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