OT: Fixing the NBA

[ganner918]

I love the NBA. I don’t watch it everyday simply because I don’t have time. But I watch at every chance.

I will watch the WNBA sometimes too.

NBA TV is down. Attendance is up sharply.

The game needs some changes but it’s the best players in the world playing the best sport in the world.

I never did and still don't watch much of the regular season. But playoff ball is always really good, and vibes me mire basketball after ncaa ends. They do have issues they need to fix but yes, having the best players in the world is always a draw.

 

[BGCATFAN2012]

I'm a nba fan from the 80 til a few years ago but its garbage 🗑 right now and going down fast. Gambling has decided who wins and if you don't believe watch it a few days. You can put 1000 on a team and they go down 20. Hedge it with 2000 and it goes the other way. I set traps to make money off of them but it's next to impossible to keep up and have fandem.

 

[know1]

The NBA is already fixed.

 

[dbrice3]

- deeper three point line and no corner 3
- automatic points for all free throws except ones that can be rebounded
- one timeout per half
- commercial breaks only in-between quarters

 

[JumperJack]

I had a friend tell me that the NBA is largely being propped up by international fans (China, Europe, South America all have international players in the NBA as the NBA becomes more of a global game).. i didn't really believe that until recently. The NBA is in bad shape.

I went to a Lakers game not too long ago. Shocked at the number of people who were foreign. Guess I never realized this. Talked to several who made it clear they were there to see LeBron. Granted this was a unique player, but you don’t see that in other sports I don’t think.

 

[Fox2monk]

I don't know the NBA very well, so I don't know the fixes. But, I will say, I've been a sports guy all my life, and the NBA has (in seemingly a natural progression by its own doing) become my least favorite sport. The game got incredibly boring. You can tell it's 75% effort until about the 5:00 min. And that 5:00 generally takes an hour due to too many timeouts. Also, the playoffs seem to take seven months to play out. Someone above me said it's a player driven league. I don't dispute that. But it's hard to find interest in a league who's own players seemingly don't have a lot of interest or desire to compete. I don't care how much money the league makes, it's become a bad product.

Look at Super max players like Embiid and Leonard. They have played 0 and 5 games this year and Embiid got hurt yet again last night, ridiculous that so many of the stars who make tickets cost what they do never play,

 

[Fox2monk]

- deeper three point line and no corner 3
- automatic points for all free throws except ones that can be rebounded
- one timeout per half
- commercial breaks only in-between quarters

Why have FT then? They should have to earn them and it would be impossible to cut out corner 3’s unless the line went OOB and that’s just silly.

 

[Fox2monk]

To the people that don’t enjoy the NBA. Outside of Kentucky basketball do you enjoy college basketball ?

Definitely and I do watch some NBA games if there are players from UK or someone I like playing. Overall I don’t mind it, but the season is too long and the stars sit too much, also they get so many ridiculous calls now it ruins the competitiveness. I think over reliance on the 3 has kinda killed some fun because if any team gets hot like Boston the game is over, they hit like 25 3’s during the game. I think hand checking should be legal in the pro game and call travels again.

 

[shaudyshaud]

Definitely and I do watch some NBA games if there are players from UK or someone I like playing. Overall I don’t mind it, but the season is too long and the stars sit too much, also they get so many ridiculous calls now it ruins the competitiveness. I think over reliance on the 3 has kinda killed some fun because if any team gets hot like Boston the game is over, they hit like 25 3’s during the game. I think hand checking should be legal in the pro game and call travels again.

Too many games definitely makes it less meaningful. Bucks started off very slow and doesn’t have to worry about making the playoffs .

Can’t really do that in the NFL. A slow start and the season is over or you will need help at the end if you do get it going

 

[jimmybuffet123]

We have between 2 and 4 of the top 10-15 players of all time playing right now. Pretty wild. Granted it’s subjective

 

[UKFBFan78]

I used to watch the NBA a little bit between middle school and college. Recently, though, I have no desire to sit and watch at all.

I saw a tweet by Clay Travis that suggests I might not be the only one, with NBA viewership decreasing by 48% since 2012.

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Replies largely mirror my qualms with the NBA: players sitting out, tons of games, and a near complete homogenization of systems and player skills. It's boring watching an NBA game.

Players can carry the ball and travel. Defense is basically punished. Offense sold tickets, but we now have too much of a good thing, IMO. NBA games are lifeless, stale products. Moreover, personally, I feel like defense has suffered for the same reason it has in the NFL – stars are commodities and investments, and hard fouls or aggression towards them should be punished severely.

That's great from an investment standpoint, but it's kind of like having a really nice China set that nobody's allowed to use. The pieces are just for looks and once viewing it has lost all novelty, the set has completely lost its utility.

Furthermore, the NBA has a near universal system: drive, kick, shoot, rebound, drive, kick, shoot.... Yeah, that's great, but basketball now has something of a "meta build," to borrow a gaming term. Everyone does the same thing and strives for the exact same players. The NBA isn't a chess match, it's a game of who's got better cards.

An idea I've toyed with for a while is how the NBA would look if half the games were 3 point "on" games and 3 point "off" games. I watched UK's win against Duke in '78 when Goose got loose, and it's such a completely different game that emphasized post moves, strength, interior passing, cutting, and more.

Teams wouldn't be able to sell out on buying three point experts at each position. You'd need traditional big men, and they'd have to have expanded roles even in the 3-point games because they're an investment just like a Klay Thompson or Steph Curry.

Now, I don't think that'll solve the NBA's myriad problems, and I certainly don't think it'll ever get implemented. However, as a biologist, I know that if you have an environment suited for one organism and one organism only, it'll fill all the niche space available. We need a diverse ecosystem to create a space where multiple organisms (styles) can compete and thrive.

So, I'm interested in what your ideas are or how you'd react if the NBA has 3pt on and off games. Maybe even on or off halfs or quarters.

Of course, defense needs to be rewarded again, offense needs to be punched down a bit, and other factors need to be addressed, so again, I'm interested to hear what your thoughts are on all this.

If nothing is done, I doubt I'll ever watch even a quarter of an NBA game again, and it seems that's a growing sentiment among basketball fans.

For me , the biggest issue is there are so many networks carrying the games you would have to spend 300 on different streaming services to watch all the games I used to watch on TNT and NBC (I think). On top of that, even if you have league pass that black out games on league pass and network channels....wth would they black out a game on a service I pay for (just to watch the game) . It's ridiculous

 

[FirewithFire]

But the player driven league is the best thing ever. /s. Since the inception of letting the players run the show the NBA has seen steady decline.

Go back to 90s rules basketball. "Free flow" or what ever trash they call it isn't entertaining at all.

There is also a massive lack of superstars in the game right now. I can't think of one player that I would say is head and shoulders above the others. Hell it's hard to even name one that I actually like enough to follow.

No big matchups like Bird vs Jordan, or Magic vs Bird, or Hakeem vs Kareem. Now they all want to play on the same team with each other so that none stand out.

Extend the 3 point line.

Shorten the season. It shouldn't run into summer.

There are to many games on TV. I don't gaf about watching crapola vs crapola.

I could go on but it doesn't matter. I can appreciate the athleticism of the players and how easy they make the game look but it is all so boring without any real vestment of meaning.

 

[BigRedMachineBigBlueNation]

Easy fix: Abolish it.