Is it me or shouldn't the NBA be a lot more popular?
 

I was thinking about this for a while now, but the NBA arguably has their biggest sheer number of legimiate starts since Jordan, Magic, Bird when you consider there is LeBron, Kobe, D-Wade, CP3, KG, Duncan, Howard, Yao, etc, yet it seems like their ratings hardly rise and even last year I know of one or two times the NHL on NBC on Saturday's beat out NBA on ABC.

I don't hear a lot of talk about the NBA and their popularity, but here the disparity between the NBA and NHL threads for example, are outrageous, and while I realize the NHL threads have a lot of the same posters, the same can be said on the NBA thread.

Also it isn't just FOFC I notice this, but a lot of other forums as well.

So anyway, I am just curious if I am going crazy or not, but I honestly feel like the NBA is doing a terrible job marketing when there is so much talent out there.

Then again, I can hardly stand watching the NBA anymore because the sheer amount of stars also results in a lot of star treatment that makes games horribly impossible to enjoy.

Thoughts?

They may have some stars, but the product on the court is terrible. Travelling / palming are never called, stars get all the breaks on fouls, refs generally suck, shooting skills are JUST starting to come back into vogue.

I mean, the fact that Shaquille O'Neal had an all-star career by foul-pushing guys back to the basket and then dunking it tells me all I need to know about the state of the modern NBA. I miss the Bird-McHale-Parrish Celtics...

Yeah I feel that way too, and it's something we'll never see fixed imo.

I am ususally 100% against people who say there was a conspiracy in a game, except for when they mention it happening in an NBA game, then I don't doubt it at all.

A think the athletes in the game have grown beyond the sport. If you watch a game from the 80s, you can really see it, it's almost in slow-motion compared to today. Everybody complains about the refs, but I have no idea how the game could be called better. Typically you see collisions, lots of contact on every play, and then the referee has to come up with something on the spot, which will inevitably lead to half of the observers thinking he's a moron or on the take.

I don't understand basketball today as much as I thought I did as a kid - it's just too fast and chaotic, and I don't understand why anyone would ever take a jump shot when you can drive to the hoop, cause a collision, and get a foul called most of the time. But then when I watch a game from the 80s, suddenly I understand what's going on again.

I think it's in a rather boring state right now. It seems to be more of a ESPN highlight audition than a basketball game. The really only exciting part of any NBA game these days is at about 4 minutes left in the game during the playoffs.

Fixed.

I stopped paying attention to the NBA a while ago. It does nothing for me any more. Like Jedi said, the last 4 minutes in a playoff game are worth catching though. Game #37 of a regular season means nothing to me though.

this basically sums up why i think it's not more popular. i get so irritated at the refs i find it hard to watch a lot.

that being said, I enjoy watching the celtics, because they're not so star-focused and "iso play" focused.

i think the era of "isolation play" and "clear out one side and let our star drive to the basket" turned off a lot of people.

There's also other teams that are just flat out fun to watch - the Suns for example.

but by and large yeah - you can watch the last 4 minutes of a game and you don't need to watch the rest of the game unless you're a fan of the sport. and fans of the sport were turned off by all the shitty star-treatment and clear-out play a long time ago.

I think you are going to find widely diverging answers to this question depending on which audience you are polling. It would be interesting to see some hard data, though.

In general, I think the NBA is appropriately popular.

we have a winner..

Haha. Good fix.

Pretty good answer I think.

Personally, the Knicks being terrible drove me away. And it's not just that they lost...the group of players were despicable, personnel moves were impossible to justify, the coaches (outside of when Herb would get the interim tag) were even hard to root for. Just a horrendous franchise.

Shaq is probably the poster child for where the NBA went off the beam. Since the end of the Jordan era, the game has grown more and more physical and further away from athleticism, technique and hustle. I'm not sure how to fix the league without turning the league into the National Free Throw Association to get the rough play out.

