I will never be King of the World. Heck, when you choose this profession, with the requisite hours and pay, you’re lucky to maintain a figurehead’s grip over your home, your health, and your bank account.

If I’m ever named benevolent dictator of Maine high school basketball, however, you’d better believe some things are going to change around here.

The first weekend of that event in Augusta, Bangor and Portland is the highlight of every local sports calendar year for me. That excitement and anticipation will never change. All the traditional, permanent ingredients of it outweigh whatever the moving parts do, or don’t.

Anyone who is paying attention and being honest recognizes that those moving parts are showing wear-and-tear right now. That would be the first piece of my platform in this hypothetical administration, because when you ignore cracks in the foundation or leaks in the roof, they only get bigger and more destructive.

Not blunt enough for you? OK, each February I see more stretches, longer stretches, of really, really wretched basketball.

To repair this damage, a partial list of grievances I would nail to the door at each tournament site:

No shot clock. Not now. Not ever. The reason for final scores of 37-32 and 41-37 is not a lack of shots. Most of us with even a passing interest in the game know this. And teaching kids to manage the game under specific circumstances (foul trouble, or a lead in the closing minutes) is an important component in the learning process.

Zone defense is now illegal. Yup, we’re bringing the Bird-Magic days to a bandbox gym near you. Packing it in has become the coaching crutch that sucks the life out of almost every game.

Not that I blame them. When you know that your kids lack the individual defensive ability to guard their man alone and that your counterpart’s kids lack the ability to sink an uncontested jump shot, it’s the smart play. So we’re piling problems on top of problems here. Rip off the bandaid, and I submit that the sores will have no choice but to heal themselves.

There is no longer any such animal as a 3-point line. The argument that it has enhanced the excitement of the game the past 27 years is so hollow and situational that I can’t even comprehend it.

On Saturday, I watched a Class D boys’ quarterfinal game in which a team had nine field goals with six minutes remaining in the game. Eight of them were 3-pointers, and the team was losing by 25.

An ill-advised 3-point attempt is now the desperate end of more possessions than not, while not coincidentally, most players can’t make an elbow or baseline jumper or a free throw to save their lives. Watch a pregame shoot-around this week and see where most players gravitate.

That semicircle has destroyed, not improved, high school basketball. Research the average winning score in tournament games from 1975 (when paint on the floor was at a bare minimum), compare it to 2015 and then tell me I’m wrong.

You have to choose between your school team and AAU. This one would generate the greatest threat of a bloody coup. I can picture five stakeholders in the latter organization who would pull out their hair and rend their garments in apoplexy.

Too bad. Now you’re saddled with a “bona fide team” rule like the one that has been applied to hockey and swimming in the past. “B-b-b-b-b-but competing nationally has helped a few of these boys and girls get noticed and earn scholarships.” Fine, then let them compete nationally.

I’m sick to death of all the collateral damage that I see from it on the local level. If you’re playing spring, summer and fall ball under my watch, you’re doing it with the kids from your own school. Preferably on a lighted, outdoor court without any adults in a two-mile radius.

School administrators are not allowed to sit with, or stand near, their student sections. Some of you don’t even HAVE a student section anymore, and you’re the reason. Putting myself in the shoes of a teenager, the last thing I want to do is go to a game during vacation week and have it devolve into a school assembly, being shushed at every turn.

Unless there is audible cursing or visible taunting in progress, relax. Let them be kids. This duplicity of telling students to be responsible young adults while micromanaging their every move as if they are kindergarteners needs to stop. And while you’re at it, go deal with the parent who is dissecting every traveling and player control call as if he’s Dr. Freaking Naismith. He’s the one who needs to be silenced.

There. That will get us started. Once the game is restored to its former greatness in five years, I will appoint a committee to take my place, then move on to more world-changing matters.

I just care about the kids we cover, and I want them to have a glimpse in their lifetime, even if it’s fleeting, at how great this game used to be.

Kalle Oakes is a staff writer. His email is koakes@sunjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @Oaksie72.

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