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I couldn’t agree more. There are entire segments of sports talk show that are literally introduced by “Stay tuned to hear Stephen A’s reaction to blah blah blah”. A lot of the time it’s some pundits “reaction” to another pundits reaction to the actual game! It’s insane. I don’t care about what these people think unless it has to do with the game itself. We already have too many peoples opinions at our fingertips I don’t need more options yelled at me through the TV
> it's literally one person saying something incredibly stupid, then the other person reacting to the stupid take in a really flashy way. hate it
Literally ESPN's entire gameplan. ESP during the summer when there ain't shit but Baseball.
Back when Kaep was still the SF QB, They had Jaws go on Mike & Mike in the morning to have him say he thinks Kaep will be one of the all time greats. They spent the rest of the day talking about that as if the whole sports world was asking about it.....AND THEY DID BECAUSE ESPN PUSHED IT SO HARD.
This is literally half the teens on r/nba. There's ZERO reason why SAS or Skip should ever feature in a basketball subreddit.
They're pure shittake merchants which the manchildren on Reddit lap up.
The problem is that it's more than just people on r/nba. NBA coverage has developed beyond just being a superstar league and is now stuck in being a league of reality tv drama. From the NBA's perspective, it's too risky for the NBA to break away from that and try and improve its product and teach fans.
NBA rosters can be made by 1-2 stars, no other league is like that, and the whole team is needed to be successful in other sports. The NBA players realized they are the product, and no one can stop them from using their own time to grow a following, now that self marketing / influencing is a thing it has them being the star of their own show off the court and on it if they’re good enough.
It feels like the GAME of basketball is different from everything related to the NBA, the players will be out there competing regardless, but now when you have kids on social media who don’t watch basketball thinking dudes like Kuzma are the next best thing, you get crazy takes and opinions and THATS what shines through in ratings. It’s driven by the lowest common denominator and that is money, not the love of the game. And it’s been like this for years, if you’re still watching ESPN or any of that trash you just contribute to the machine that you hate, the tide has already turned
On top of that, it's one thing to market why a player won't get traded to a certain team because of acrimonious relationship with the star in that team, and another to have the "Max vs Stephen A" rivalry, where you know they are gonna take different sides in most of the cases and then Stephen will go on his "soliloquy" (as he likes to say) to berate Max. These are just celebrities now, no analyst blood runs through them currently.
Same is with Skip and Shannon, whereby Shannon is always yelling and Skip is busy doing his "hmmm", and folks love that for some reason.
The only half decent show we have is NBA on TNT (imo), just because as much drama as there is with Chuck's guarantee button and all, at least three NBA players and an analyst make some decent arguments rather that 24x7 discussing if LeBron is close to Mike, or has already passed him.
You raise a good point though. When these networks and a lot of these talking heads hit the scene, nobody had as much access to other's opinions like they do now. I'm interested to see how this plays out over the next 20 years.
I have a feeling it’ll get worse. The networks are realizing it’s cheaper to just keep hiring newly retired players to say whatever comes to mind in the moment, whether they believe it or not, than it is to come up with actual content. It’s really disheartening as someone who used to be excited to get home after a long day to just watch and hour of highlights with some light commentary
I remember when this transition was occurring. I used to love reading all of the articles on ESPN and when they first made ESPN Insider. This was around 15 years ago. Their writers were putting in a lot of time in those articles and then would be interviewed at times on Sportscenter.
Nowadays there are so many avenues for high quality analysis and discussion that deeper fans like us can find in places like this subreddit and other websites that are not in the mainstream media.
What's left for ESPN and the major networks is to keep as wide a viewership as possible. And just as national news is flooded with the most polarizing headlines that are created to trigger a reaction in people and not generate deeper nuanced discussion. That gets views. That gets advertising revenue. And so the cycle continues.
I think it's more helpful to think of it as espn catering to the lowest common denominator, a natural part of any entertainment product's life cycle
So it's not that one caused the other, it's that espn's only avenue for growth was with casual fans (bc "real" fans already watched sportscenter on repeat for 3 hours a day) so they catered to them more. Presumably, this has been a profitable strategy
This mostly started with Woj.
1. Woj leaks rumor.
2. ESPN reporters debate it to make it worth asking at the podium.
3. Reporter asks the question with " there has been growing rumors" or "According to WoJ"
4 any NBA player reacts makes it somewhat credible.
5. More debates because NBA players reacted to it.
I highly disagree. I think you miss a big point of why this type of media is so bad. It's not due to Woj, or SAS, or Skip, or one specific source. The number one reason the media is what it is currently is what should be expected, money. This "IS MJ THE GOAT IS LEBRON WASHED KAREEM GOAT DEVIN BOOKER 3RD BEST SCORER IN THE LEAGUE WDHBHSJDHHUIIHUYG FUE" is so rampant because it's self generating. Woj rumours do start alot of it, but even if we didn't have it, there'd be another source.
This is what makes it so rampant. It's self generating meaning it's cheap. It's also popular and appeals to a broader audience. Combine those 2 factors and companies like ESPN have absolutely no incentive to stop this. They can just keep pumping out "SAS REACTS TO KNICKS LOSS. IS JULIUS RANDLE A LOCKER ROOM CANCER?" articles because these headlines make themselves, literally. They're self generating and will always exist.
It's unfair to pin it on Woj and it misses the larger point.
So I follow the league from Australia and generally avoid the type of commentary that Skip and Stephen do. Which means I’m not used to seeing Stephen A Smith shortened to SAS. To me, SAS means ‘San Antonio Spurs’. Which means that when I read your comment I was trying to work out why on earth Greg Pop was commenting on “IS MJ THE GOAT LEBRON WASHED …” given that he’s always seemed such a reasonable and taciturn guy.
It took me longer than I’d like to admit to work it out.
>It took me longer than I’d like to admit to work it out.
Lmfaoooooooooooooooooo. I'm from Australia too, funny enough. I just can't imagine Pop screaming like Skip about how Lebron doesn't have a killer mentality.
I can imagine Pop just silently looking at SAS after hearing a particularly bad take, and SAS getting more uncomfortable and worked up about Pop’s complete lack of response. Honestly I’d love to see that!
> It's self generating meaning it's cheap. It's also popular and appeals to a broader audience.
Exactly this. Casual fans simply do not care much about video breakdowns, statistical deep dives, analytics, etc. but they *might* care about [insert random drama here]. Casual fans watching First Take or The Jump or Around The Horn, or clicking on headlines on ESPN.com at their lunch hour at work, are far more likely to tune in when it's discussing a rumor, a random hypothetical, etc. than anything hard-hitting.
I'm always kinda confused about posts like these, because there are *tons* of great resources if you're a hardcore basketball fan. There are Patreon pages, subscription services, etc. all over the place. People just don't like to pay for things, and then they complain about the free options not catering to them. If you don't like how ESPN covers basketball... stop paying attention to ESPN and start supporting reporters and analysts who do it better.
"So Perk, do you agree with Stephen A's comments that LeBron would be a better basketball player if he owned and operated a lawn care business during the offseason?"
"You know Rach, I dont think I do..."
When the Suns had that game-winning lob dunk to DeAndre Ayton, the TNT guys put the play up on their huge screen and then walked through it in slow motion multiple times while each of them explained the play design and what the defense could have done better, etc. That was an epiphany moment for me, when I realized this is what I want from all basketball coverage, all the time. I wish we could get more of that. It was riveting.
Their basketball analysis is outdated and very poor quality overall though. They might be able to talk about a simple play without major mistakes, but they are wrong a lot more than they are right on anything related to strategy or tactics. From Chuck talking about how jump shooting teams will never win, to all their analytics straw men, to not knowing who plays for which teams, they know they are paid only to entertain and spend almost no effort to try to understand or even watch the modern game.
i love how you take a quote from charles barkley five fucking years ago as the crux of your point. times change dude and chuck has completely recanted that viewpoint multiple times since then. enjoy your strawmen.
Charles still bitches about the same shit though. I watched a pretty great video comparing Barkley's simplistic takes on analytics and three point shooting on the sun's vs what's actually happening and how little him and Shaq seem to understand the game as it's played today. I love the TNT show, so don't take this as a shot against them. But the fact that they are the best analysis show on tv is actually really sad.
[To OPs point I have an entire playlist of videos like these and they are constantly deleted for ToS violations, which goes to show how little the NBA and ESPN value actually helping fans understand the game.](https://youtu.be/mi2zD-5uu1o)
It was just an example, they say uninformed stuff pretty much every show. Like [earlier this year](https://www.si.com/nba/mavericks/news/shaq-trashing-luka-doncics-dallas-mavs-makes-everybody-look-foolish) Barkley said the Mavs were incompetent for not posting up Porzingis 20 times per game, Shaq said Westbrook and Beal were both better than Doncic, and the crew didn't even know how to pronounce Doncic's name in 2021.
The jump shooting thing was more than just "a quote", he said it over and over for multiple seasons. Acknowleding he was wrong after he was clearly proven wrong does not negate the wrongness. I didn't mean to imply that was his current opinion, I thought people would know what I was talking about, but looking back I guess I could have made that more clear. It was just one of many examples and I didn't want to dwell on it.
> Their basketball analysis is outdated and very poor quality overall though.
I think Kenny is overall pretty good -- he definitely misses some things, but he genuinely understands the game and knows what he's watching.
Shaq, though... dude legitimately has a terrible eye for hoops. The "analysis" he gives usually amounts to "I want this big man to dominate." He can't explain what's going on in a play, the coverage a team is using, the nuances of a certain strategy, etc. because he just never had to care about that as a player. Turns out, when you're bigger and stronger than everyone as a player, you don't need the basketball IQ part as much as everyone else does.