I'm not really sure how to fix it. I really tuned out the NBA for pretty much good the year of Shane Battier's draft class. All the NBA people said Shane Battier was a great college player but he'd never make it as a star in the NBA. I said it then and I'll say it now: if a guy like Shane Battier is considered a weak pro prospect, it says a lot more about what's wrong with the NBA and it says about what's wrong with Shane Battier.

The same thing is being said about Tyler Hansbrough. If the NBA thinks a guy like Hansbrough won't make their league better, there is something wrong with the league.

On the flip-side, The NBA is very big outside the United States.

Wow. I see it differently. I love the NBA especially watching great players... the playoffs are so intense down the stretch also.

If you want to see basketball I suggest watching the WNBA because those girls play ball the way it use to be played.

This is one (of the many) reasons I really can't stand the NBA or basketball in general. I find the last 4 minutes of a game to be excrutiatingly slow. I understand the tactics behind the constant fouls and timeouts, but I find the pace of a close game near the end to be very frustrating. Far too many breaks in the action.

I know I am a hockey slappy, but the last minute of a 1 goal game in hockey is exactly the kind of frantic intensity I like to see in a close game. Basketball offers the exact opposite.

I think the main reason NBA doesn't interest me any more is simply I am not involved in the sport of basketball at all. I love Baseball, I love Football. I don't really watch Basketball, Soccer, Hockey at all. (I'll watch college bball during the tourneys usually just out of school pride if Tech makes it to the tourney).

I played football and baseball both in school, and still play softball today. Those sports have always been a part of my life. Basketball on the other hand, I only played pick up games as a kid, or during lunch at work. Nothing organized and it was always more of just a chance to get out and play more so than any huge interest in the game.

So now there are a group of players who I for the most part can't relate to at all, playing a sport that I never really was into, changing teams frequently in free agency or trading , and playing on teams that I don't really have a huge die-hard interest for (Even the Atlanta Hawks that I grew up watching, I never really felt loyal to them as I do to my Braves or Falcons).

So thats why I don't care at all about the NBA I guess.

I got ripped a little for saying this here last year, but I knew I was done with the NBA when I watched one of the Boston-Cleveland playoff games and the final 1:05 took 14 minutes to elapse. Five minutes, I can understand. Hell, I'll give them ten minutes. After that, sorry, I'm not really up for that kind of thing again.

Oh, I'm also a Grizzlies fan. That probably makes the NBA unwatchable for me, too.

Oh fuck the black guy likes the NHL more then the NBA! The NBA is done.

Well I've had Bulls season tickets for a few years now so I'm a little bias toward the NBA. I'd actually argue that the last couple years have been great with the top teams being led by the biggest stars. Couple things I would change though:

1) Shorten the season by at least 10 games. Too many games that just have no meaning to them.

2) Eliminate at least 4 teams from the league, possibly more. There are just some cities that basketball doesn't work in. You eliminate those teams and the talent on the others gets better. We start getting more teams that have 2-3 legitimate All-Stars in the lineup every night like the old days.

3) Move to a true draft lottery where each non-playoff team has an equal shot at the number 1 pick. This would stop teams from tanking at the end of the season like the Celtics did a few years ago.

4) Bring in good refs that will actually follow the rules. This is the biggest on-court issue at the moment. Officiating in the NBA is horrible.

5) Add in some kind of tournament somewhere during the season. It could be for an automatic playoff birth or pride. Something unique that sets them apart from other pro sports. What about a giant round robin tournament near the All-Star break that gives the winner an automatic bid?

6) I actually think the playoffs should be setup by regions. That way you end up seeing the same teams compete in the playoffs every year and build some rivalries. I used to love the Chicago-Detroit, Chicago-New York rivalries back in the days.

This is one of the few complaints I have about basketball in general because this is not only limited to the NBA. When teams get into the habit of fouling, it can extend a game a lot longer then it should be. I can not think of anyway to get rid of it either because it is an effective tool to get your team back in the game and can make the other team go cold.

I tried once. The problem is most of the girls can't shoot worth a darn. Otherwise yes, it's much closer. The international game can be fun to watch; I enjoyed the Olympics.

I like that idea - maybe award a first-round bye or something. I wish sports leagues would think outside the box in terms of league structure.

