Where does it say anywhere in the Torah - Oral or Written, that there is any value at all in putting a ball in a net [and it only stays there for a second and falls right out!!]? What moral or ethical achievement is involved in this exercise of getting the leather cows hide in the hole?? What contribution does it make to society? What scientific contribution does it make to the world? Who does it help? How does it being to the fulfillment of the purpose of creation? Why is the amount of times a group of boys put the ball in the basket a source of such excitement?
It is a game. Just a game. We all need games. One of the 48 kinyanei Torah is "מיעוט שחוק". We must laugh! A little. "מיעוט שחוק". Have a good time. Play. All good. Watch others play and enjoy the fun.. But just a little and with the understanding that it is just a means to being a regular, healthy well adjusted human being who needs diversions in order to keep his mental health and sanity in place. But not beyond that. Not as an end in and of itself. Not as something to be independently celebrated. We don't celebrate eating or going to the bathroom. They are both very important but just means to higher ends.
When we celebrate athletic achievement, we are not celebrating the fact that people are in good physical shape so that they have strong bodies to serve Hashem. It is not about Hashem at all. On the contrary. When boys practice for the games and do all the other preparations, it is often at the expense of learning Torah and when their less athletically inclined friends are learning. They are at a tender young age when they have the time and no burden of a wife and children to really focus on growing in their learning and Avodas Hashem. Instead, it is spent focusing on getting a ball to fall in the right hoop more times than the Goyim get the ball to fall in their hoop. It is quite sad, actually.
We are viewing sports as an inherently valuable achievement - as did the Greeks of old and the inhabitant of today's world which is crazy over sports. We are lauding something that neither Torah nor Maddaa would laud. We are sucked into secular society's value system and thus valuing things that have no value or very little value. Our heroes are not the boys who burn the midnight oil in the Beis Medrash, those who are careful not to watch shmutz on the Internet, those who daven with kavana or are contantly improving their middos but those who can jump high enough to put the ball DIRECTLY IN THE BASKET [called a "dunk"]. WOW!! He jumped and forcefully put the ball in the basket [after which it fell right out]. Boys with yarmulkes and girls wearing long modest skirts who scream ה' הוא הא-להים on Yom Kippur GO NUTS when this dunk happens. WHY? WHAT HAPPENED? Did a sick person have a refuah? Did a poor person pay off all of his debts? Did a married couple learn how to live with more love and less conflict? No. A boy jumped and put a ball in a net. How does this "achievement" warrant such excitement? How does the fact that a group of boys managed to win some a made up by some Goy who had nothing better to do with his time a hundred plus years ago mean anything to us? What's the big deal?
The big deal is that we are so well acculturated and assimilated that we have adopted their values as ours.
And THAT - is sad. Very sad.
We are here by a miracle and to spend our time here pursuing meaningless "goals" is tragic. We have MUCH MORE important things to do.
So again - we need to play games. We need to have fun. We need to exercise. We need to be normal. Boys must be boys.
But we also can't forget the exhortation of the Navi in the name of Hashem:
"אל תשמח ישראל אל גיל העמים". [הושע ט' א']