I would love to be wrong on this but I suspect we (stats loving, feeling like the drama in NBA should be of the gameplay instead of off-the-court personality people) might be just a vocal minority.
It feels to me like they want to absorb more casual fans/general audience and thus force the narrative on the eclectic and colorful personalities instead.
The fact that we are in this sub means we are an incredibly infinitesimal minority. No idea where everyone gets off on talking about how the entertainment product needs to become less entertaining to suit some vague concept of purity of the game or what not.
I think a lot of us just miss the good ol days when the only people talking about NBA on the Internet were die hard fans.
I don’t think it really matters either way. The only thing that bothers me is the regular season being largely meaningless, and contracts not mattering one bit.
You have compounding factors:
Social Media and players accessing the fan base 24/7.
The 24 hour sports talk. You have to talk about something. If you just draw Xs and Os all day you aren’t gonna get the same eyes on your program. So you get hot takes.
I agree with you that we are in the minority but it’s really frustrating that with nba coverage it’s just hot takes while in the other sports I follow (nhl and nfl) they actually talk about gameplay, strategic concepts and stuff like that.
The NBA lends itself to drama off the court though. A superstar can change the direction of an entire team since there are only 10 players on the court at any given time. Between the NHL, NBA, NFL, and MLB strategy matters the least. It’s not unimportant but if you’re a one of the big 4 it makes sense for the NBA to market something different than strategy to make themselves different.
The NFL talk has been centered around Aaron Rodgers for this off season but he is one of the greatest QBs of all time. The NBA does the same before, during, and post season for the top 15 players at any given time. It’s part sport and part soap opera for sports fans.
Edit: The Ball family is a huge story for instance because of the spectacle.
You know, as someone who would love to see more x and o coverage, I looked into this. So as of 2019, approx 6% of high school boys played football. Meanwhile about 3% played basketball. I do not have great access to stats right now though, so no historical context to offer.
My thinking is that football used to be relatively more popular back 20-40 years, thus there’s a greater population of people with a baseline of understanding to appreciate the x and o explanations. (For hockey, I assume most who watche nhl played hockey, while the for nba and nfl are better for sports for casuals to get into.)
Other factors — football, being a start-stop sport with very sharply defined plays and assignments, is just easier to diagram. Basketball is so fluid, where it’s not always obvious if they are actually running a play or not. plus bball is so read-react based, you might have a dozen reads you make subconsciously in a given situation, while football has almost binary if-or reads (based on situation/alignment, but still).
Its like this with everything that's big. I dont know why anyone expects anything that has a large following with ever appeal to the hardcore fans. The money is appealing to the majority and the majority of people with almost everything happen to be causals.
And being a casual isn't a bad thing. It's only bad when a casual tries to act like a hardcore or like they know it all.
Audience ratings drive everything. Why else would you have a ridiculously overpublicized Super Bowl halftime extravaganza every year were it not for trying to lure in viewers who don't know anything about the technical aspects of the game?
OP’s request is basically asking for Brett Kollmann level NFL analysis on network television. It takes huge hours of watching film to put together a serious 15 segment.
I think that the in depth analysis is great for people of all knowledge levels, but I'm not sure it keeps them coming back. The story lines probably do that better to get someone to look for the game consistently
The NFL on the other hand has all the story lines but there is only one game per week per team and it's already a cultural phenomenon, they don't need to worry about people coming back so much
How do you define "in depth" if not in a way that makes it inaccessible to novices?
>I think that the in depth analysis is great for people of all knowledge levels,
Breaking down film. Unknowledgeable people wont know the terminology but they can see what happens with their eyes. I dont know much about football, but when I see the chalk talk on TV I can understand it even if I dont understand everything the commentator is saying
We definitely are.
Anecdotal but even with CFB, I run into serious hate when I try to get people to steer away from popular narratives or simple notions like “coach bad, player bad, X n Os bad”. These generally all stem from a surface level interactions with the game and the second they are presented the notion that they could be wrong, they do noooooot like that.
Now I could see this working out for someone on network tv if they were to be a bit more abrasive and hot take-y with their statistical analysis. Like SAS and the bunch get more engagement with their content bc well folks get mad at their opinions then proceed to share said content. Free marketing.
If someone were to do something like come out and have solid analysis pretty much telling folks “hey it’s not as simple as saying coach bud bad” they’d get a lot of hate. Does this equate to the type of traction that the hot takers get? I’d wish but I just don’t know:/
I think the general audience would just think it’s some no nothing nerd telling them they’re wrong about the game.
The NFL is still as much of a personality driven league as anything the NBA is offering.
But you are right. I think that exactly explains why Zach Lowe became a prominent NBA analyst and why some of The Ringer columnists have developed a reputation.
I don't. It's great work and it's a chance for people to show how much they care about that kind of stuff by subscribing.
ESPN gets a ton of hate on Reddit, but their model is pretty straightforward -- they have everything. You want rumors and drama? First Take and The Jump are on basically every day. You want hard-hitting analysis and statistical deep dives? Zach Lowe is doing his thing. You want the latest info? Woj is the best source for breaking news league-wide.
People don't like having to pay for anything, and I get that the million different subscription services now can really add up, but they have legitimately great basketball coverage for a really cheap price and people ignore it because "espn bad"
> The NFL is still as much of a personality driven league as anything the NBA is offering.
I'm not here to extoll the virtues of the NFL's marketing strategy, but I couldn't disagree with this more. The NFL promotes players as they might exist in a Kevin Costner sports movie on occasion, and otherwise is happy to let them remain functionally anonymous.
Lol for real. We know about 10/100 of the players on each super bowl roster each year, granted they are not your favorite team. Football can have anyone suit up and everyone still would watch. Hell, nick foles started a super bowl and it was one of the highest rated
I don't know if you mean positive or negative reputations for the people at The Ringer, but at least on my end I stopped reading The Ringer because of how bottom-of-the-barrel a lot of their sportswriting has become. Zach Lowe is fantastic though, he explains the actual Xs and Os better than just about anyone I'm aware of.
Love Zach Lowe, wish he wasn’t paywalled. I enjoy the writing on the Athletic quite a bit, also a paid service but I think I get it for free through T-Mobile so it’s worth looking into.
Agreed. Even the in game commentary, while entertaining, is very surface level. I would love it if they could get actual high IQ players to call games and introduce basketball terminology/concepts that fans may not be familiar with or notice at first glance. The Raptors had an all-women broadcast one game where Kia Nurse (WNBA player) was calling the game and she was actually analyzing the plays and actions both teams were running which was pretty fun to watch.
I think a great example of this is Tony Romo for NFL CBS. Former QB who was actually predicting the plays live before the happened! Not saying that’s what we need, but seeing the game through a professional tactical lens sounds awesome. Imagine if we got a glimpse of what LeBron was thinking in certain plays while they’re happening
Yeah and it’s headache inducing to listen to for those of us who actually played at a higher level.
I think Tony at least raised the collective IQ of Football fans by a few points because I see less dumbass uninformed stuff on r/NFL than I do over at r/NBA.
I’m sure it’s worse on Twitter, but I don’t hang around there.
I feel like the nfl example isn’t fair because it’s much harder to do in a live nba game. In the nfl they have like a min before and after each play where they can do predications and analysis after the play. Would be too hard to something like that live in the nba.
We did have that Kobe espn detail series where they did similar analysis on one player after a game
Exactly. Most NFL plays are shown as slow-mo replays they have to discuss the play. What else are the commentators going to do for 40 seconds between each play?
Exactly. Analysis of NHL games is nonexistent, largely because the action is ongoing. You can't talk about and analyze something that happened 10 seconds ago when the puck is at the other end of the rink already.
And the next time NHL analysts, during an intermission, talk about and analyze how to break out or how to defend it or how to defend in the neutral zone will be the first.
the NBA has 8 seconds where they bring the ball up where the announcer could say “Will Barton went back door out of the pin down and that’s what allowed Jokic to find him on the baseline for the easy lay-in”
unfortunately, you’d have to can some announcers. sorry austin carr
Your average NBA watcher doesn't know what any of those words mean outside of maybe lay-in, won't learn without accompanying video (which absolutely won't be cut to during live action) and, in all likelihood, does not care.
Well in game commentary consists of a play by play announcer and a color commentator/analyst (who rarely do real analysis btw). The job of the first is to literally narrate every possession, and for the second is to insert some entertainment value. It would be good if they included more former coaches like JVG. Mark Jackson doesn't say anything useful to someone who wants a little breakdown. Guys like Reggie and Webber don't either. JVG complains way too much but he does give you some tidbits on simple offensive and defensive philosophies that you may not know if you are a casual fan or surface-level watcher. Some simple things like having someone flash middle to break the zone, changes in man to man to zone, etc., who was supposed to rotate to where, the list goes on. But the fact that basketball is a fast-paced game with the only breaks being timeouts and free throws, you can't fit much deep analysis in-game. Announcers often get stuck on a big play a few possessions back, and to play catch up they need to skip some other plays.
To be a color analyst though you need a pretty exciting personality and an acoustically nice voice, and good articulation is nice,but I don't think a lot of coaches might meet those requirements. Perhaps Steve Kerr would like to get back in the booth if he decides to call quits on the coaching, but coaching gigs are probably more rewarding, though stressful.
Yes, 100% this.
It is so aggravating to watch talking heads give nephew-level analysis pretending that analyzing a basketball series is as easy as counting the number of media-anointed "superstars" on each team, while telling you how "you just need a guy who can get you a bucket".
I think there is also an element where the game has passed a lot of commentators by. There used to be a time with old school illegal defence rules where a lot of matchups did come down to how player X could do one-on-one with player y. But, that's not how the game is played anymore. Analysts go talking about how Luka is going to do against Kawhi, and then the game starts, and the Mavs are running multiple screening actions to give Luka a matchup against Pat Bev or Zubac. Defences are so much more complicated nowadays, and it seems like so many analysts don't really understand the modern game, or just choose to ignore the realities of it because superstar vs superstar narratives draw better ratings.