To add to this, my favorite NBA player of all time is John Stockton.

The problem is they don't call enough. I agree with the other poster that they'd probably ruin the NBA for a year to fix it, but they need to start calling fouls on out of control offensive players driving into piles of guys, and start calling fouls on defenders that keep just reaching in on anything.

I have seen discussions about the fact that the players are simply much bigger than they used to be, while the court has stayed the same size. That's causing some of the crowding. But in addition to the Shaq issue, another problem I have is fouls called on defenders who are just standing there, or who jump straight up, and the offensive player jumps into them. Sigh.

:rant: :rant:

everybody tanks. no need to mention one team by name just because you dislike them. how about the EPIC tanking the year lebron was drafted? Or the tanking that is going on now as big-market teams try to line themselves up for the FA class of 2010?

Who else had a player blatantly admit that his team was tanking? I don't think anyone is being anti-Celtics just for the sake of being anti-Celtics here.

I dunno about drastic changes but I think the schedule is awful. Back to backs on the road when the home team has been off for 3 days are stupid. I could live with an equal chance lotto tho.

i think we all know there's assloads of tanking going on.

and the salary cap rules are way complicated to try to understand and force weirdass trades.

contrast that with the amount of fun i had watching the Bruins game last night. I have a feeling if I watch all the Bruins-Habs games I just might become a hockey fan again.

I guess a simple question is why is the NBA like this while college is not? Sure, some teams foul other teams. But there isn't the perception that the game is slow or that the rest of the game is meaningless because it's a game of runs and that's accepted. Where's the distinction between college and pro hoops?

SI

If you add that the teams play to the death, then I'd be all for it.

• 8 minutes
• Players are paid above the table
• Posses are bigger

Need any more?

WNBA Median Team FG% last season - .423
NBA Median Team FG % this season - .457
WNBA Median Team 3P% last season - .334 (approx)
NBA Median Team 3P% this season - .366

To be within 3 shots out of 100 overall considering the lack of dunks seems pretty close to me. The difference is pretty consistent regardless of range too.

Oddly enough (to me at least) the ratio of assists per point scored is about the same at the median too, right around 5 points per assist.

Also took a look at a random WNBA game, midseason, NY vs LA a pair of third place teams. Shot about 44% between 'em, combined 56-126.

Random NBA game, midseason, Bos vs Hou, a #2 & a #5, shot 65-142 combined, just under 46%.

Maybe you can tell the difference in 2-3 missed shots a game but I really can't. A more apt knock on the WNBA might be a higher turnover ratio.

This one is simple.
Enforce the intentional foul rule. If you intentionally foul the other team, that team gets 2 shots AND the ball.....that would end the end game shenanigans/

It was a few seasons ago, and I just watched brick after brick after brick. I haven't tried since.

I don't dislike the Celtics, they were just the first example I thought of when it came to tanking.

That's a real big issue with the league too and why they need to drop the amount of games by 10 or so. Back-to-back road games are devestating late in the season and it usually ends up in a horrible basketball game.

Maybe that wasn't the best worded post of mine, but I wasn't literally asking "What is the difference between the NBA and NCAA". I think I've got a decent grasp on that question ;)

It is more to the effect of "Why is the perception there that NCAA games should be watched from start to finish as they are a game of runs while NBA game are perceived to just be the last 4 minutes of the game". Also, no one really complains if the last 2 minutes of an NCAA game lasts 10 minutes so why are people all over the NBA doing the same. Where do those perceptions come from?

SI

The season definitely is too long. 50-60 games would be just fine (like 58, the option you get with the NBA sims)

In general the NBA allways suffered from the fact that everybody can play it. Sounds strange, but (i think) Red Auerbach once came up with a statement in that regard. And it´s true, the casual guy out there really doesnt "get" how great the guys are athletically and in terms of skill, too.
I mean, 2 ppg in 15 minutes guys like Ryan Bowen were 15/10 guys in College...

