by Erich Heinlein

Created on: October 27, 2008   Last Updated: May 02, 2009

Television has changed the game of basketball dramatically. If you watch the movie, Hoosiers, my guess that is how basketball was played before TV was invented. For those of you who haven't seen the movie, Hoosiers is about a high school basketball team in a small town in Indiana which overcomes all odds to win the state championship. The head coach is in his first season and tries to take over everything. He believed in purely fundamental basketball, following basic rules such as all five players must touch the ball before a shot is attempted. Oh my, how the game has changed. Imagine what would happen if you told that's what had to happen to Kobe Bryant or LeBron James or even Micheal Jordan.

Most coaches and players today would say that while ball movement is an integral part of the game, having all five players touch the ball on every possession is way too much passing and taking too much time just to get a shot off. Although, there are other factors to that as well. In the NBA you have to travel the ball 94 feet in 24 seconds if the opposing team scores or score within 24 seconds from any other spot on the floor. Yeah, yeah I know some of you are saying, "what about 3's." Well, even the best shooters in the world only make 3 pointers about 40-50 percent of the time.

So how has television changed the game of basketball? The dramatics. Let's take a look at the NBA. Just about every team has some type of a special show to play at the beginning of every game on the jumbotron. That commentator that introduces the starting line up for the Pistons, he'd be really good introducing fights for the WWE too I bet. Or does he?

The next way television has changed the game of basketball is all the fancy moves on the court. Nowadays every kid dreams of doing a reverse dunk like Micheal Jordan. For those who lived in the 70's, maybe like Julius Irving or a hook shot like Kareem Abdul Jabbar. Or if you lived in the 80's. maybe you wanted the ball handling skills of Magic Johnson or Isiah Thomas. The list could go on and on of all the signature moves players have had ever since basketball has started to be televised going all the way back to the 1920's.

Think back to when you were a kid and you watched basketball growing up. If you were anything like me, you wanted to play in the NBA and be like a certain player and thought you were going to be a certain height (I was optimistic I would be taller than I turned out to be because I have a relatively tall family). The player I wanted

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