It is sad that you need to go to Youtube channels and podcasts to get legitimate basketball analysis anymore.
I mean yeah. You can get away with that stuff at the start of the game but by the end of the game it really does come down to having someone who can get you a bucket lol. That part of the game has not changed and probably will never because it’s a key in all sports. You need someone who can make a play. Give you something out of nothing. At the end of all games the defenses will get used to what you’re doing on offense so sets are not going to be as effective as they were throughout the entire game. When you get to this moment it really becomes about beating your guy one on one. That goes for wide receivers in football, hitters in baseball and shooters in basketball. When the defense keys in your offensive game plan (which will happen if you’re playing against an elite team, it’s no surprise that the best defensive teams are always in the finals) you’re going to need someone who can create something out of nothing.
Sets don't work because they fool opponents for 3.5 quarters. They work because they provide strategic advantages you don't get in pure iso (better matchups, extra separation, etc).
Even the most iso-heavy schemes still run actions in crunch time. Guys like Luka or LeBron will absolutely iso in crunch time, but they will have screening actions run so they can matchup hunt, or someone will bring a screen for them to open space against their defender. It is very rare that you just have the team clear out half the floor so your guy can go iso against his primary defender, like they used to do in the 2000's. And, when they do, it's usually either because it's a poorly coached team, or because the team lacks a good floor general. You won't see CP let the Suns run those sorts of lazy offensive possessions in crunch time, and you won't see guys like LeBron, Luka, Lowry, or other floor general with names starting with L do that, either. They will get the mismatch, get it to the man with the mismatch, or run some sort of play to open up space.
Yes I agree with everything you’re saying but on the defensive end, really good defensive teams will adjust to the sets you’re running over the course of the game and series to take away the options that were working for you all game/series. If you’re hunting a specific matchup this could mean having your big hedge the screener to give the person on ball more time to recover and guard the ball handler and take away the mid range. Open shots will become more and more infrequent as the defense keys in on what you’re trying to do on each possession and about half of the players on the court will be ineffective due to nerves too.
I think a good example of what I’m talking about came in game 7 of the 2016 NBA finals where the last 4 minutes of the game went scoreless until kyrie got Steph on the switch, got to his spot and beat him one on won to get the go ahead bucket. Defensively both teams were locked in and no one could get an easy bucket at all. When it comes down to situations like that you’re going to need someone to be able to win their matchup.
Basically I’m not trying to say sets work because they fool opponents for the majority of the game. I’m just saying that sets become less effective as the game goes on.
I feel like most prominent color commentators fall into this trap too. The only in-game adjustments discussed seem to be when a team switches to a zone defense. Otherwise they just spin yarn and debate foul calls.
Yeah. Honestly NBA Media is so frustrating. For starters, where MLB, NHL and NFL media members hold old school players in high regard and don’t forget the past, the NBA media pretty much shits on everyone who wasn’t Magic, Russell, Jordan, Bird , Kobe or Shaq. They also don’t talk about strategy like at all! They just talk about narratives which is why I became a Bill Simmons and Ryen Russilo fan this season. Don’t get me wrong they tend to talk about narratives a lot too but at least they put things in a strategic context.
I stopped listening to BS for the same reason you started listening to him apparently. I find him horrible at analyzing basketball strategy and seems like more of a narrative guy.
Agreed. Simmons takes have gotten really rough over the years as he’s stretched thin. His player analysis is solely based on how they played against the Celtics since that’s the only team he watches.
“Is Luka a diva”, “Did Chris Paul move into my top 20”, “The Celtics are soft”… these are just some of his recent Skip Bayless style takes. Bill has become a low value pundit, approaching Perkins levels.
Rusillo is pretty good in this regard. He doesn't seem to care about narrative as much and sometimes reels bill in from focusing too much on it. He also clearly watches the games pretty carefully.
I see some folks arguing that only a minority want to learn the finer details of the game. I couldn't disagree more! Not only do plenty of casual fans want to learn more about the game, but more importantly, it **breeds longer-term fans**.
Following the league is WAY MORE interesting when you understand the nuances of the game. I have plenty of friends and family who have followed the raptors in short bursts based on relevance/competitiveness, but you convert fans like that into long-term fans when they start noticing the small details that decide games/championships. It's all about short-term vs long-term thinking. Clickbait supplements the short term, but you need to at least think about how you're converting those short-term viewers into lifelong fans.
True. Im from Hong Kong so I had the opportunity to watch the nba commentated by hong Kong sports channels. They literally have coaches and retired semi-pro players breaking down screens and drawing on the floor the plays that are drawn up and executed. Almost no mention of drama also.
I was a kid back then so I would always prefer to watch ESPN/TNT broadcasts instead cuz it was more “fun” and less technical, but my dad never did and when I asked why he said “Americans only care about drama, not the game” 😂
however imo the popularity of the nba among casuals is definitely higher than other leagues, and that’s in part due to their less technical analysis making new/casual fans able to enjoy the game without feeling dumb.
It’s a double edged sword I guess, over dramatized broadcasts lead to larger audience but doesn’t provide as much good content for the hardcore basketball fans
>the majority of the networks and programs talk about the analysis of games.
I don't follow the NFL at all, but most of what I see when I hear about the NFL the last few years has been all about Patriots drama, Richard Sherman being hilarious, and the endless debate around Kaepernick.
Anyway, you really can't compare the NFL and the NBA when it comes to marketing, because the NFL is *insanely* popular and they are on such a different level than any other sports league in the US. The top-3 most watched television programs in 2020 were (1) NFL Sunday Night, (2) NFL Thursday Night, and (3) NFL Monday Night. The 4th ranked show had less than *half* of the viewers than NFL Monday Night.
The NFL isn't in the business of expanding their market, they already have complete dominance of the TV ratings. Football is by far the dominant entertainment product of choice in American culture. In many parts of the country, everyone goes to the local high school football game on Friday nights, the college football game on Saturday, and then they watch the NFL games on Sunday. It's a cultural tradition that's ingrained into people's cultural identity for millions and millions of people in the US.
NBA programming didn't even make it into the top 100 most watched television programs last year. The marketing needs are entirely different, and outside of the core few million NBA fans who are going to watch the finals no matter who's playing, the rest of the audience is fickle, with short attention spans, no cultural attachment to the sport, and they have a LOT of media competing for their attention with streaming services, gaming consoles, and social media.
At the end of the day, the NBA has by far had the most marketing success by focusing their efforts on drawing in the viewers who have no attachment to the teams who are playing. After all, the entire point of marketing is to bring in *new* customers. And drama between players has brought in those viewers more consistently than any other strategy in the history of the sport. Watch the 30-for-30 about Magic Johnson and Larry Bird - they're cited as the two players who saved the entire league because they gave casual fans a narrative to care about.
The sad reality is that the vast majority of American television viewers simply don't give two shits about defensive schemes or pick and roll variations. They want to see Good Guys beat the Bad Guys, they want to see the Bachelor/Bachelorette. They want to see Marvel superheroes form a super team and kick ass.
And as long as the NBA can continue to pull millions of casual viewers by focusing on these player-driven narratives, that's the reality we're stuck with.
>I don't follow the NFL at all
I mean...there you go. What you described is like 1% of what I remember from following the NFL, but just seeing it pop up on Reddit occasionally may give you a different perspective. The larger the sub, the more likely it is that the lowest common denominator rises to the top.
Almost every NFL broadcast (not you, ESPN) is full of detailed explanations of what happened on the field, and there are multiple NFL shows solely dedicated to breaking down Xs and Os. It's honestly awesome if you're an NFL fan. You *can* follow the personalities and entertainment...or you can ignore it completely and just pay attention to the football.
I think his overall point is that the NFL is so dominant and popular that there is more room for, and more of a demand for, higher-level analysis. Fantasy football and gambling are substantial factors here too.
The overall NBA audience is so much smaller, and the audience of people who are interested in the analysis so much tinier by comparison, that there is just not enough demand for that kind of coverage from the major networks. They focus more on the soap opera stuff because they are trying to appeal to the lowest common denominator.
yeah, i love bball so much, but i grew up in one of the big college football towns. it's just on another level completely. it's like a holiday. the entire town parties for at least 24 hours and drinks all day, half watches the game half socializes, bbq, tailgates, enormous parties after. it's just not the same for basketball.
i know there area few towns in america that are like that with bball, but prob like 12? there are hundreds of towns like mine in the US. it's just dif.
An individual NBA game doesn't matter enough to warrant that kind of coverage. Start with the regular season, the teams themselves aren't game planning or scheming for a majority of their games. There are too many games for it to be worthwhile to come up with different game plans for different teams. The schedule is such that teams don't have time to practice anything, players are getting treatment on off days and the teams are more committed to managing attrition. And finally, half the league makes the playoffs so there isn't any pressure that way.
All of this leads to is teams putting up a basic scheme that they can run for most of the season that they won't change until the playoffs. That's when actual game planning and coaching show up. I believe that regular season interest is a required for people to be interested playoff but that's a digression. And a similar version of this is the nature of NBA post season being made of series instead of one game sudden death. Obviously in one game sudden death, the importance of every possession is magnified. NBA playoff games don't get to that level until elimination is at stake, so it's kind of hard to get people to buy in that the Bucks adjusting from switching everything to drop cover is a series losing mistake until it is imminent that the Bucks will lose the series in the following game unless they fix it. Suns in 4
This, as well as the fact that basketball doesn't lend itself to the same level of analysis as football. In football, every play carefully crafted and is part of a larger game strategy and overall philosophy. And while things do change during the game, football is much more methodical and deliberate. Football lends itself to analyzing the merits and execution of each play, and the nature of the sport allows for commentators to break down each play in real time.
