NBA Off Topic Thread

[georgiafan]

A major problem with NBA is the length of the games and the 20+ minutes a game thats spent at the free throw line. When I watch the hawks, I always record it so I can skip the FT's and commercials. The obvious move is to make 1 FT count as 2 and help speed up the game.

[illwill10]

Quote: Originally Posted by DamnYanks2

Sometimes it's not worth watching NBA games till about the 4th Q. It's gotten harder for me to watch full games honestly. Because of the lazy defense. Guys just trading baskets. Wide open guys in the corners, Stars sittimg out. I get it. Sent from my SM-G991U using Tapatalk

Plus the embrace of foul baiting/flopping. It's been around for a long time. But it gets old seeing these star players try to make offense out of drawing fouls. Because of that, we see so much bad/sloppy basketball because guys are trying to draw fouls instead of execution. It gets frustrating seeing so many wasted possessions, especially at the end of games, because players are going for fouls. Then you see players throwing fits because they aren't getting foul calls on every single drive. Which leads to poor transition defense.

As a Sixers fan, I see this every game lol. When Harden got there last year, his entire offense was driving to draw fouls or stepback threes. At least this season, he incorporated the occasional mid range shot. Then, I'm not really trying to see Embiid get 8-15 FTs a night lol. It feels like he gets at least 2-3 turnovers a night because he's trying to draw fouls

[Master Live 013]

Or or or, they could call less fouls. Like they did for about 5 seconds at the beginning of last season.

[ProfessaPackMan]

We already know the sport is global, that’s nothing new.


Ratings are constantly going down for their bigger games(aka Finals)every year, during a time where they’re not competing against anyone else. Hell, they had the perfect matchup last year and they still weren’t nothing to brag about.

The issue is that how is it that they’re are a global sport(behind Soccer obviously)yet domestically, it struggles to maintain eyeballs throughout the year. A big part of that is how the league markets it’s product but that’s already been discussed plenty of times with how good of a job they’ve done(not that great).

But I guess as long as they’re trending on Twitter, getting likes RTs.

[ojandpizza]

This is one of those things that borders on being a perception vs reality thing though. Sure players sell contact more, reviews take longer, more calls are upgraded to flagrant/tech.. But things like actual fouls called, free throw attempts, and free throws per field goal attempt are all at basically historic lows. Like the whole "too many fouls in today's game vs insert whatever era" argument factually holds zero weight because less fouls are called now than in literally any other era.

I don't know if it's because less fouls are actually hard fouls, or there are more fouls on jump shots vs being at the rim, or not as many fouls called because guards aren't hounding ball handlers as closely, or too many players manipulate fouls with the dribble, sweep through, etc... but there actually isn't more fouls and more free-throws, and that's just per game. I can't imagine the difference when factoring pace.

It's kind of like the whole hand-check thing. It's constantly brought up and referenced, but when is the last time any of you have actually seen a hand-check being called a foul? And they still happen almost every possession. I don't know that we even see one a quarter?

IDK what to make of it all, obviously there is changes/differences, and the shooting too many threes argument does hold weight because stylistically you can't tell people what they like/don't like to watch from an enjoyment standpoint. But a lot of these arguments that get brought up often just feel like repeated narratives that either aren't actually happening, or are just ridiculously exaggerated.

It feels like the NBA is basically damned if they do damned if they don't with any rule/style change. It takes a few tweets now to create these narratives, no matter how exaggerated, and every opinion on the game is louder than it ever has been. I don't think there is a win in sight to appease anybody. Some of the loudest ones claiming they hate the game don't even watch anymore, but constantly "I don't like today's game because of this and this" followed by "well I haven't watched a game in 6 years" or some **** lol. We all know the type. Old heads calling the new game "soft" has been happening since the 60's. Go watch any clip of Wilt, Big-O talking about players in the 80s or 90s. It's the same. Difference now it's tweeted out, shared to FB, made into reels or YT shorts, so when they make those comments millions of people can say "see even Chuck said so".

