The reason the ratings are down isnt because you dont have a villian per se. It's because you dont have a GREAT TEAM or GREAT TEAMS anymore. or at least perceived GREAT. the warriors might be a great team. But they cant get that love because we all know the reason why the splash bros are so money is primarily due to rule changes not allowing guys to get up in them on a constant basis without soft whistles. its the same reason james harden is a household name(yes he has game but he's not as good as it seems he is... the bogus fouls makes him super harden aka superstar james harden with a ridiculous addidas contract.. This nucca harden aint no Tmac (pre back issues). lets keep it 1000. But rule changes have made life so much easier for guards/perimeter players/ point forwards, etc. that as a fan you already know who goings to go off before you turn on the TV. even though the youngins never seen the early 00's or the 90's and we know they didnt see the 80's. they still can see a situation where its my offense vs your offense and little defense being played mano y mano. these super zone defenses are great TEAM defenses. but they remind you of why you hate to watch college hoops nowadays. There is nothing like guys being put on that island with a star player and having to stop that dude more than twice a night. now i dont want to see east coast 90's, iso ball all day either. there is a nice balance between the two. The nba has not found that balance. they have gone to far to the offensive side. to far to the small ball only side completely throwing bigs in the bushes, making young bigs become point forwards and 3 pt shooting centers.
Bigs rarely get truly dunked on. because bigs for the most part are not challenging guys dunks like that. the shot blockers are mostly only weakside sneak up on you shot blockers. unlike old heads like ewing, zo, drob, hakeem, etc were swatting their own man's shots. as well as weakside shots.
the bigs are only good for a pick n lob or pick n pop. zero post game darn near.
I told yall this would happen. yall told me i was flabby and sick. now you see the ratings. YOU youngins aint even feeling this new era of hoop. kind of similar to hiphop. yall defend this era because its all you have, but in reality you dont like it either.
I like gstate a lot. the cavs are cool but they would be a lot better in my eyes if love was a real defender. so that team is once again pretty much all offense and so so defense. they get by on new rules where people cant touch kyrie or bron. so that helps.
the clippers are not a real power team even though they have the athletic ability and seemingly the talent. The clippers on paper are the old sonics(gp, kemp and them). but they aint that solid in reality. this is why if a gstate warrior gets hurt. any of them. Dray, chef, klay, Iggy. if any of those dudes go down with an injury come playoff time. their entire run will go out the window and watch the spurs or some other team win it all. which will make the idea that they were not a great team realistic. great teams cant lose their main star players 1 or 2. but they can lose a 3rd guy or 4th guy. not so with the warriors.
Truth is, yall do need the lakers to be great again. because more people love the lakers than hate them. and when the lakers are good. they arent just pretty good. they are GREAT. No one questioned kobe and even the kobe gasol team which was no where near as good as the kobe and shaq teams. no one ever questioned any of those 5 championship teams like they do the warriors.
No one questioned the bulls with pip and mike and nem. no one questioned kg ray ray pp rondo celtics that one year. no one questioned the old celtics or the showtime lakers.
The nba needs to change the rules back to the way they were mid 90's. it wasnt as rough as the 80's. but it was still man to man defense (NO ZONES). and you could at least put a forearm on a perimeter offensive player while you played defense. you couldnt handcheck him old derek harper style(which i hated). this will do two things. bring back perimeter defense make the games more of a chess match between players and coaches. in addition. it will force some of these guys to become even better more aggressive players on offense. and these guys would figure it out. they are still the best 300+ players in the world hands down.
. Russ already has the fire that pisses people off. It could be OKC but KD is too passive
. Talk about wanting it both ways