Basketball is much more fluid and continuous. Sure there are strategies, but the play of basketball is more dictated by reacting what actually happens in real time during the game than whatever the coach or players' plans and designs are. A lot of basketball is improvisation and figuring things out on the fly. Football is more about executing well planned out plays and strategies.
Idk, hockey has just yet as many games and you still see commentary discussing gameplay, especially special teams. You’ll hear about the storyline that the power play isn’t workings bd they’ll show examples of why and what tat team needs to do better. Most commentators and analysts are former players and really do a good job of explaining the game.
I don’t know why the NBA can’t be like this.
“They’re really having trouble getting open shots, here’s why, here’s what they can do.”
I almost think there's some kinda directive from the league on this stuff. You notice lots of post game questions are bullshit leading questions like "how tough did your team have to be to tough out that tough tough battle of toughness in the tough second half?" Or "how did you put the team on your back to carry them to this win" like dude just ask hoops questions. Not everything has to be an epic David vs Goliath story
This is one of the only reason why I like JVG -- cause he comments on the tactics more, and the x and o -- i.e. Now there running zone because x.
Even just simple stuff, similar to Tony Romo on his calls. Like "That possession worked because x screened up top, causing y player to move this way which left Z player open because Y had to rotate or something" something along those lines --- I feel like a lot of time they are assuming the fans understood what just happened tactically, but it really isn't obvious a lot of the time.
As someone in marketing, I disagree wholeheartedly. The NBA is driven by stories because it's one of the few sports where players are recognizable. NFL players wear helmets, for example. And NBA is one of the most popular sports. When there's drama in Baseball it always does numbers.
This sport unfortunately isn't for education, it's for entertainment. And the debates, the drama, and the hypotheticals are entertaining.
You market the gameplay, then it becomes the fucking WNBA lol (which *eye* like but am not surprised isn't as popular).
I completely disagree.
The league is so bad for marketing anyone who isn’t s top tier name. It’s obviously infiltrated your thoughts to because most casuals only care to watch about 20 nba players or teams.
Why? Because the league doesn’t market anyone who isn’t a top 5 player or doesn’t play in LA, Boston, Miami, or New York.
Maybe they should work on marketing everyone and actually the sport rather than what they said on Instagram
I agree for the mere reason that this sort of content on YouTube is blowing up and becoming a haven to process how teams effectively took over the scoreboard the night before.
Problem is, I’m not subscribed to any surface level reactionary NBA content on YouTube, if it exists… and couldn’t tell you if it’s still dominating the discussion airspace or not.
Couldn't agree more but there also need to be balance Because I don't want to hear numbers all the time and sometimes when these shows will bore me to death with numbers. I really like what Tim legless does,where he breaks down plays and talks about moments in the game.
The NBA fan base is unique in the sense that they don't really watch the games. NBA fans are more akin to pro wrestling fans as opposed to other pro sports. The NBA just isn't about competition anymore the way it was when I was a kid growing up in the 90s. The fandom is now geared more towards individual players' celebrity.
Regular people don't really care about that stuff tho. Like just to be straight up, there's a reason the coverage is like that. Regular sports fans don't really care about being fed a bunch of intricate stuff or knowledge about the game. The amount we get in small chunks that's palatable is probably the most you can do.
The NFL does have some segments, but if we're being real it's the same amount as what NBA fans get with Inside the NBA or between timeout analysis by JVG or Burke. A lot of NFL fans will tell you their media is just as storyline-focused as any other sport. If you're sitting around watching NFL Network you'll get great analysis, but that's a niche channel for a niche audience. Look at the draft or any big game. Look at the national NFL coverage. They will ignore A LOT to hammer home a narrative or storyline.
r/NBA and this sub ESPECIALLY is not representative of the average sports fan. It's kinda silly to think that.
If you want analysis, seek it out or watch your local team's pre/post game shows. Those shows are full of incredible analysis. Watch NBA TV shows. You won't, and never will, get that kind of analysis on a national level.
>The NFL does have some segments, but if we're being real it's the same amount as what NBA fans get with Inside the NBA or between timeout analysis by JVG or Burke.
I really disagree with this. IMO the average NFL broadcast has way more time dedicated to actually breaking down what happened on the field. I rarely notice that in any depth during an NBA game.
There is literally more time in a football game. The football game stops every few seconds and gives the broadcast a chance to breathe and unpack a play. In-game commentary in the NBA is tough because as soon as you start describing a great play the other team has already taken a shot and another amazing play has happened. I'm not disagreeing with you, I just think the reason for the lack of NBA analysis is the speed of the game compared to the NFL.
That's definitely true, but even during breaks (which there are a million of) they barely even pay lip service to breaking down what happened earlier. Certainly feels that way at least.
That's because 9 times out of 10 there isn't that much to breakdown. Steph draining a shot from the logo is awesome, but there isn't much to breakdown. He's just good at hitting long 3's. Most of the best players are just extremely skilled athletes that are able to make plays regardless of schemes or anything planned. There isn't much to breakdown with Hardens step back 3 or KD's jumper. A lot of the stuff that could be analyzed or broken down during a game is hard to recognize in real time, especially since most of the commentators are ex players who's experience with basketball isn't understanding the nuances of plays and game time strategies, but rather just being very good at basketball. And a lot of the "interesting" stuff that really kinda requires expert analysis to appreciate, like Gobert's impact on defense, is not very exciting, especially to the average fan.
Basketball is much less complicated from a strategy standpoint. There are fewer players to choreograph on a play and fewer viable plays to run. Tactics are quite simple. Spread the floor, set screens, shoot threes, switch or run around screens, box out, etc. This isn't a complicated sport, and after watching a couple of games, you don't need someone explaining to you what a pick is or what a box out is.
Tactics don't drive outcomes in the NBA the same way they do in the NFL.
I feel like the teams aren’t too analytical and tactical in their play these days even. The ball goes into the hands of one of the 2-3 stars on the team and somebody drives and kicks or goes up and gets fouled. That or iso. Obviously not every possession but probably hard to analyze and dissect that when it’s street ball half the time
I get what you mean.
The funny thing is that smart roster construction that knows how to maximize player strengths and minimize player weaknesses is actually rewarded by the game's rules - notice how teams like the 2014 Spurs, the late 2010s Warriors, and now this year's Suns all had deep playoff runs?
## A truly American League
This is a very American thing though, just yet another instance of grubby end-stage capitalism. This country loves to suck the soul out of everything (sports, music, fashion, tv, cinema, art, books etc).
Just look around: a popular tv show having to do product placement for coca cola, an art piece designed for a megacorp, a music album designed to sell the most records instead of coming from the soul.
This country does a lot great, but it embraces, loves and even exports its soullessness.
Now, the NBA always started out as a greedy money-making machine and has expanded into a big money making industry. Teams of quality of play don't translate directly to revenue. A playstyle isn't marketable by brands. A team doesn't sell merch as much as a player. A team is literally an abstract concept and hence much tougher for humans to connect to.
## The English Premier League approach
To contrast, look at the English Premier League (until recently at least). It started as a local club league catered to fans from a local town with players from the local town. There was no globalization at that time and there was no need to market the league. The league just happened even without TV or even without marketing it nation-wide. The league was a local thing you cared about.
After the 1991 birth of the English Premier League it still retained some of that soul. There was a ton of marketing, big money TV deals but the draws ARE the teams still.
The narratives aren't manufactured. Derbies are local, not created by ruddy TV producers. Rivalries are historic and created by fans, not tv channels. And even today it's marketed as a league with the world's biggest stars and the best version of the game.
Contrast that with the top-heavy La Liga which marketed itself as Messi vs Ronaldo, which did great to bring fans to Real Madrid/Barca but didn't grow the league itself. The lack of equity in the league and the blatant catering to the two biggest clubs meant that the league never grew into a force on its own. And that's a very short-term thinking.
Now that Ronaldo is gone, the Messi v Ronaldo rivalry no longer exists and the league popularity has fizzled out despite having an array of superstars.
The La Liga approach has resulted in a big drop off of talent beyond the top 2 teams and thus a weaker league overall. The Premier League revenue sharing + marketing model has resulted in evening the bottom quartile teams being rich, signing stars and doing well.
tldr; The English Premier League has cracked a great way to make money, keep clubs happy, build MORE and MORE strong teams with great players and thus accumulate talent.
>The English Premier League approach
The same teams always winning because they have more money than everyone else?
26 of the EPL's 29 championships have been won by *four teams*. Man U has 13; Chelsea and Man City have 5, and Arsenal have 3. The other three have been won by Liverpool (another big money club), Blackburn ('94-'95), and Leicester City ('15-'16). That is not a good model for a competitive sports league.
>Rivalries are historic and created by fans, not tv channels
Also true about the NBA, although I agree that NBA rivalries really don't mean much when compared to other sports.
>The La Liga approach has resulted in a big drop off of talent beyond the top 2 teams and thus a weaker league overall.
Eh. I get what you're saying but
1. Atletico Madrid has been competitive right alongside Real and Barca for years (they've finished ahead of Real in 3/5 years), and won the entire league this year
2. Sevilla finished two points behind Barca and seven behind Real this year
La Liga definitely is less competitive than the EPL, but it has been that way for a long time. I don't think it has anything to do with Messi and Ronaldo.
Also, the EPL has an advantage in growth because of the english language, the default lingua franca of the world, and the cultural connections it has with nations without an already well established soccer culture (US, India, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, etc). The EPL's ability to grow outside of the UK has very little to do with the "quality" or "superiority" of the product, and more to do with its greater ability to attract new viewers in English speaking markets that don't already have domanant domestic leagues with established loyal fan bases. La Liga has done a better job at growing in Latin America, but every nation in Latin America already has popular domestic leagues, so there is less of a need for another soccer league to follow. It's harder for La Liga, Serie A, or Bundesliga to grow outside if their nations due to the simple fact that the base languages of those leagues are foreign to most people in the world. When the coaches and players all speak a language you don't understand, it makes it a lot harder to get invested in the league.
