, I would like to say this is an isolated problem for the NBA.  But, with players constantly yelling at refs (Rasheed Wallace) and giving cheap shots after plays (James Posey), this seems like the rule and not the exception for the league.  I think a lot needs to be done in the area of sportsmanship, before I will seriously consider watching it on a regular basis.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 15th, 2008 at 8:47 pm and is filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.