What is a problem with the rules is that they were never intended for guys that big, fast and skilled (the latter gets overlooked because of how athletic defenses have become, but put any seemingly unskilled player in a pick up setting and he´ll blow you away or just watch warmups to a game).

And besides that the NBA lost the balance between perimeter guys and Post guys. Though that´s more my gripe, the general public actually appreciates that.
Perimeter guys literally are put on a Pedestal while Big Guys can´t catch a break. A guy like Yao can´t even make a move forward inside 10 feet with guys flopping left and right.
And on the other hand it´s ridiculous having guys like James, Paul or Wade literally jumping into people and get to the line.

But overall it´s just hard to call for the Refs, it really is incredibly fast with an insane amount of "situations" in a game.

I like the NBA Playoffs but unless my team is playing I can't really get into the regular season. I follow the standings and some of the statistics but if my team isn't playing I'd rather play a video game or watch another show if I'm at home. But for me this applies to most other sports, even the NFL nowadays it's hard to sit through a three hour regular season game as a neutral unless it's a great matchup.

There are too many teams like some other people have said, I'd like to see the NBA get rid of three or four so teams would have more quality depth.

It's still a much better than hockey or college basketball of course.

Just to play a little devil's advocate, here's some food for thought.

On a basic level, the difference between a .307 (.457) and .273 (.423) hitter is pretty darn substantial. Or if you want to do percentages ((.457-.423)/.457) is 0.0744, so it's a .300 hitter vs a .277. That's a fairly substantial difference.

SI

CBS has effectively killed the end of tournament games with their constant words from the NCAA's corporate champions. At least with the NBA, I know there won't be a commercial at every dead ball. Timeouts? Maybe, but not another commercial.

The problem with the NBA game is that they have made a contact sport out of a non-contact game. For a long time, offensive players worked to avoid contact and any contact initiated by the defense was an easy foul. Since then, more and more contact has been allowed and it is now hard to differentiate which contact is worthy of a foul and which isn't. For every foul called, people can easily think of 10 situations with more contact and no foul. This falls more on the league than the refs since they wanted this type of play to be allowed.

Rule changes to allow more offense also cause issues for fans of the sport. Illegal defense - even with the recent amendments, lax ball-handling rules, in-bounds at half-court following a timeout. All of these cause issues with the integrity of the league.

But it's also less influential since there's roughly 125 shots in a WNBA game versus, give or take, half that many in a MLB game.

Put into another perspective, that's roughly the difference between Derek Jeter's average last year and Torri Hunter's average. Similar spread in the NBA this year would be Eric Gordon and Kevin Martin.

If you can perceive as much difference between the two guards shooting as you can the two hitters at the plate, more power to you but I can't. Give me a choice of a set of Atlanta Dream tickets or a set of Atlanta Hawks tickets & I'm at the WNBA game without hesitation.

But that's also a function of familiarity more than on court differences. With players sticking around in the women's college game typically longer than the men's game, plus less international influence I've got a much better likelihood of having some connection to the players than I do with the NBA.

apples to oranges comparison. vastly different number of attempts in a regular game. Roughly double, give or take probably.

(I know but I had to bring it up and Jon answered it)

SI

Maybe we can make the women's ball even smaller so feminists and WNBA partisans can keep parroting the claim they shoot better than men.

(This isn't meant as a knock on Jon - there are legitimate reasons to prefer a WNBA game over an NBA game, just don't try to tell me they are better in any way, shape, or form.)

I agree with a good portion of what's been stated here, and like a lot of people, I find college basketball much more enjoyable to watch, even if the NBA obviously has superior talent overall.

For me, the biggest problem I have with the NBA is the type of offense that a lot of teams run. For many teams, offense amounts to "everybody stand around and clear out as much space as you can, and our superstar will create his own shot." That gets boring to watch, really fast, but at the same time you can understand the reason it comes about:

1. Defenses are much more sophisticated and athletic than they used to be.
2. There isn't enough time in the shot clock to run a proper offense against such sophisticated defense.