It's the same as the flop stuff too. Complaining about dudes "flopping every play" and share some clip of a dude flopping like 10 times. And it's just like yeah nobody wants to watch that, obviously, but players have always sold contact, and that's literally 10 possessions in a highlight clip. Luka for example has played almost 25,000 possessions. If you found a clip of 10 flops to replay over and over to convince yourself that's all he does you're looking at not even a half of a single percent of his career plays to make this exaggerated take on.

It seems like people have not been able to adjust their mindset from a game heavily influenced on post play. And again, if that's the style those people prefer to watch that's fine, you can't tell somebody what to like or dislike. I luckily am largely indifferent and just enjoy both for what they are. But the narratives spinning off that can be incorrect. If the ball isn't inside it will be outside. That means more shots are outside, more fouls are outside, just because it looks different and shots come from different spots on the floor doesn't mean they just call way more fouls and nobody defends. How many times in the 90s did baseline screens set up an open mid-range shot. But you give up the open corner three and all the sudden "nobody plays defense".. There is just no winning for the NBA against those types of takes because those people don't truly care about what happens on the floor only that it looks different now.

[J_Posse]

Quote: Originally Posted by ProfessaPackMan

We already know the sport is global, that’s nothing new. Ratings are constantly going down for their bigger games(aka Finals)every year, during a time where they’re not competing against anyone else. Hell, they had the perfect matchup last year and they still weren’t nothing to brag about. The issue is that how is it that they’re are a global sport(behind Soccer obviously)yet domestically, it struggles to maintain eyeballs throughout the year. A big part of that is how the league markets it’s product but that’s already been discussed plenty of times with how good of a job they’ve done(not that great). But I guess as long as they’re trending on Twitter, getting likes RTs.

I realize we all know that Pack, but people constantly worry about the sport's popularity as if it's popularity isn't even stronger abroad. It is.

All sports are or have lost viewership and that will continue as we move away from cable/satellite and into the digital space.

And it'll take the next "generational" talent that is US-born to get it to a "healthier" place (domestically). I love all the great international players, but like baseball, the NBA is the healthiest (in our country) when the best player is from the States.

There are other mitigating factors too, but we've discussed them here previously ad nauseum.



Official HQ of Bills Backer/Spurs Nation

[dubcity]

To me, unless you are a serious basketball head, there's too much content available to you on daily basis to think that any of it is special or noteworthy. There's games on every night, marquee matchups, league pass, extended highlights on YouTube, etc. Football at least has some scarcity, although less than it uses to be. And I don't think it's a coincidence that baseball has fallen off since the days of "game of the week," and limited TV access to games.

[ProfessaPackMan]

Quote: Originally Posted by J_Posse

I realize we all know that Pack, but people constantly worry about the sport's popularity as if it's popularity isn't even stronger abroad. It is. All sports are or have lost viewership and that will continue as we move away from cable/satellite and into the digital space. And it'll take the next "generational" talent that is US-born to get it to a "healthier" place (domestically). I love all the great international players, but like baseball, the NBA is the healthiest (in our country) when the best player is from the States. There are other mitigating factors too, but we've discussed them here previously ad nauseum. Official HQ of Bills Backer/Spurs Nation

1. At this point, this sport being popular globally to me is irrelevant. That’s been the case for the last 25-30 years.

2. Don’t care about the other sports but even still, this league should be clear cut above the others outside of the NFL. Hell, it was just a few years ago when the NFL were had a bunch of screw ups that people thought this league could actually surpass the NFL, but that didn’t last long.

3. We just had/have generational talent the last 20 years(Lebron, KD, Steph)that were American born and for most of that time, ratings were/are still decreasing.

Idk, this has been going on too long for it to not be a big deal(not saying that’s what you’re saying btw). Personally, I always thought something wasn’t right when the off the court stuff was more important than the actual on court product. And then you have Silver worried about being the cool, progressive Dad to players/Twitter. It’s a mess. Not a huge one that can’t be cleaned up but mess.