Stephen A Smith suggest that NBA rating are down because players don't hate each other. Is there any truth to that?

[Hov]

That's the thing, the people complaining don't. And honestly they never did. Because when you actually fukk with something you did need all the extra shyt and you don't manufacture things to complain about. And it's ok for folks to not rock with the game but it's not ok to be intellectually dishonest and straight up fictional.

This is all of your problems, and it’s a recurring across genes of sports, entertainment and other politics etc

You sound like the Democrats when they lose election

People tell you why they don’t like product and all yall come back with is “that’s not true it’s you not us”

It’s no one’s job to like basketball and most human beings don’t have a love of ANY sport. It’s up to the sport to be compelling enough though the talent or the story to make people watch

The Super Bowl wouldn’t be as compelling to a lot of the US if not for emphasis on halftime show and commercials and gathering.

No one cared about gymnastics until we cared about Simone. Same with Tiger and tennis (of course die hards did)

Sports thrives on casuals and if you lose interest of the casuals you become a relic.

I can tell you all day how Bud Crawford and Usyk and Bivol are the greatest boxers in the world right now, but are they selling like Tyson and Floyd?

 

[In The Zone '98]

Guys, why are we having the same discussion in 40 different threads?

 

[Big Boss]

Making $30m a year and fukking the same bytches

Life is great

 

[Diondon]

WCW needs to come back so cats can squabble at Starcade
but nah nikkas wanna whine about the media
but the NBA media does a horrible job at selling matchups
What do Taylor Rooks be babbling bout?
and in the parity era, playoff matchups don't repeat continuously
the last great rivalry was Warriors/Cavs

 

[FaTaL]

And the median is 6.7 million.

What's there to be mad about.


Sidenote:

MLB median is 1.5 mill
NFL median is 860k

No wonder NFL nikkaz beef more

And no guaranteed contracts

 

[Braman]

I put hands on my brother. I don’t hate my brother.

Man if you don’t gtfoh with this obtuse shyt

 

[MikelArteta]

i mean its totally different now, if you're good and play basketball you most likely play on teh same aau circuit or follow on instagram etc. in the same places and then you go to college / nba those connections stay

 

[mastermind]

Man if you don’t gtfoh with this obtuse shyt

man entered this thread with the rational of a second grader and wants to be taken serious.

 

[Mantis Toboggan M.D.]

And you think this “professional disdain” doesn’t exist anymore? Somehow that psyche has just been removed from today’s players as if they had their amygdalas altered in a lab and sent into the league without being to feel any sort of anger?

Never mind "professional disdain", what about the actual unadulterated hatred Dray and Gobert have for one another - Dray teasing Gobert for crying over his All-Star snub (unironically, Gobert was showing emotion because he wasn't recognized for being an All-Star), verbally jabbing one another over the years about their respective mental hangups, shytting on one another's defense, all culminating in Dray using it as an excuse to put his hands on him.

And then you have all the other branches off that: Gobert squaring off with his own teammate [Kyle Anderson] on the bench, Draymond getting into it with KD on the bench, Draymond punching Poole in practice etc.

If that drama transpired back in the day, it would be used as a scale to say today's players/games are soft, players don't hate one another and they don't care about the game. The events themselves would even be dramatized, turning into stories of how Draymond had Gobert in a headlock for that long, he fell unconcious and they had to get the paramedics out on the floor to attend to him.

Draymond does all the stuff people online say is missing from the league and everyone hates him because of it

 

[Trojan 24]

The last great rivalry was Duncan punking the Lakers over and over

Same Duncan that has a losing record to the Lakers in the playoffs?

 

[etrofllenrod504]

No viewership down because old losers/ex players like Stephen A keep glazing for the old game and fans eating that bs up. So now nobody appreciates the current product, it’s always "well in the 90’s blah blah".

 

[Braman]

In addition to @mastermind's point...How many people in here have actual memories of any of that stuff happening? You got stuff from 40, 50 years ago on there. Funny thing with NBA fans...nikkas be 29 puffing they chest out about stuff that happened 10 years before they were born. nikkas "back in my daying" about shyt that occurred when they pops was still tryin get they mama back to the crib

Most of it happened before the league cracked down on fighting. League got record ratings after that btw. And again MJ was and still is super close with the main goon on the Knicks. It's Draymond and Bron except Draymond and Bron had and actual issue before they become friends.

First of all, there’s a reason I said this:

You can easily just modify all that to ‘fans don’t perceive players to hate each other’ and he’s right

2nd, and to that point, you’re applying the same history revisionism you’re speaking about. We didnt have social media or John Salley Vladtv interviews So in real time, we had no idea some of them were ‘actually cool in real life’. We didn’t have a Time Machine to know MJ would sign Reggie to Jordan brand, or that Mike actually went golfing with Danny ainge, or that Mike stayed with John Salley when he was in town, etc.

So I stand by what I said and the spirit of what Stephen A said; fans rightfully assumed their was genuine animous between players —-not to mention they DID have real animosity. So Chris Childs didn’t 2 piece Kobe?? So Chris Mills didn’t pull out the strap lookin for Bonzi Wells? Yea I’m 40+ ngga I was there. fukk is yall talkin about.

 

[Silkk]

Weren't ratings down during this period? Weren't the Finals getting record lows each year? Shaq and Kobe have done multiple interviews, including one together, indicating they never actually hated each other.

Idgaf what they said the past 10 years. Them nikkas HATED each other.

And the finals were down cause of the Spurs & Pistons

 

[Mantis Toboggan M.D.]

Idgaf what they said the past 10 years. Them nikkas HATED each other.

And the finals were down cause of the Spurs & Pistons

If not personally, at least professionally yeah. It wasn’t just the spurs and pistons either. From 1999-03 the eastern conference champs were a 27-23 Knicks team with its best player out of the lineup, a pacers team whose best two players were Reggie Miller and Jalen Rose, a sixers team who was leaning on Dikembe and Eric Snow for complimentary scoring while AI went roughly 11-26 every night, and then the nets in back to back years

 

[Bubba T]

Ain’t nothing like NBA talk on thecoli.com. Gaslighting might have originated from here