There's really not much you can do about #1. Most fans don't understand when an illegal defense is called anyways. But you could do something about #2. If I could make one recommendation to Stern, it'd be that they increase the shot clock to 30 seconds. 24 seconds just isn't enough time to run a proper offense against modern defenses. We're talking about professionals here, so the college 35 seconds isn't necessary either, but I think more time is needed.

Of course, this is something that the league would never put in place. A longer shot clock means fewer possessions, which means less stat-stuffing.

I could actually see watching live WNBA being fun. On TV i don't know any of the players, it's just too hard to follow and get in. And the quality of ball is not that much better than an above average mens rec league. In person, I bet it's a lot more tolerable.

And a funny WNBA side story: My brother was relaying to me that he has some friends that are pretty hardcore gamblers, and one of their favorite sports to wager on was WNBA. I guess the sheer amount of data to set lines is nowhere near as advanced as the NBA or NFL. So with a little legwork you can increase your odds. Second hand story, I might be messing up a few details. But the thought of wagering on the Sparks was pretty funny.

I am going to address some of the other posts but I think the exact opposite is true. Basketball has never been a non contact sport. It is not a collision sport a la football or hockey but the expectation of NO contact whatsoever is one of the things that made the game so much difficult to officiate. The oldest play in the game is the pick and roll. If basketball was really a no contact sport, Karl Malone would have really been a real mailman instead of a Hall of Famer.

The answer is really simple. The popularity of the NBA during the time of Bird, Magic and then Jordan was the exception for the league, not the rule. The NBA without Bird, Magic, and Jordan has never been popular.

It is interesting that you think the NBA has done a terrible job of marketing his stars. I have heard interviews with David Stern over the last couple of years in which he basically said the league is now more interested in marketing teams than stars. I guess he heard the criticism about the league being too focused on its stars instead of entire teams.

The NBA fascinates me. I have no desire to watch a regular season game, yet I follow the league throughout the season relatively closely. All the stars and 'plots' that develop are really larger than life; it's like a soap opera.

I do like watching NBA playoff games, but unfortunately they collide with the NHL and I really don't have that much time to watch sports anymore so I have to be choosy. I don't think I watched more than 2 games of last years playoffs, whereas 5 years ago I would have watched about 15.

It was never a zero contact sport, but there were really very few places where contact was allowed. Setting picks, boxing out for a rebound, and post play were about it. Even those had some pretty strong limits. Now you get collisions under the basket with no fouls called. Most shots have the shooter bouncing off of two or three guys, and that shooter generally has to take his last 3 or 4 steps with both arms hugging the ball because of all the contact he gets before even leaving the ground.

While I'm no fan of Shaq's...and I usually found myself being the only detractor in the room. I think this describes the early year's Shaq. About six or seven years back, I became a believer that he had actually developed his footwork and movement near the basket to the point that he was actually as good as his press. I whole heartedly agree with the rest of your post.

Rainmaker's list resonated with me to a degree. The same issues affect the NHL too. The seasons are too long -- or at least mostly meaningless. The only real drama at end is between the 15th to 19th best teams in the league fighting it out for mediocrity to see who can stumble over .500 and make the playoffs and most likely be vanished in short order.

Is it just me or are these two leagues ripe for a relegation system? Both leagues seem to be largely built around models that make dramatic improvements less likely than certainly in the NFL and to a certain degree MLB. The Celtics turnaround when they went out and grabbed Garnett and Allen is the exception to the rule, and even that required a certain amount of clearing of the roster and phoning it in to get that done.

It's unfortunate for both leagues that the playoffs are starting now and quite honestly both playoffs are pretty much irrelevant for another month. Wake me up in early or mid-May and I'll try to care.

Two big differences IMO.

One is the fact that there is way more parity in the NHL (or at least it seems that way, there are usually only 5 or 6 teams absolutely out of it with a couple of weeks left) In the NBA, other than the Suns which team that missed the playoffs had a realistic shot of going anywhere in the postseason? Who cares about the race for the 8th seed when that team is basically sweep fodder for the Lakers or the Cavs?