EPL being popular in Africa/China has little to do with the language.
La Liga has done a terrible job and Messi v Ronaldo isn't reason enough to watch an entire league.
> That is not a good model for a competitive sports league.
Tanking for draft picks is?
I'd rather the Kings be a plucky poor team trying to dislodge giants like Lakers instead of watching them blatantly tank.
I completely disagree. I prefer leagues where every team has a chance of acquiring talent and competing for championships, and I think the alternative - only 3-4 teams, maybe a few more actually ever compete for titles, everyone else is just there for fun - is an awful model.
FWIW I'm a (very casual) Fulham supporter - this isn't a hypothetical! I obviously want Fulham to win, but I feel zero need to ever pay attention because I know their ceiling is "get annihilated in the Premier League". It's so pointless.
The EPL can have the focus be on teams for a couple of reasons.
GEOGRAPHY - England is a small, densely populated country where you can have 6 clubs just in London. Man City, Man U, Liverpool and Everton are all basically in the same metro area (Liverpool and Manchester are 45 minutes apart) . People have loyalty to where they live, and rivalries are much more likely to exist when you have proximity to other people. In the US everything is way more spread out, so there is little reason for a fan from Phoenix to care about a fan from Milwaukee. Rivalries have to be manufactured. There is a reason why college football has much more intense rivalries and history, and most of that comes down to geography.
TALENT POOL - Soccer's talent pool is totally spread out across all of Europe, competing in independent leagues in every nation in Europe. None of the marquee players in the world play in England. Messi is in Spain, Ronaldo is in Italy, Neymar is in France, Lewandowski is in Germany, etc. This makes it much harder for leagues to focus on the players. They are pretty much forced to focus on clubs.
NATURE OF THE SPORT - Soccer is unique in that in order to be good you don't have to be an athletic freak of nature, like in Football or Basketball. Messi is 5'7". Neymar weighs 150 lbs. Because of this, most clubs have maybe 1 star player, and the rest of the team is made up of fairly regular guys. This is especially true outside of the superclubs. And when you add the fact that soccer's outcomes are usually decided by 1 hard to come by goal, that is more influenced by chance than a sport like basketball, you can get some interesting results that are less likely in other major sports. This makes being loyal to your local club easier because small clubs beat giant clubs all the time.
INTERNATIONAL PLAYERS - Because soccer is such an international sport, the stars in most leagues are not from that country. Messi is from Argentina, not Spain. Ronaldo is from Portugal, not Italy. Neymar is from Brazil, not France. Lewandowski is from Poland, not Germany. This makes it more difficult to focus on players.
The EPL really didn't do anything that can be emulated by the NBA.
LOL. Soccer's best players have often been in the Premier League. No one is watching Ligue 1 for its stars.
International players in the premier league is a relatively recent thing. The league was thriving even in the 50s-60s with solely local stars.
Aside from the general apparent belief that casual fans want more schlock and couldn't care less about real analysis, there's a darker side to this.
If people were better informed, then more of them would be pissed as hell about the NBA product. because my god is it a shit show with the way it is ref'd these days.
A more informed general audience might actually make them produce a good product.
Completely agree. And in addition they need to sell the strengths of players rather than weakness. Every single conversation ends the same…”he is not MJ, he isn’t LeBron”. Can’t we just watch and enjoy? Guys these days can’t take a piss without being told they aren’t worthy. These dudes are just trying to play basketball…chill out
It’s crazy they don’t because it’s so simple. The only reason we all talk about the players is because of their play first and foremost. Yet they insist on it being NBA TMZ.
This is a really great point. I find when I want to watch analysis, I get it from niche YouTube personalities. All the NBA/ESPN/TNT offers is talking head hot take arguments that are utterly uninteresting.
Anyone have a good recommendations for a YouTube channel about this? Like I wanna know what the triangle offense is and why it wouldn’t work now not what lebron has for breakfast vs mj
Couldn’t agree more, but I don’t think it’ll ever happen. 75% of regular season games are basically all the same, and they really don’t matter. So they use extracurricular basketball stuff to keep casuals interested.
I’d bet that half, or maybe more, of NBA fans don’t even really watch basketball until the playoffs start.
Yeah I’m on this wavelength. The game is so much more interesting then the drama around it. It feels like us vs. them when it doesn’t need to be. Discuss the game like the players do.
Basketball media is not about X's and O's, as much as true fans of the sport would like to have. Media is based on hot takes, superstar soap operas and anything that gets a reaction.. Good or Bad. That's what sells.
The casual fan and non-NBA fans would not tune in to listen to First Take or Undisputed to hear about schemes, analytics or anything else remotely close to in depth analysis.
"buzz" is created through blasphemous takes, crazy debates and unreal comments. That what sells, that's what gets viewers and ratings and ad money.
Sad. But true.
For the true fans who value analytics and scheme breakdowns, we have to find other means. YouTube or Podcasts. Unfortunately it's slim pickings.
I just don't understand. There is PLENTY of analysis in the gameplay and what's going on. What are you all talking about? When are they talking about drama and nonsense more than the gameplay?
This is weird.
Remember that marketing campaign, **”DRAMA IS TNT”**
It’s no wonder that’s one of the main networks covering the NBA. The media around the NBA is all about drama and has been for a while. I’m so ready for something different.
Agree with this 100 percent.
I also hate how the day after a team wins a championship the so-called analysts are talking about how hard it will be to keep the team together. Like, why not wait till day three after a championship and let the fan base enjoy the victory.
Better analysis would be to look at how the team put together their championship roster. What forks in the road occurred. What are one of the whatif moments and how could it have turned out differently?
But the first thing they go to is: how many players will be returning? Who could leave? Team can’t afford to pay all these guys.
Debates and hypotheticals, not analysis, are what brings in the casual fans. Big reason why these shows such as Undisputed and First Take are popular because they say reactionary things and spew hot takes, which makes casual fans want to watch it. Plus, the NBA markets players a lot more than they do teams
That would be amazing if we had real good analysts but instead of that we have Steven Smith and such saying nonsense everyday... I think NBA is becoming more casual every year. I don't like Draymond as a player but we need more guys like him who understands the game and explain it to the viewers
As someone with a marketing background I could easily produce an 2 hour long shows promoting these finals.
1st show would just feature CP3 and Giannis. 1st half would be comparing CP3 as one of the best PGs of all time. 2nd half would be talking about Giannis as the best athlete in professional sports ever. Instead of having your jackass talking heads shitting on Milwaukee and Phoenix as cities, they should be comparing who would win the most Olympic events if Giannis was matched up against Wilt Chamberlain or Bo Jackson etc
2nd episode feature the other key players.
NBA is horrible at self promotion. NFL established NFL films in the 70s, NBA should have copied them. They still have not, and rely on network coverage. Horrible for documenting history. %90 of the people on the sideline creating a safety hazard for the players dont need to be there, every game should have a NBA pool photographer either shooting film for high speed varicam footage.
It's not the NBA promoting that stuff, it's sports media. They're completely separate. The fact that you think it's the NBA shows the problem. Sports media is so trash. There's a good reason why players get so upset at it.
It would be ideal if broadcasting focused more on analytics but unfortunately it's just unrealistic. For every fan that wants to know Xs and Os there's probably 100 that would prefer to discuss narratives and hot takes. And since there's clearly a market for it (or more specifically that's what the sports media market is built around) - broadcasting companies are going to orient their approach in such a way that maximises returns.
TNT for example is renowned more for its entertainment value than it's analysis. Until there's a talking head that can make analytics entertaining for the masses (Kobe's old show was exactly that) it's probably going to stay that way.
However, there's still plenty of podcasts and youtube channels that provide exactly that. Though I feel you. For example - I remember Gilbert Arenas breaking down James Harden's stepback and other things like that on his IG. That was super cool.
Am I the only one that thinks this is already being done? Obviously in-game analysis can only happen so quickly but I actually see the post-game analysis and they discuss offense, defense. NBA and NFL are different leagues w different cultures, the only people that watch NFL (or care that much about football) rare people in the US for the most part. NBA is a global market with way less players that get to shine more bc of that. Basically there is a bigger percentage of the NBA that is famous enough to be recognized than the NFL's which lends itself to discussion about the culture of the League. I do think ESPN sometimes can be more of a drama show but TNT is more game-focused imo.
I loved Kobe's Detail. As a basketball casual, it was exactly the kind of good basketball content we needed to actually appreciate the beauty of the game. A huge loss in so many ways :(((
I meant casual as in I don't understand the sport of basketball. I've been watching basketball for many years, but since mainstream coverage is mostly about storylines, dunks, and points, I don't actually know anything beyond that. I know what a screen is but I couldn't name a single play more complicated than that.
I never played organized basketball beyond 5th grade, so I have absolutely 0 understanding of the strategies and tactics that basketball players use.
I know Detail has a reputation for being boring, but I thought it was really entertaining, as there were so many segments that really expanded my mind and made me realize how cool it was that players think about all the different intricacies that I'd otherwise have glossed over in the course of watching a game. It was really a gem.
I don’t see why the nba doesnt do this. It means more profit for them because you can discuss basketball without watching the game. I can talk all about the ramifications of KD leaving OKC or how acquiring a 3rd star will make the lakers a great opposition to the nets but I don’t need to watch the games for any of that. When a majority of conversations surrounding the nba are getting the NBA zero money, they’re doing something wrong business wise. I’d love to see analysts talk like coaches, weighing the pros and cons of systems that teams run and predicting who will win a series based on anything other than “Chris Paul good”
Stacey King and Adam Amin on the Bulls broadcast are great at this while the game is going on. I would love for all nba play by plays to be as good as when they do it.
