With the NBA Playoffs here, I think it's a good time to check in and reassess this sport for improvements. I may be a casual fan, but I have been paying close attention for one whole year. It's my little ritual now. I order myself a party sub, I turn on the game, and I just love it.
Now I don't know if it's too late for the league to shoehorn a few of these in for this year's playoffs, but if they can, I think I have some pretty good ideas that they should try:
- Third quarter is the “tickle quarter.”
- Allow players to wear leather jackets for a more “dangerous” vibe.
- Teams compete for a giant party sub instead of a better record.
- Replace slam dunk contest with death-defying slam poetry contest.
- Murder aliens threatening Bugs and Tune Squad.
- Free throws now cost $20,000.
- After the team wins the party sub, the starting five are then required to eat the sub in front of judges. This would balance things out because if a team gets out too far ahead of the competition, they'd start to get really fat, and they'd eventually get worse at sports/diabetes.
- Half-court shot wins you a free car.
- Bouncier floors.
- Teams are now allowed to use bees.
- The party sub could be whole wheat or white bread.
- Entire arena & parking lot is in-bounds.
- Can climb hoop and get the ball in that way, for the shorter people.
- Can climb hoop and just sit on it, like, to guard it, for the shorter people.
- There is the option for a vegetarian sub, but the team would have to agree on that beforehand.
- Rename Teams to Regional Sandwiches: Philadelphia Cheesesteaks, New York Pastramis, New Orleans Muffalettas, Boston Lobster Rolls, Detroit… Sandwiches.
- Cram more teams into California until every team represents one person.
- Players given meatball hoagies instead of water.
- Make Michael Jordan play against Lebron tomorrow so we know who's better. Then make them eat a sandwich and we film it.
- Cheerleader age: Under 3 or over 80. No one is allowed to help them walk except each other.
- Steph Curry not allowed to shoot 3-pointers. Too easy. But he can seat up a folding chair at the 3-point arc and then eat a shooter's sandwich and get points for that, depending on the quality of the bread, etc.
- Make those beefcakes kiss.
- Game announcers must roll their R's.
- Change playoffs to a “Best of 81” series format. Players dig in for a long war where two cities will never get along ever again, we injure every star player and ruin their astounding gifts, then eventually nothing means anything anymore, the nihilism of human existence overtakes us all, and when people look at a basketball it looks funny (like when you repeat the same word over and over and it just sounds like sounds and not even the word anymore), but through that numbness comes an understanding that maybe basketball isn't the most important thing. Maybe life is too short to spend counting points on a big electronic sign.
- Maybe instead, we should be spending time with our families.
- Our aging parents.
- Our pets.
- Our sandwiches.
- With their decadent meats, crispest of vegetables, oiliest of condiments. Or even The Rulebreakers: the chips on the sub, the egg on the burger, the bacon on Elvis's PB+J before his heart attack on the toilet. Maybe, just maybe, as much as we love the game of basketball, we can find just a little room for these other things too.
- Replace NBA, college, high school, rec basketball, all friendly games of H-O-R-S-E with a sandwich.
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