Basketball For Short People: Basket To Be Lowered
photo credit: ShashiBellamkonda
Since the 1950s, when short but fast players had a chance of making it onto a professional court – such as the legendary Bob Cousy of the Boston Celtics, known for startling innovations like dribbling and passing behind the back – the sport has been dominated by ever taller athletes, starting with the arrival of Wilt, The Stilt, Chamberlain.
Now, The National Basketball Association has come to realize that the trend to tall has demoralized people of who fall within the usual range of human height and that it has positively devastated short people.
Compared to the slam-dunking ways of the seven footers, these distressed athletes just can’t get people interested in watching them hoop it up. As a result, interest in the game as a participation sport has waned, and the association is concerned that, as fewer people work up their excitement about playing it, fewer of them will pay to see it.
In an effort to return basketball to the widely poplar place it held in the minds and hearts of the American public before it became the exclusive province of players whose mothers are suspected of stretching them as infants, the association is considering legitimizing a court just for people of average height, with a special accommodation for shorter people. The basic plan calls for the basket to be lowered by one foot for players from 5’ 6” to 6’ 6” and two feet for people who are even shorter but still imagine slam-dunking the ball and hanging from the hoop in a celebratory manner.
When the new rules go into effect, virtually everyone will finally be able to play the game in as dramatic a fashion as today’s seven footers.
For now the plan calls for limiting the innovation to amateur players, but the association confides that if fans once again take an interest in watching average-size people play the game, there is the potential to establish an entire new league, made up of speed merchants who are only eye-high to a current pro’s elbows.
ncaa basketball Live Feed
The world has gone mad over basketball and men's collegiate basketball games are not exempted from this phenomenon. Unfortunately, the NCAA Basketball Live Feed service is feeding another phenomenon as well, which is betting on the outcome of each and maybe all the NCAA March Madness games.
Offhand, this wouldn't be such a big problem because a) you can't stop people from placing friendly bets on ncaa basketball games and b) if it doesn't affect the outcome of the collegiate tournament, where's the harm?
Part b is where the problem starts because small-time gambling and big-time gambling organizations can take advantage of the NCAA Basketball live feed to influence the outcome of the NCAA tournament – another phenomenon called "game fixing." How does this work? It's like this: suppose you're a bookie and you know a lot of people are betting on a certain outcome of a game. Logically, you know that if all those people win because that one single outcome does become a reality, you – the bookie – are dead in the water because you have no funds to pay off all those winners. Even small bets translate to big winnings depending on the odds used per bet. For instance, if I pay $1 on a 20:1 outcome, that means if I win, I get $20 for my $1 bet. Now use your calculator – if 100 people bet $1 each on that one single outcome at 20:1 odds, then each of those people have to be paid $20 each in winnings. So that's $20 x 100 people = $2000 total payout. Ouch! Even a small-time bookie would baulk at that situation. But that's how gambling works. And a bookie that can't pay up may find himself facing a mob with baseball bats eager to break his legs.
Unfortunately, the bookie is also afraid of someone else who will definitely break his legs if he pays up – the organization funding his small-time gambling organization. Even legal gambling organizations like casinos operate on the rule that the house has to win most of the time. Otherwise, where would the profit be in the business? So, how to get out of such a quandary?
This is where game-fixing comes in. Basically, game-fixing works when an NCAA player (or maybe even a whole team) is paid big bucks by the gambling operators to throw a game – meaning, the NCAA player or team will skillfully orchestrate a masterful loss so that the outcome dreaded by the bookie will not happen. If the outcome is a loss, all those people betting on a win need not be paid any winnings – and the bookie goes laughing all the way to the bank, having made his profits. This is the usual scenario behind game-fixing. You don't usually see a bookie orchestrating game-fixing so the player or team will be able to win, because the odds for that happening are much harder to arrange.
Still, the value of NCAA Basketball live feed goes up in this situation anyway – because everyone can see how each and every player of each team performs. And when millions of eyes are scrutinizing your every move, it becomes rather hard to fake a losing shot convincingly.
Can game-fixing be eliminated by an NCAA Basketball live feed? Not totally. You would need to be able to prove equally convincingly that a player or team had really deliberately chosen to lose a certain game. Since that would be a very serious allegation, you don't find many situations where an official or even a member of the public going out of their way to raise such charges. Still, the live feed does its part to minimize game-fixing considerably.
Anabolic Steroids In Basketball
The recent studies, surveys, and anecdotal evidences reveal that the rate of nonmedical use of anabolic steroids has been surging. The use of anabolic steroids in sports is not new thing. These performance enhancing drugs have intruded in all major sports, such as basket ball, baseball, football, etc.
The NBA (National Basketball Association – the USA's premier professional men's basketball league) adopted the first drug program in 1983. The program at the outset was mainly focused on drugs of abuse, particularly cocaine and heroin. The Veteran players who tested positive for these substances were immediately dismissed from the NBA for a minimum of two years.
There were a number of surveys indicating the use of anabolic steroids in Basketball. According to a survey in 1988, 1 percent of women in track and field and basketball reported taking steroids. The report of a 1989 survey on steroids conducted by Michael Gray, sponsored by the National Youth Sports Research and Development Center KY, revealed that basketball was the most common sport among the participants; 78% for boys and 65% for girls in basketball were reported using anabolic steroids.
The situation of increasing use of anabolic steroids in Basketball compelled the NBA to modify its drug policy in 1999. The NBA’s list of banned substances was expanded to include anabolic steroids and performance-enhancing drugs. The testing was expanded to cover veterans as well as rookie players, and penalties for violators were increased.
The testing of NBA players for anabolic steroids and performance-enhancing drugs started with the 1999-2000 season. The players were tested once during training camp, rookies were tested three additional times during the course of the regular season. The testing was conducted on a random basis – i.e., without prior notice to the player. The players who tested positive under the 1999 program were required to be suspended for 5 games (first offense), 10 games (second offense), and 25 games (subsequent offenses).
The list of banned substances was further expanded, when androstenedione and DHEA were added to the NBA’s banned list by the Prohibited Substances Committee in November 2000. The Prohibited Substances Committee added six more substances, such as ephedra and related products, to the list in September 2003; the FDA banned ephedra and related products in February 2004. The Prohibited Substances Committee banned Gestrinone and THG in December 2003. The NBA has conducted over 4,200 tests for anabolic steroids and performance-enhancing drugs since the steroids were added to the list of banned substances.