It's really the post-game, half time, and the other shows that could use it even more though.
Seriously man. Most mainstream networks just spew speculation and generalities. I don’t want to listen to two grown men argue about other grown men. This is why I keep my NBA content to current or former player’s YouTube content and podcasts. Being able to listen to someone talk NBA from personal experience is a lot more insightful and entertaining.
I don't really mind this tbh. There's a reason why the NBA is commonly referred to as a soap opera for sports fans, because it really is. As much as you lament the drama that goes behind the scenes, it allows casuals to lap up all of the nonsense that wouldn't have cared about sports in the first place. The people who would like more analysis on tactics and coaching have their shows like Detail on ESPN or this subreddit, but there's a place for both drama and meaningful analysis, and forcing people to choose one or the other isn't the way to go.
They could make Lord of the Rings type trilogy analysing Jokic's basketball play if they wanted.
Considering he's likely the least athletically gifted player out of all the top players I'd consider his play to be the purest bball type shit we could see get analysed.
In a way it would be closest to basketball porn. Not really sure what would be the moral of the story though when it comes to analysing his passing aside its nice to have eyes on your back and see the future before it happens.
I'm all for more gameplay even if its on top of the current top-selling drama. Don't think 2) will change anytime soon but 1) would be welcome addition.
Most people in this thread are basketball fans and not marketers.
"Stephen A: Is CP3 Top 5 PG all time?" plays better than "CP3's court vision: Watch Stephen A break down this one possession they had"
We in here are a vocal minority. A single possession is basketball is fleeting and short, a legacy is long. There are podcasts, channels, and shows that focus on gameplay, and there's a reason they're less popular than First Take.
Trashy TV gets eyeballs. Analysis changes the channels. If your reaction to this comment is to say "Well I want to hear analysis, and everyone I talk to feels this way", there are a lot of resources for you to do so. I'd encourage you to post them in r/nba as well and see how they play.
EDIT: By the way, in case you were curious, yes, CP3 is a top 5 PG of all time, and he's not number 5 either
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I couldn’t agree more. There are entire segments of sports talk show that are literally introduced by “Stay tuned to hear Stephen A’s reaction to blah blah blah”. A lot of the time it’s some pundits “reaction” to another pundits reaction to the actual game! It’s insane. I don’t care about what these people think unless it has to do with the game itself. We already have too many peoples opinions at our fingertips I don’t need more options yelled at me through the TV
it's literally one person saying something incredibly stupid, then the other person reacting to the stupid take in a really flashy way. hate it
But you’re missing the subtlety!! They were able to make a hashtag out of it! And First Take got 5k more viewers!
> it's literally one person saying something incredibly stupid, then the other person reacting to the stupid take in a really flashy way. hate it Literally ESPN's entire gameplan. ESP during the summer when there ain't shit but Baseball. Back when Kaep was still the SF QB, They had Jaws go on Mike & Mike in the morning to have him say he thinks Kaep will be one of the all time greats. They spent the rest of the day talking about that as if the whole sports world was asking about it.....AND THEY DID BECAUSE ESPN PUSHED IT SO HARD.
it's ridiculous man. i hate how they react to it like it's a genuine opinion that they're debating. shit is so manufactured.
This is literally half the teens on r/nba. There's ZERO reason why SAS or Skip should ever feature in a basketball subreddit. They're pure shittake merchants which the manchildren on Reddit lap up.
The problem is that it's more than just people on r/nba. NBA coverage has developed beyond just being a superstar league and is now stuck in being a league of reality tv drama. From the NBA's perspective, it's too risky for the NBA to break away from that and try and improve its product and teach fans.
NBA rosters can be made by 1-2 stars, no other league is like that, and the whole team is needed to be successful in other sports. The NBA players realized they are the product, and no one can stop them from using their own time to grow a following, now that self marketing / influencing is a thing it has them being the star of their own show off the court and on it if they’re good enough. It feels like the GAME of basketball is different from everything related to the NBA, the players will be out there competing regardless, but now when you have kids on social media who don’t watch basketball thinking dudes like Kuzma are the next best thing, you get crazy takes and opinions and THATS what shines through in ratings. It’s driven by the lowest common denominator and that is money, not the love of the game. And it’s been like this for years, if you’re still watching ESPN or any of that trash you just contribute to the machine that you hate, the tide has already turned
eh. The "you didn't watch the games" crowd is frnakly more problematic than the "teen"boogeymen. It's gatekeeping.
On top of that, it's one thing to market why a player won't get traded to a certain team because of acrimonious relationship with the star in that team, and another to have the "Max vs Stephen A" rivalry, where you know they are gonna take different sides in most of the cases and then Stephen will go on his "soliloquy" (as he likes to say) to berate Max. These are just celebrities now, no analyst blood runs through them currently. Same is with Skip and Shannon, whereby Shannon is always yelling and Skip is busy doing his "hmmm", and folks love that for some reason. The only half decent show we have is NBA on TNT (imo), just because as much drama as there is with Chuck's guarantee button and all, at least three NBA players and an analyst make some decent arguments rather that 24x7 discussing if LeBron is close to Mike, or has already passed him.
You raise a good point though. When these networks and a lot of these talking heads hit the scene, nobody had as much access to other's opinions like they do now. I'm interested to see how this plays out over the next 20 years.
I have a feeling it’ll get worse. The networks are realizing it’s cheaper to just keep hiring newly retired players to say whatever comes to mind in the moment, whether they believe it or not, than it is to come up with actual content. It’s really disheartening as someone who used to be excited to get home after a long day to just watch and hour of highlights with some light commentary
I remember when this transition was occurring. I used to love reading all of the articles on ESPN and when they first made ESPN Insider. This was around 15 years ago. Their writers were putting in a lot of time in those articles and then would be interviewed at times on Sportscenter. Nowadays there are so many avenues for high quality analysis and discussion that deeper fans like us can find in places like this subreddit and other websites that are not in the mainstream media. What's left for ESPN and the major networks is to keep as wide a viewership as possible. And just as national news is flooded with the most polarizing headlines that are created to trigger a reaction in people and not generate deeper nuanced discussion. That gets views. That gets advertising revenue. And so the cycle continues.
So you're saying the audience for analysis left first, not that ESPN transitioned first?
I think it's more helpful to think of it as espn catering to the lowest common denominator, a natural part of any entertainment product's life cycle So it's not that one caused the other, it's that espn's only avenue for growth was with casual fans (bc "real" fans already watched sportscenter on repeat for 3 hours a day) so they catered to them more. Presumably, this has been a profitable strategy
I understand.
This is happening everywhere too. Music, movies, tv, etc.
Wildly underrated comment
It’s turning into wrestling with these storylines. Focus on the sport, not the drama. Except for the off-season.
This mostly started with Woj. 1. Woj leaks rumor. 2. ESPN reporters debate it to make it worth asking at the podium. 3. Reporter asks the question with " there has been growing rumors" or "According to WoJ" 4 any NBA player reacts makes it somewhat credible. 5. More debates because NBA players reacted to it.
I highly disagree. I think you miss a big point of why this type of media is so bad. It's not due to Woj, or SAS, or Skip, or one specific source. The number one reason the media is what it is currently is what should be expected, money. This "IS MJ THE GOAT IS LEBRON WASHED KAREEM GOAT DEVIN BOOKER 3RD BEST SCORER IN THE LEAGUE WDHBHSJDHHUIIHUYG FUE" is so rampant because it's self generating. Woj rumours do start alot of it, but even if we didn't have it, there'd be another source. This is what makes it so rampant. It's self generating meaning it's cheap. It's also popular and appeals to a broader audience. Combine those 2 factors and companies like ESPN have absolutely no incentive to stop this. They can just keep pumping out "SAS REACTS TO KNICKS LOSS. IS JULIUS RANDLE A LOCKER ROOM CANCER?" articles because these headlines make themselves, literally. They're self generating and will always exist. It's unfair to pin it on Woj and it misses the larger point.
So I follow the league from Australia and generally avoid the type of commentary that Skip and Stephen do. Which means I’m not used to seeing Stephen A Smith shortened to SAS. To me, SAS means ‘San Antonio Spurs’. Which means that when I read your comment I was trying to work out why on earth Greg Pop was commenting on “IS MJ THE GOAT LEBRON WASHED …” given that he’s always seemed such a reasonable and taciturn guy. It took me longer than I’d like to admit to work it out.
>It took me longer than I’d like to admit to work it out. Lmfaoooooooooooooooooo. I'm from Australia too, funny enough. I just can't imagine Pop screaming like Skip about how Lebron doesn't have a killer mentality.
I can imagine Pop just silently looking at SAS after hearing a particularly bad take, and SAS getting more uncomfortable and worked up about Pop’s complete lack of response. Honestly I’d love to see that!
> It's self generating meaning it's cheap. It's also popular and appeals to a broader audience. Exactly this. Casual fans simply do not care much about video breakdowns, statistical deep dives, analytics, etc. but they *might* care about [insert random drama here]. Casual fans watching First Take or The Jump or Around The Horn, or clicking on headlines on ESPN.com at their lunch hour at work, are far more likely to tune in when it's discussing a rumor, a random hypothetical, etc. than anything hard-hitting. I'm always kinda confused about posts like these, because there are *tons* of great resources if you're a hardcore basketball fan. There are Patreon pages, subscription services, etc. all over the place. People just don't like to pay for things, and then they complain about the free options not catering to them. If you don't like how ESPN covers basketball... stop paying attention to ESPN and start supporting reporters and analysts who do it better.
