Lipstick on a Pig

"The NBA has taken numerous steps to clean up its image after the fiasco in Detroit, implementing a dress code and its community relations initiative NBA Cares last season, and trying to eliminate excessive complaints to officials this season." -Associated Press

And let me tell you whom those initiatives are aimed at. Those initiatives are aimed at me, a male, smack dab in the middle of the 18-to-34 demographic (okay, a little closer to 34 nowadays) with some measure of disposable income who has gone away from the NBA in recent years. And yes, it's aimed at white people mostly, and I'm that too. So after all of those initiatives, what do you get? You get another brawl, this one in the most famous arena in the world. Cosmetic changes cannot affect what is at the core of the beast: machismo mixed with a sense of entitlement. A sense that NBA players are above the law and basic rules of human decorum.

So are these measures having the desired effect? Would I go to an NBA game? Would I spend my hard-earned money on NBA memorobilia? I might go to a game if a buddy had free tickets. And I might work out in an NBA t-shirt if I got it for free.

But would I take my wife to a game? Would I take my two- and four-year-old nephews to a game? Would I take my two-year-old niece to a game?

I would sooner take any of them to a strip club. There are less fights there. These are the blackest days for the Association since the pre-Magic and Larry Coke Binge and I, for one, am done with the whole fucking thing.

Oklahoma City, enjoy your Sonics. The NBA won't have me to kick around anymore.