Secondly, hockey games are at least close and hard fought for the most part. Too many NBA games are over by the third quarter, sometimes halftime. Just feels like NHL regular season games mean a lot more... and because most teams have a shot at the playoffs, they do. It was clear 5 games into the Clippers season that they might as well not even show up for the rest of the year.

I don't follow the NBA closely, but raised my brow last year was the dramatic difference that home court seemed to make.

I think it was the first round match-up between Boston and Atlanta where the home team not only won every game, but essentially blew the other team out.

It just seemed... odd to me.

i hate how the media circle jerk around the big stars of the game and ignore and dismiss the other players on thier teams. all they care about and show highlights are scoring and dunks.

I did some kind of comparison once, going from memory I think the home team wins about 53% of the time in the MLB, 60-65% in the NFL, and just over 70% in the NBA.

On the other hand now that I have the MSG channel now I watched probably the last 10 or so Knicks games of the season. Maybe it was Walt Frazier saying the same catch phrases about 10 times a game that sucked me in. But yes, they are just god awful.

I am all for this though I still would like to see teams play each other at least twice.


I am not sure I completely agree here. I think there is enough talent to fill a ten man rotation. I do agree that certain cities just are not NBA towns.


Complaints of tanking only happen when there is a perceived all time great at the top of the draft. I have heard no discussion this year that the Kings tanked the season to get Blake Griffin. They were just a bad team. If it must change, then I say go with the Mike Greenberg idea. Give the most ping pong balls to the team with the best non playoff record.

The NBA needs to clarify the rules. Traveling should not take 3/4 quarters of a page in the rule book to explain.


Uh no


The NBA has tried its best to forget those rivalries. Note all the rule changes for physical defense and fighting.;)

Raises hands. I was reminded of this again when I watched White Men Can't Jump recently: "rather look good losing than look bad winning". I still contend that it goes back to the "Be Like Mike" syndrome and also admit that it can be a cultural gap as well.

lol@ people who bring up "highlight shows" and "highlights culture".

What do you expect to see on Sportscenter? A minutes worth of two-hand chest passes?

The NBA is fine and the reason the game has changed is players who are 6'8 normally would have been playing power forward instead of shooting guard, swing forward... the game evolved.

maybe its all perception.
with a 1% increase in a horrible down economy maybe its more popular than we think;just with a different market.

Sports Media Watch: NBA attendance up slightly.

I think you are going to see teams really hurting next year. Was listening to Bill Simmons' podcast the other day and he mentioned that people he talked to that were in the know said season ticket renewals were at about half of what they were this time last year. The salary cap is also going to go down, which I don't think they ever planned on. Some teams are going to be giving players away. They need to find a way to make trades about its effects on the court, and not on the pocketbook/salary cap.

I've actually been watching more basketball this year, which is funny given that the Warriors, whom I root for, were terrible. I think that the play overall has been getting better than it was a few years back. I feel myself being excited for the start of the playoffs. I do get annoyed with the NBA is the length it takes to complete a playoff series, though. Also, the biggest problem they have is the officiating. It's absolutely awful. If they don't fix that somehow, the league is going to suffer greatly.

Part of that is due to promotions and ticket price reductions I think. I remember hearing some talk on the radio about that. One guy said he was shocked about attendence, the other guy pointed out a slew of promos that was leading to the figures.

Whoever said the NBA needs to call the game tougher is correct. You have to call the game early and call it consistently through the game. Look back at Game 6 of the '88 Finals. Kareem gets a call against Lambeer and sinks both free throws. There was essentially no time left on the clock. Would that happen today? No, they'd "let them play."

But ultimately, I get frustrated with a call in the first minute that gets called, but the same foul does not get called with 15 seconds left in a 2 point game. If it is a foul early, it is a foul late. Also, quit favoring the stars. Part of the reason why stars remain stars is they are playing by a different set of rules. Make everyone play by the same set of rules.

