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

[ajnapoleon]

Yes teaming up and superteams have ruined rivalries

Yeah stay on badly run teams

Keep signing contract after contract to a team that knows you won’t leave


Be Mitch Richmond or D. Wilkins

It’s best for the game

 

[Loose]

Yeah stay on badly run teams

Keep signing contract after contract to a team that knows you won’t leave


Be Mitch Richmond or D. Wilkins

It’s best for the game

How many badly ran teams in the nba? Just cause you aint winning doesn't mean a team is "badly ran".

 

[jaydawg08]

How many badly ran teams in the nba? Just cause you aint winning doesn't mean a team is "badly ran".

Like 80% of the teams are badly run. Theres a reason it’s the same type of teams making deep playoff runs

 

[Mantis Toboggan M.D.]

? nikka was on phone crying in the car begging one of his rivals to join him tf lol

Why don’t they recruit Durant? He was a top 3 player in the league and they had the cap space to sign him. The alternative was pay more money keep Harrison Barnes after he went 5-32 over the last 3 games of the finals . Rival? They met once in the postseason and the warriors beat the thunder too.

 

[ajnapoleon]

Like 80% of the teams are badly run. Theres a reason it’s the same type of teams making deep playoff runs

Thank you

Spurs
Heat
Mavericks are run well with owners that want to win

But you have a lot of teams that just want to make money and don’t care what’s on the floor


No one wants to sit on those teams for your career

Mitch Richmond sat on the kings for years until he got old

Jordan said Richmond was the only one he was worried about

 

[Illuminatos]

The ratings are down because everyone is streaming games and not watching them through traditional cable and legit streaming sites

Mannnn, I’m a Knick fan living in NY and I have to use an illegal stream to watch non nationally televised games.
Knicks games are blacked out on League Pass and I have YTTV instead of cable so I don’t have MSG network. My only legal option is to pay $30 for the MSG streaming service which I’m definitely not doing.

 

[GilSho]

At the end of the day people are just flat out haters. There are no real rivalries or stars that transcend the sport in the NFL either yet people still tune in to watch. People were happy to move on from Brady/Rodgers and accept the next generation of Mahomes/Lamar/Allen/Burrow while cats are still obsessed with the 90s and discussing LeBron's legacy.

I think Kevin Durant summed it up nicely, the general audience has never actually liked the NBA hence why the ratings constantly fluctuate. They just like the drama and gossip around it and discourse has essentially devolved into some Stan war shyt since the MJ era.

 

[ISO]

Most them players didn’t hate each other. Jordan was gambling buddies with a lot of his opps.

Gary Payton asked that man for his sneakers after a god damn NBA Finals game—fanned out.

The media knew how to play shyt up in highlight montages and through presentation and shyt got dramatized and hyperbolized through shyt like 30 for 30’s.

 

[Jeshaman]

This might only be me, but some of these guys straight up don’t seem to respect the League and if they don’t care why should I? Guys like Ja and Zion, even Joker who treats it like some part time gig slash chore. There’s no player in soccer I know that says, it’s easier to score in a league he is currently playing in than the any other, yet Freak and Luka said it so casually.

 

[Marlow Stanfield]

Facts.

Ratings aren't the issue but presentation is. NFL carefully curates EVERYTHING you see and hear on game day.

NBA should market stars but they can't rely on the old MJ/Bron/Magic & Bird model. There are no young stars that transcend the game to THAT degree.....but with the right marketing and narrative....you might get fans to buy in more.

Social media doesn't help as it takes a lot of the mystique away. The greats don't feel like untouchable giants. Just tall azz nikkas, Euro nikkas and African nikkas that can ball.

Agreed.

I think with the high parity in the league now, they should adopt the "Any Given Sunday" approach to marketing and promotion. On any given night, any team can win and any team can lose. Especially in a time where 25 point leads ain't shyt.

 

[010101]

old nikkas still kicking it to this day

kissing & making up crying on tv HA

but still talking about how they hated each other & that's the true spirit of competition

*

 

[Loose]

Why don’t they recruit Durant? He was a top 3 player in the league and they had the cap space to sign him. The alternative was pay more money keep Harrison Barnes after he went 5-32 over the last 3 games of the finals . Rival? They met once in the postseason and the warriors beat the thunder too.

So you agree draymond does not have the spirit of older player and begged his competition/rival to team up just like lebron

 

[Gil Scott-Heroin]

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

We had a Draymond during the Golden age of the NBA.......Bill Laimbeer. Everybody still hates that Man to this day. NBA fans never liked Dirty shyt. Just fight hard and compete. We liked Rick Mahorn and Dennis Rodman, but never liked Laimbeer for being a Dirty bytch.

Except Laimbeer is used as the face of a time when the perception of the NBA was real men, who were tough and who were centered around rivalry/conflict. He was hated because folks bought into the storyline of him being a villian. Where if you're admitting Dray is today's equivalent of him, it doesn't make sense that you hate him for the same reasons that you say are missing from today's game.

Y'all hate Dray because you don't want to see those actions in the game, but then you turn around and call today's players soft and too friendly, that today's players aren't physical enough and that players don't show any competitive spitit to win by any means necessary.

You're contradicting yourselves and you don't even know it.

Rodman did the same shyt Dray is doing today -

If Dray existed in the 80s/90s, y'all would have an entirely different perception of him.

If the bar is for players to "fight hard and compete" nobody would be complaining about today's players/game, but yet here we are.

 

[Gil Scott-Heroin]

Teams also had playing styles in the past.

Whether it was fast breaking, or plodding, or whatever.

Now all the styles seem to be the same. Spamming 3s

Yep. Teams had “personalities” that you identified them with

Teams have different styles and personalities today too -

There are a variety of different offenses in the league, despite naysayers saying every team plays the same:

- Memphis has a shape-shifting, ultra high-paced offense, endlessly moving without the ball, relocating like an ant colony
- Denver has an omnipotent big, who operates from the top, high/mid and low posts, orchestrating the offense
- Sacramento has designed their offense around a lot of handoff actions, particularly in the midrange (#1 in attempts)
- GS moves the ball endlessly, screening for one another until they can turn a good shot opportunity into a great one
- Dallas tortures teams in ISO over and over until they tap out
- Toronto constantly puts pressure on the rim, cutting and diving downhill
- Milwaukee is utilizing Giannis at the elbows, allowing him to drag help defenders towards the rim (he's 4th in midrange attempts)
- Cleveland is utilizing Mobley as a PnR ball-handler and creator, creating mismatches on every other possession.

If only folks would start watching games of other teams (other than the ones they support), they'd see how diverse offenses are across the league.

One could argue that teams in the past all seemed to play the same spamming ISOs or spamming post-ups. One could argue that when traditonal roles for positions existed (PG primarily just passed the ball; bigs stayed within proximity of the paint) that meant they all played the same too.

 

[Bryan Danielson]

Maybe….. but outside of fighting sports.

Hate is pointless in sports if cats are not gonna squabble or the respective leagues will look down on fights and heavily punish it on some “this isn’t part of our game” shyt cuz they trynna market to kids and white folks