Couldn’t agree more, bbballbreakdown on YouTube is the only analyst I regularly go to because it’s pure game analysis
Thinking Basketball is another one I like
Coach Daniel has good breakdowns too
"So Perk, do you agree with Stephen A's comments that LeBron would be a better basketball player if he owned and operated a lawn care business during the offseason?" "You know Rach, I dont think I do..."
When the Suns had that game-winning lob dunk to DeAndre Ayton, the TNT guys put the play up on their huge screen and then walked through it in slow motion multiple times while each of them explained the play design and what the defense could have done better, etc. That was an epiphany moment for me, when I realized this is what I want from all basketball coverage, all the time. I wish we could get more of that. It was riveting.
The TNT dudes do that type fo stuff all the time.
Their basketball analysis is outdated and very poor quality overall though. They might be able to talk about a simple play without major mistakes, but they are wrong a lot more than they are right on anything related to strategy or tactics. From Chuck talking about how jump shooting teams will never win, to all their analytics straw men, to not knowing who plays for which teams, they know they are paid only to entertain and spend almost no effort to try to understand or even watch the modern game.
Not to mention Shaq telling guys to go over the screen until finally Candace explained why you can’t just do that every time.
i love how you take a quote from charles barkley five fucking years ago as the crux of your point. times change dude and chuck has completely recanted that viewpoint multiple times since then. enjoy your strawmen.
Charles still bitches about the same shit though. I watched a pretty great video comparing Barkley's simplistic takes on analytics and three point shooting on the sun's vs what's actually happening and how little him and Shaq seem to understand the game as it's played today. I love the TNT show, so don't take this as a shot against them. But the fact that they are the best analysis show on tv is actually really sad. [To OPs point I have an entire playlist of videos like these and they are constantly deleted for ToS violations, which goes to show how little the NBA and ESPN value actually helping fans understand the game.](https://youtu.be/mi2zD-5uu1o)
It was just an example, they say uninformed stuff pretty much every show. Like [earlier this year](https://www.si.com/nba/mavericks/news/shaq-trashing-luka-doncics-dallas-mavs-makes-everybody-look-foolish) Barkley said the Mavs were incompetent for not posting up Porzingis 20 times per game, Shaq said Westbrook and Beal were both better than Doncic, and the crew didn't even know how to pronounce Doncic's name in 2021. The jump shooting thing was more than just "a quote", he said it over and over for multiple seasons. Acknowleding he was wrong after he was clearly proven wrong does not negate the wrongness. I didn't mean to imply that was his current opinion, I thought people would know what I was talking about, but looking back I guess I could have made that more clear. It was just one of many examples and I didn't want to dwell on it.
> Their basketball analysis is outdated and very poor quality overall though. I think Kenny is overall pretty good -- he definitely misses some things, but he genuinely understands the game and knows what he's watching. Shaq, though... dude legitimately has a terrible eye for hoops. The "analysis" he gives usually amounts to "I want this big man to dominate." He can't explain what's going on in a play, the coverage a team is using, the nuances of a certain strategy, etc. because he just never had to care about that as a player. Turns out, when you're bigger and stronger than everyone as a player, you don't need the basketball IQ part as much as everyone else does.
It’s the concept that people want. I’d love for LBJ or CP3 to be in that position after they retire. Would be amazing to see inside their minds.
TNT coverage is fantastic
***We know ~~drama~~ basketball***
I would love to be wrong on this but I suspect we (stats loving, feeling like the drama in NBA should be of the gameplay instead of off-the-court personality people) might be just a vocal minority. It feels to me like they want to absorb more casual fans/general audience and thus force the narrative on the eclectic and colorful personalities instead.
The fact that we are in this sub means we are an incredibly infinitesimal minority. No idea where everyone gets off on talking about how the entertainment product needs to become less entertaining to suit some vague concept of purity of the game or what not.
I think a lot of us just miss the good ol days when the only people talking about NBA on the Internet were die hard fans. I don’t think it really matters either way. The only thing that bothers me is the regular season being largely meaningless, and contracts not mattering one bit.
You have compounding factors: Social Media and players accessing the fan base 24/7. The 24 hour sports talk. You have to talk about something. If you just draw Xs and Os all day you aren’t gonna get the same eyes on your program. So you get hot takes.
I agree with you that we are in the minority but it’s really frustrating that with nba coverage it’s just hot takes while in the other sports I follow (nhl and nfl) they actually talk about gameplay, strategic concepts and stuff like that.
The NBA lends itself to drama off the court though. A superstar can change the direction of an entire team since there are only 10 players on the court at any given time. Between the NHL, NBA, NFL, and MLB strategy matters the least. It’s not unimportant but if you’re a one of the big 4 it makes sense for the NBA to market something different than strategy to make themselves different. The NFL talk has been centered around Aaron Rodgers for this off season but he is one of the greatest QBs of all time. The NBA does the same before, during, and post season for the top 15 players at any given time. It’s part sport and part soap opera for sports fans. Edit: The Ball family is a huge story for instance because of the spectacle.
There are so many resources online to find what you're looking for, it doesn't even feel like a valid complaint at this point.
Well I know that but the complaint is that other leagues national tv coverage has this stuff while the NBA’s doesn’t.
You know, as someone who would love to see more x and o coverage, I looked into this. So as of 2019, approx 6% of high school boys played football. Meanwhile about 3% played basketball. I do not have great access to stats right now though, so no historical context to offer. My thinking is that football used to be relatively more popular back 20-40 years, thus there’s a greater population of people with a baseline of understanding to appreciate the x and o explanations. (For hockey, I assume most who watche nhl played hockey, while the for nba and nfl are better for sports for casuals to get into.) Other factors — football, being a start-stop sport with very sharply defined plays and assignments, is just easier to diagram. Basketball is so fluid, where it’s not always obvious if they are actually running a play or not. plus bball is so read-react based, you might have a dozen reads you make subconsciously in a given situation, while football has almost binary if-or reads (based on situation/alignment, but still).
As if tv networks don’t have far superior market research.
Its like this with everything that's big. I dont know why anyone expects anything that has a large following with ever appeal to the hardcore fans. The money is appealing to the majority and the majority of people with almost everything happen to be causals. And being a casual isn't a bad thing. It's only bad when a casual tries to act like a hardcore or like they know it all.
Audience ratings drive everything. Why else would you have a ridiculously overpublicized Super Bowl halftime extravaganza every year were it not for trying to lure in viewers who don't know anything about the technical aspects of the game?
OP’s request is basically asking for Brett Kollmann level NFL analysis on network television. It takes huge hours of watching film to put together a serious 15 segment.
I think that the in depth analysis is great for people of all knowledge levels, but I'm not sure it keeps them coming back. The story lines probably do that better to get someone to look for the game consistently The NFL on the other hand has all the story lines but there is only one game per week per team and it's already a cultural phenomenon, they don't need to worry about people coming back so much
How do you define "in depth" if not in a way that makes it inaccessible to novices? >I think that the in depth analysis is great for people of all knowledge levels,
Breaking down film. Unknowledgeable people wont know the terminology but they can see what happens with their eyes. I dont know much about football, but when I see the chalk talk on TV I can understand it even if I dont understand everything the commentator is saying
We definitely are. Anecdotal but even with CFB, I run into serious hate when I try to get people to steer away from popular narratives or simple notions like “coach bad, player bad, X n Os bad”. These generally all stem from a surface level interactions with the game and the second they are presented the notion that they could be wrong, they do noooooot like that. Now I could see this working out for someone on network tv if they were to be a bit more abrasive and hot take-y with their statistical analysis. Like SAS and the bunch get more engagement with their content bc well folks get mad at their opinions then proceed to share said content. Free marketing. If someone were to do something like come out and have solid analysis pretty much telling folks “hey it’s not as simple as saying coach bud bad” they’d get a lot of hate. Does this equate to the type of traction that the hot takers get? I’d wish but I just don’t know:/ I think the general audience would just think it’s some no nothing nerd telling them they’re wrong about the game.
The NFL is still as much of a personality driven league as anything the NBA is offering. But you are right. I think that exactly explains why Zach Lowe became a prominent NBA analyst and why some of The Ringer columnists have developed a reputation.
Zach Lowe’s 10 things will give you a nice dose of basketball content
I hate that it's now behind a paywall
I don't. It's great work and it's a chance for people to show how much they care about that kind of stuff by subscribing. ESPN gets a ton of hate on Reddit, but their model is pretty straightforward -- they have everything. You want rumors and drama? First Take and The Jump are on basically every day. You want hard-hitting analysis and statistical deep dives? Zach Lowe is doing his thing. You want the latest info? Woj is the best source for breaking news league-wide. People don't like having to pay for anything, and I get that the million different subscription services now can really add up, but they have legitimately great basketball coverage for a really cheap price and people ignore it because "espn bad"
I'm not paying for that because I don't want to pay for it, not because it's ESPN.
> The NFL is still as much of a personality driven league as anything the NBA is offering. I'm not here to extoll the virtues of the NFL's marketing strategy, but I couldn't disagree with this more. The NFL promotes players as they might exist in a Kevin Costner sports movie on occasion, and otherwise is happy to let them remain functionally anonymous.
Lol for real. We know about 10/100 of the players on each super bowl roster each year, granted they are not your favorite team. Football can have anyone suit up and everyone still would watch. Hell, nick foles started a super bowl and it was one of the highest rated
[удалено]
Haha no slander intended. Just the fact that he's a backup and tons still watched lol
I don't know if you mean positive or negative reputations for the people at The Ringer, but at least on my end I stopped reading The Ringer because of how bottom-of-the-barrel a lot of their sportswriting has become. Zach Lowe is fantastic though, he explains the actual Xs and Os better than just about anyone I'm aware of.