Here's the top five professional team sports in America right now

The Top Two: The Powerhouses
Football
Baseball

The High Level, but Not Top Two:
Basketball

Mid Level/Regional
Soccer
Hockey

(don't laugh, Soccer's average attendance has been close to if not more then Hockey's the last few years)

Football and Baseball have pretty much a stranglehold on the attention. To the most part , they have their own seasons (yes, Football starts mid-september, but 75% of MLB is eliminated at that point, so it's not as bad).

The other three sports in the "Big Five" Cross both of these time frames (Basketball/Hockey starts in Football Season and end in Baseball Season, and Soccer is vice versa (Starts in Baseball, and goes through to Football season)

So, at no point really does Basketball have a chance to get traction, except a bit around the All-Star break, when it doesn't have to deal with either of the Big Two.

Hockey and Soccer are always "Second Thoughts" when it comes to the Sports Mind.

It's a big misleading since a lot of season tickets had to be renewed back in April 2008. I think you're going to see a major drop this year. When I called to renew my tickets I asked about my chances to move up next year and they said it was really good since they were not doing well with renewals (they usually are 95% but expecting only 80% this year).

The biggest difference I've noticed is the lack of luxury boxes. Half of them are empty which is not normal. The Bulls have also been running a buy-1-get-1-free promotion for most of the season. They are not raising ticket prices next year for the first time that I can remember.

Bill Simmons wrote a real good column on this a few weeks back. Now I know some people don't like his style, but he's actually pretty tight with a lot of people in the NBA. It gives a real good look at the current financial state of the NBA.

The Sports Guy: Bill Simmons Welcome to the No Benjamins Association - ESPN Page 2

Every post player in the history of the NBA pushes to some degree to get positioning. It has been many, many decades since post players only got position with their legwork. Shaq is perhaps the functionally strongest player ever to play in the NBA. What do you expect him to do, politely ask players to get out the way instead of earning it?

Put Shaq in the 80s or 70s and his game is the exact same, only he would of course be even more dominate with the smaller players. If you hate Shaq's game and accomplishments then you hate strong post play. Perhaps 1930s basketball would be more to your liking?

I just don't think that would fly in the U.S. Some of the teams have trouble drawing fans and I can't imagine what it would turn into if they were delegated to the minor leagues. A lot of these small market teams sell their tickets partly due to people wanting to see the stars from throughout the league. I know when the Bulls sucked I still loved going to see Lebron or Kobe play.

Shaq would have fouled out very quickly with his style of play in the 70s or 80s. Back then, you knock a guy over, you get called for a foul.

I agree about the post player comments, like Shaq. I grew up watching Wilt and Jabbar, and haven't seen much difference between the newer post players and them. It's the one-on-one (or one-on-many) plays that are stupid.

He also has the opposite problem. I remember his college coach advocating for the use of pull-away uniform segments, because defenses could mug Shaq, and the refs could never see it, because Shaq wouldn't budge an inch.

I expect him to go around a defender standing in the way, or shoot over him, like basketball was intended to be.

Probably more because the leagues have grown too much through expansion than any other reason.

Kareem and Wilt never backed down defenders?

Maybe that would be amore entertaining brand of basketball, but you can't claim it's a new development.

I live oversees and I find this NBA post-season so compelling that I'm thinking about shelling out for the league pass (or whatever it's called), since I don't get shit on TV.

I agree that the NBA needs a shorter season and fewer teams. Let's hope they're willing to think outside the box.

The NHL will have one of its problems fixed as there is no way they don't lose a good chunk of teams soon.

The NBA & David Stern can go fuck themselves.

(former Sonics fan speaking here)

Though the shorter season would be good it will never happen.

Foz,

What no NASCAR. ;)

He did say team sports :)

Ya think?

From tonight's Atl-Mia recap
the Hawks got to play in front of a raucous crowd that cheered their every move. They even brought out Atlanta-native T.I. to make the player introductions, the rap star still a month away from reporting to federal prison to serve his one-year-and-a-day sentence for pleading guilty to weapons charges.

Does the playoff scheduling drive some of you away? It sucks that they have 2-3 days between each game.

I don't really follow the NBA, and I'm not really a basketball fan (though I was in the 80s), but I've caught some of the playoff games because, well, it's the playoffs.

