With the recent suspension of NBA All-Star Ja Morant, a new light has been shed on the National Basketball Association. Players are being fined left and right, trying to do whatever they can to make more money, sitting out of games just to “rest,” and blaming losses on the referees. The NBA is not the same as it used to be and is going downhill quickly.

Back in the day, NBA stars would play on one team for the majority of their career, showing loyalty and respect to their franchises. They would also play nearly every game of the season unless they were actually injured. Today, players are sitting out of games just because they do not feel like playing. Fans are paying insanely high rates to go watch their favorite players just to see them sit on the bench in street clothes. For the fans, this is not fair.

On top of this, players are treating basketball as a business, playing in order to make money, not out of pure love for the game. The way the association is run is ruining the game of basketball. Players request trades in order to get higher paychecks, refuse to sign contracts, and demand raises. They are already getting paid millions of dollars, more than most Americans. I think it is safe to say that any fan sitting in the stands would happily trade his or her job in order to make millions of dollars to play basketball. NBA players are getting greedy and forgetting the real reason why they should play basketball.

At the start of 2023, the highly popular Staples Center, home to the Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Clippers, was changed to the Crypto.com Arena. This started an uproar with fans, as it should. This is just more evidence of why the NBA is becoming more of a business. Sure, the arena can be sponsored by Crypto.com, but for the entire stadium to be named after it is absurd. The stadium is not a big advertisement, and the owners do not need to be advocating for Crypto.com when fans are just trying to enjoy basketball.

Finally, NBA players are becoming terrible influencers off of the court. They are not watching what they are saying, which was seen earlier this season when Kyrie Irving was suspended for Anti-Semitic remarks. This past week, Ja Morant was suspended for showing a gun on his Instagram livestream. Are you serious? Kids are watching your every move on social media. Kids look up to NBA players and want to be like them. Evidently, NBA players are making it very clear that kids should find new role models.

All this just goes to show why the NBA is a trainwreck waiting to happen and going down the tracks to nowhere. Something needs to be done immediately in an attempt to restore the NBA to how it used to be.