NBA has become bigger than a sports competition. Along with the rise of social media, NBA has become a global phenomenon and made a huge impact in the world.
Discussion about NBA and its global impact was recently taken in the SB Nation podcast “Drive and Kick” on the first week of February edition. The host Paul Flannery and John Gonzalez also talked about the NBA players and coaches which are more comfortable to talk about social issues, compared to other sports leagues such as NFL, MLB or NHL through their social media.
However, even though NBA players and coaches are actively raising concern, but social media remains a social media with a very limited impact. Regardless of the limited impact, in comparison to other American sports league, NBA attracted the most global fans. This fact alone, made NBA players and coaches be more confident in social media.
NBA players often tweet their activities to fans. Moreover, they also send tweets to each other and engaged in a friendly or even a psy-war tweets. According to Denver Post, NBA becomes the most interesting sport in the world because of this social media aspect.
As the global game NBA has attracted the world’s best basketball players to compete in the world’s most challenging basketball competition. The NBA season is a very long and grueling one.
For seven months from October to April, the players must stay fit to play 82 games. Afterward, 16 top teams will go to the Playoffs to play in the best-of-seven format in order to determine the best two teams to meet in the NBA Finals.
There are not many international players are able to cope with such a wearisome competition. One of the few is Chinese basketball players Yao Ming who played for Houston Rockets in 2002 to 2011. During his nine years in NBA, he received respect from other players because of his tenacity to endure the competition for years.
In honor of his achievement, Houston Rockets retired his jersey last Friday night Feb. 3. His No. 11 jersey was raised in the rafter at the Toyota Center, Houston in a special ceremony.
