I realized something today: I don’t care about Chris Bosh. Bosh is a power forward who is rumored to be teaming up with fellow free agent LeBron James to form a “superteam”; it may also include shooting guard Joe Johnson. And it dawned on me: if the NBA has reached a point where playing with Chris Bosh and Joe Johnson makes you part of a superteam, the league has officially gone the way of hockey.

In hindsight, this happened long ago. Growing up I remember Bird’s Celtics and Magic’s Lakers — oddly, I recall most enjoying the play of Kevin McHale and James Worthy from those teams, which is sort of like watching Star Wars and going, “Man, I love that Uncle Owen character!” — and then there were Michael Jordan’s (and the criminally underrated Scottie Pippen’s) Bulls, but there were also the Detroit Pistons, who weren’t as skilled as those three legendary teams but went nine players deep and featured the coolest trio of guards ever with Hall of Famers Isiah Thomas and Joe Dumars and coming off the bench Vinnie “The Microwave” Johnson, so called because he could instantly heat things up with the streakiest game ever, with a shot that ranged from “unstoppable” to “How many missed layups in a row is that?”, often within the same quarter.

And even when Jordan retired for the first time things were still pretty good (Hakeem Olajuwon proved himself one of the most graceful players ever/ ensured it wasn’t too much of a joke he was drafted before MJ by winning a pair of titles, while in Utah Karl Malone and John Stockton continued to answer the question, “What would happen if you built a franchise around an insanely muscular black dude and an exceptionally pale white guy in short shorts?”), and when Jordan came back things got even better.

Then Jordan retired and came back again and this time around it wasn’t so magical.

And at some point we wound up where the NBA is now.

Some of it’s the officiating: I still remember the Lakers-Kings game 6 in 2002 when it sure felt like the fix was in, just as in the 2006 NBA Finals the hand checking rules were enforced in a manner so that if a defender ventured within six inches of Dwyane Wade a foul was called (this Finals also featured Dirk Nowitzki, who as an outside shooting German 7-footer dropping 50 points in a playoff game provided what might have been the last time I thought, “Did I just see that?” about the NBA in a positive context, as opposed to watching Ron Artest rushing into the stands or Darko Milicic continuing to get contracts). And when a ref was actually revealed to be betting on games, what appeared to be a massive scandal was averted when he explained it thusly: other NBA officials aren’t on the take; they’re just awful. (Whew!)

It’s been downhill from that Finals. The 2010 playoffs featured the Orlando Magic’s Dwight Howard again proving that one of the game’s biggest stars/ world’s great athletes can somehow have no offensive skills (which was cute when he first came straight out of high school, but less adorable after six years in the league) and King James crapping out early once more when it was discovered that the addition of Shaq (who in recent years has gone from “slow” to “stationary”) was not the expected difference maker and finally we wound up with a seven game Laker-Celtics Finals which on paper is the coolest thing possible but in reality was a nightmare, with the Celtics looking old, the Lakers looking inept, and the whole thing ending with the L.A. winning the series with a game where they scored a whopping 83 points and Kobe Bryant made his claim to be the greatest Laker ever by shooting 6 for 100 (I exaggerate; it was only 6 for 24 — move over, Magic).

And now I’m supposed to be excited about the possibility of LeBron playing with Chris Bosh and Joe Johnson. Rah.

How bad is it? I have come to genuinely enjoy watching soccer. Indeed, I think the NBA can learn something from the World Cup: limit your playoffs to just a month, then go away for four years and maybe when you return I’ll be happy to see you again.

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