Anyway, it seems to me like there's a lot of games, and a lot of teams involved. I honestly couldn't tell you all of the current matchups. Maybe that's a factor. Maybe not.

To put this into context, I'm just as ambivalent about baseball, but each autumn when the playoffs start I can name all the playoff teams and usually where each of their series currently stand. Conversely, I'm sure I could name correctly more of the teams in the NBA playoffs than the NHL playoffs.

I don't know where I'm going with this, but it's Friday, so give me a break. :D

I don't watch the NBA anymore, so I may be completely off-base on this one. However, I am a fan of college basketball. In college, the atmosphere just seems so more involved and thus the teams and players are as well. The defense in college can be full-court, a lot of trapping, man-to-man all the way out to half-court. When I watched the NBA, it always seemed like the offense consisted of some guy dribbling down the court at 3 miles per hour, he then passes it to the guy who was going to shoot (no matter what), everyone else would clear out, the shooter would attempt a turn-around jumper, miss, and you would rinse, lather, repeat at the opposite end.

I know this may not be true of the playoffs, but it also irritated me that the crowds had to be entertained between shots e.g. way too loud music being played as the point guard dribbled to the opposite end.

Based on my, admittedly minimal, experience watching the NBA this year....

It's easier with a smaller facility and a bunch of rowdy college kids to have a more involved feeling as opposed to a full sized arena where the best seats are really only affordable to businesses or fairly well off people - probably not the same level of rowdiness as college kids ;)


Just a product of the game - a kid playing on scholarship knowing this is the final four years of competitive basketball in his life will play full court defense for 30 games. A multi millionaire playing 82 games and pretty much thinking how he can get his prolong his career to get his next multi million dollar contract will not. See Rick Pitino and the Celtics.


Again, just how the league is. It's an individualistic team sport if that makes sense. The league markets it that way, the refs call the game differently for a select few individuals and the rules themselves essentially force the game to be a game of individual matchups on the floor. You also have to take into consideration that because of expansion there are far more players who are less capable than a teammate of doing something good with the ball - it's not like when Bird could pass to Ainge, DJ, Kevin or the Chief or Magic who had Worthy, Kareem, Michael Cooper and AC Green. Dwayne Wade has Mario Chalmers, Michael Beasley, Udonis Haslem and a gimpy Jermaine O'Neal - why shouldn't he just take the ball and try to go one on one any time he can - especially when he'll get the FTs to bail him out enough times to make it worth while?

The NBA is also the top 200 basketball players in the world. Pressing less talented players is effective because they are not as adept at handling that pressure. Pressing NBA calibre guards (besides JJ Reddick) would be incredibly stupid & ineffective.

I wish the NHL and NBA didn't screw with their playoff schedule. It should be really easy: play every other day. They either have a day off or travel day for those inbetween games. There's just too much that breaks up the series to get a rhythm.

Day 1: West Gm1, East Day off
Day 2: East Gm1, West Day off
Day 3: West Gm2, East Day off
Day 4: East Gm2, West Travel Day
Day 5: West Gm3, East Travel Day
Day 6: East Gm3, West Day off
Day 7: West Gm4, East Day off
...

Actually, if you wanted to, you could have 2 East and 2 West games for each day, that way you can do regional coverage or have the "premium" games on Network 1 while the secondary ones on Network 2.

SI

No one mentions that the NBA Playoffs are closer to the WWE when it comes to how scripted they are.

EDGY

Probably because nobody really believes that?

The NHL does a pretty good job on an every-other day schedule, as does the MLB (if not back-to-back, with a day off to travel).

Tell that to the Kings in 2002. I'm not saying games are completely thrown, but the NBA has a dubious history for officiating going in the favor of a team that is beneficial to the NBA's interests.

Heck, as a Bulls fan I'll admit that the league basically gave us the series against the Hornets in 1995.

1995? 2002? Hold a grudge much?

I think the NBA's biggest problem with the playoffs isn't that they're scripted, it's that the officiating is usually terrible at crucial points of the game, easily lending itself to that kind of talk.