He made this same claim over the holidays, talking about how bad the game was now and how he missed the good old days of hands-on defense, iso-ball. It then came out that he basically hasn't watched an NBA game in years. So I challenged him to sit down and watch a full Jazz game in the coming weeks and then tell me if he still had the same opinion. The amount of screening, cutting, passing, rim-running, and dribbling that NBA teams now deploy to get those three-point and rim shots is impressive.

Rest of the story: He called me last week after watching the Jazz-Hornets game, and said he had been wrong. He couldn't believe how fun and skilled the NBA game is now.