Jake Yono 

5/22/25 

JY Journalism

Why Basketball Is the Most Exciting Sport To Watch At The Highest Level, And Fans Are Being Drawn Away From This Ideal

Many sports in the world consist of high actions, compelling plays between competitive teams in contests that matter such as end of the regular season campaigns, and competitive playoff battles are present in the MLB, NFL, Hockey, and Soccer where teams are making compelling plays exchanging possession and players truly showing that they are world class athletes, some examples of this in recent memory are Game 6 of the 2019 NLCS between Houston Astros vs. New York Yankees where the Astros won and went on to win the world series, this shows baseball is at the highest level when actual stakes are on the line and the 162 game money chambering regular season where players are conserved and every team has to deal with load management due to the tormenting nature of the long regular season but games like this still do exist once we get to end of regular season and playoff baseball, notable games during any course of the MLB regular season are the Subway series between the Yankees and Dodgers, and when they play in Japan at the start of the season and the London series which was postponed this season but I barely follow Major League Baseball but i do remember a significant regular season games in the 2019 London series between Boston and New York where the fence was 385ft at the deepest causing high scoring games (2019 MLB London Series). This doesn't mean I want parks to be shorter; I want more games that are more like these, where players have to show out and represent the MLB overseas. I have seen highlights of college baseball, and since their season is only 56 gam, less than half of the MLB season, the MLB should think this is a chance to shorten the season. In games like soccer and hockey which I don't necessarily cover on this website, the regular season soccer is very compelling to watch the Premiere League as it's 38 regular season games with stakes in the line such as being promoted to the Champions League tournament with every other league in the world and being relegated to the next tier down for poor performance, the only reason why I'm not putting this ahead of high-level basketball is even though there's more high-level action the actual game is not exciting which in my opinion out of the 90 minutes only 45 of them matter in terms of offensive attacks and scoring chances. Hockey is the same, ay, but to be honest, regular season hockey is the same as playoff hockey in my opinion, because I have little knowledge about it. I believe the emphasis of regular season hockey is taken more seriously than regular season basketball because of the emphasis on scoring, and that overtime losses count in the points system, so maintaining a tie in overtime will get the overall team ahead. The NFL which is my 2nd place choice is high level action but what takes this out of my top high level action is that standings are usually determined within the first 6 or 7 weeks of the season and fans have a clear picture of who they can see in the playoffs, this is not totally true as teams do come back and get into playoff standing, one notable altercation on this is the srart of the Cam Newton Pantheres dynasty where they started at 3–8–1 and won the NFC South, there have been other trsgic starts such is the year before the Lions made the NFC championship in 2022 where they started 1-6 and almost made the playoffs and finished 9-8, this doesen't happen often in the NFL as the champions in this day in age come from the same pool, for example out of the last 11 superbowls the Chiefs or Patriots have been apart of 9 of them, this is also because the game and clock can be controled by one side more instead of rapid changing of possession and the game being wrapped up by controliing the clock for sme of the time but high flying competative NFL action is vary compelling to see. My winner in the game being a high level is that even though it's portrayed the least in the NBA, it's basketball, the skills under pressure are portrayed the most out of any American sport.

NBA Playoff basketball is so compelling to watch, with the constant changing of possessions and the inability to lay off the gas as the shot clock permits, this level is portrayed the least and a dive into this deeper in my article shows that only 10-15 regular season games matter in the NBA regular season in this article right here about this and other issues (The NBA Must Shorten Its Season). Despite this, playoff basketball where there have already seen so many high-level games, performances, and clinch moments. On the first day of playoff action, Denver came back from 15 points in an overtime thriller, where the Clippers were not giving up with their 3-point shooting. In game 2, LA won by 3, and this trend continued in the series until Denver came back and won in 7. In the Golden State Houston first-round series, a lot of fans thought 2 seed Houston was going to win, but the Warriors came back by their experience and won in 6 games which put a team that might not be as skilled at beating the emerging Rockets led by Jalen Green, The rise of compelling games has to end with the Pacers and Knicks in this NBA playoffs, after the Pistons tied the series at 1 with Detroit, New York led by the clutchness of KAT, and Jalen Brunson won 3 of the next 4 games by an average score of 2.5 shows that this series could have truly gone either way and the experience they had compared to Detroit's playoff experience gave them just that slight edge, these plays are just fascinating to watch (Pistons Knicks Series Highlights). Indiana team led by Tyrese Haliburton who in my opinion is tied with Brunson as the best clutch player in the league has propelled Indiana to the eastern conference finals where in their first-round series against Milwaukee to win the series in 5 games Indiana came back from 20+ points earlier on in the contest in overtime (Pacers Bucks Game 5). In their recent series against the 1 seed, Cleveland, Haliburton made a clutch game-winner in game 2 to propel them to 5 games, in which they won the series. This led to the clutch teams matching up in the east finals where this was one of the best basketball games I've seen in a while Indiana came back from down 15 with 5 minutes to go on the road and this game made me make this article, I'm not on a basketball high right now I just realized how the game can change so fast and how compelling the game and how players can perform under pressure and Haliburton made another clutch shot to send the game into overtime and the young player from Gonzaza Andrew Nembard lit it up in overtime and led them to a game 1 victory. I'm so excited to see where this series will go next, as New York will not be done certainly, their fans are going to be fired up to get one back from Indiana. Overall sports are very compelling when something is on the line and athletes are competing and showing what the game is at the highest level,]in other sports this is limited compared to basketball where it's truly a game of runs and anything can change in an instant with the shot clock, changing of possessions very fast and high scoring games compared to other sports that have clock management practices and more established seeding and meaningless games in place. My argument is that when players are going at their hardest in games that can advance their teams forward, basketball is the best sport to watch, both at the collegiate and professional levels. Thank You.