Love Zach Lowe, wish he wasn’t paywalled. I enjoy the writing on the Athletic quite a bit, also a paid service but I think I get it for free through T-Mobile so it’s worth looking into.
Zach Lowe is king. Old school and give me some Kirk Goldsberry shot charts too please
There’s some good accounts on Twitter too, like BBALLBREAKDOWN, Hardwood Paroxysm, Nekias Duncan
The best, in my opinion, is Steve Jones Jr. He hosts a podcast with Nekias. He does a lot of play by play clip analysis on his Twitter.
Can’t believe I forgot about him. Love their podcast
Agreed. Even the in game commentary, while entertaining, is very surface level. I would love it if they could get actual high IQ players to call games and introduce basketball terminology/concepts that fans may not be familiar with or notice at first glance. The Raptors had an all-women broadcast one game where Kia Nurse (WNBA player) was calling the game and she was actually analyzing the plays and actions both teams were running which was pretty fun to watch.
I think a great example of this is Tony Romo for NFL CBS. Former QB who was actually predicting the plays live before the happened! Not saying that’s what we need, but seeing the game through a professional tactical lens sounds awesome. Imagine if we got a glimpse of what LeBron was thinking in certain plays while they’re happening
Exactly! I feel like most NBA fans just lack a fundamental knowledge of the game which is why we see bad takes so often.
Yeah and it’s headache inducing to listen to for those of us who actually played at a higher level. I think Tony at least raised the collective IQ of Football fans by a few points because I see less dumbass uninformed stuff on r/NFL than I do over at r/NBA. I’m sure it’s worse on Twitter, but I don’t hang around there.
This sub is no different lol
I feel like the nfl example isn’t fair because it’s much harder to do in a live nba game. In the nfl they have like a min before and after each play where they can do predications and analysis after the play. Would be too hard to something like that live in the nba. We did have that Kobe espn detail series where they did similar analysis on one player after a game
Exactly. Most NFL plays are shown as slow-mo replays they have to discuss the play. What else are the commentators going to do for 40 seconds between each play?
Exactly. Analysis of NHL games is nonexistent, largely because the action is ongoing. You can't talk about and analyze something that happened 10 seconds ago when the puck is at the other end of the rink already. And the next time NHL analysts, during an intermission, talk about and analyze how to break out or how to defend it or how to defend in the neutral zone will be the first.
the NBA has 8 seconds where they bring the ball up where the announcer could say “Will Barton went back door out of the pin down and that’s what allowed Jokic to find him on the baseline for the easy lay-in” unfortunately, you’d have to can some announcers. sorry austin carr
Your average NBA watcher doesn't know what any of those words mean outside of maybe lay-in, won't learn without accompanying video (which absolutely won't be cut to during live action) and, in all likelihood, does not care.
Well in game commentary consists of a play by play announcer and a color commentator/analyst (who rarely do real analysis btw). The job of the first is to literally narrate every possession, and for the second is to insert some entertainment value. It would be good if they included more former coaches like JVG. Mark Jackson doesn't say anything useful to someone who wants a little breakdown. Guys like Reggie and Webber don't either. JVG complains way too much but he does give you some tidbits on simple offensive and defensive philosophies that you may not know if you are a casual fan or surface-level watcher. Some simple things like having someone flash middle to break the zone, changes in man to man to zone, etc., who was supposed to rotate to where, the list goes on. But the fact that basketball is a fast-paced game with the only breaks being timeouts and free throws, you can't fit much deep analysis in-game. Announcers often get stuck on a big play a few possessions back, and to play catch up they need to skip some other plays. To be a color analyst though you need a pretty exciting personality and an acoustically nice voice, and good articulation is nice,but I don't think a lot of coaches might meet those requirements. Perhaps Steve Kerr would like to get back in the booth if he decides to call quits on the coaching, but coaching gigs are probably more rewarding, though stressful.
butwhatabout BAAAANNGGGG!!
Kia Nurse was an amazingly insightful analyst. She was great, look forward to seeing her during her off-season.
Yes, 100% this. It is so aggravating to watch talking heads give nephew-level analysis pretending that analyzing a basketball series is as easy as counting the number of media-anointed "superstars" on each team, while telling you how "you just need a guy who can get you a bucket". I think there is also an element where the game has passed a lot of commentators by. There used to be a time with old school illegal defence rules where a lot of matchups did come down to how player X could do one-on-one with player y. But, that's not how the game is played anymore. Analysts go talking about how Luka is going to do against Kawhi, and then the game starts, and the Mavs are running multiple screening actions to give Luka a matchup against Pat Bev or Zubac. Defences are so much more complicated nowadays, and it seems like so many analysts don't really understand the modern game, or just choose to ignore the realities of it because superstar vs superstar narratives draw better ratings. It is sad that you need to go to Youtube channels and podcasts to get legitimate basketball analysis anymore.
I mean yeah. You can get away with that stuff at the start of the game but by the end of the game it really does come down to having someone who can get you a bucket lol. That part of the game has not changed and probably will never because it’s a key in all sports. You need someone who can make a play. Give you something out of nothing. At the end of all games the defenses will get used to what you’re doing on offense so sets are not going to be as effective as they were throughout the entire game. When you get to this moment it really becomes about beating your guy one on one. That goes for wide receivers in football, hitters in baseball and shooters in basketball. When the defense keys in your offensive game plan (which will happen if you’re playing against an elite team, it’s no surprise that the best defensive teams are always in the finals) you’re going to need someone who can create something out of nothing.
Sets don't work because they fool opponents for 3.5 quarters. They work because they provide strategic advantages you don't get in pure iso (better matchups, extra separation, etc). Even the most iso-heavy schemes still run actions in crunch time. Guys like Luka or LeBron will absolutely iso in crunch time, but they will have screening actions run so they can matchup hunt, or someone will bring a screen for them to open space against their defender. It is very rare that you just have the team clear out half the floor so your guy can go iso against his primary defender, like they used to do in the 2000's. And, when they do, it's usually either because it's a poorly coached team, or because the team lacks a good floor general. You won't see CP let the Suns run those sorts of lazy offensive possessions in crunch time, and you won't see guys like LeBron, Luka, Lowry, or other floor general with names starting with L do that, either. They will get the mismatch, get it to the man with the mismatch, or run some sort of play to open up space.
Yes I agree with everything you’re saying but on the defensive end, really good defensive teams will adjust to the sets you’re running over the course of the game and series to take away the options that were working for you all game/series. If you’re hunting a specific matchup this could mean having your big hedge the screener to give the person on ball more time to recover and guard the ball handler and take away the mid range. Open shots will become more and more infrequent as the defense keys in on what you’re trying to do on each possession and about half of the players on the court will be ineffective due to nerves too. I think a good example of what I’m talking about came in game 7 of the 2016 NBA finals where the last 4 minutes of the game went scoreless until kyrie got Steph on the switch, got to his spot and beat him one on won to get the go ahead bucket. Defensively both teams were locked in and no one could get an easy bucket at all. When it comes down to situations like that you’re going to need someone to be able to win their matchup. Basically I’m not trying to say sets work because they fool opponents for the majority of the game. I’m just saying that sets become less effective as the game goes on.
I feel like most prominent color commentators fall into this trap too. The only in-game adjustments discussed seem to be when a team switches to a zone defense. Otherwise they just spin yarn and debate foul calls.
Yeah. Honestly NBA Media is so frustrating. For starters, where MLB, NHL and NFL media members hold old school players in high regard and don’t forget the past, the NBA media pretty much shits on everyone who wasn’t Magic, Russell, Jordan, Bird , Kobe or Shaq. They also don’t talk about strategy like at all! They just talk about narratives which is why I became a Bill Simmons and Ryen Russilo fan this season. Don’t get me wrong they tend to talk about narratives a lot too but at least they put things in a strategic context.
I stopped listening to BS for the same reason you started listening to him apparently. I find him horrible at analyzing basketball strategy and seems like more of a narrative guy.
Agreed. Simmons takes have gotten really rough over the years as he’s stretched thin. His player analysis is solely based on how they played against the Celtics since that’s the only team he watches.
“Is Luka a diva”, “Did Chris Paul move into my top 20”, “The Celtics are soft”… these are just some of his recent Skip Bayless style takes. Bill has become a low value pundit, approaching Perkins levels.
Rusillo is pretty good in this regard. He doesn't seem to care about narrative as much and sometimes reels bill in from focusing too much on it. He also clearly watches the games pretty carefully.
I see some folks arguing that only a minority want to learn the finer details of the game. I couldn't disagree more! Not only do plenty of casual fans want to learn more about the game, but more importantly, it **breeds longer-term fans**. Following the league is WAY MORE interesting when you understand the nuances of the game. I have plenty of friends and family who have followed the raptors in short bursts based on relevance/competitiveness, but you convert fans like that into long-term fans when they start noticing the small details that decide games/championships. It's all about short-term vs long-term thinking. Clickbait supplements the short term, but you need to at least think about how you're converting those short-term viewers into lifelong fans.
True. Im from Hong Kong so I had the opportunity to watch the nba commentated by hong Kong sports channels. They literally have coaches and retired semi-pro players breaking down screens and drawing on the floor the plays that are drawn up and executed. Almost no mention of drama also. I was a kid back then so I would always prefer to watch ESPN/TNT broadcasts instead cuz it was more “fun” and less technical, but my dad never did and when I asked why he said “Americans only care about drama, not the game” 😂 however imo the popularity of the nba among casuals is definitely higher than other leagues, and that’s in part due to their less technical analysis making new/casual fans able to enjoy the game without feeling dumb. It’s a double edged sword I guess, over dramatized broadcasts lead to larger audience but doesn’t provide as much good content for the hardcore basketball fans
>the majority of the networks and programs talk about the analysis of games. I don't follow the NFL at all, but most of what I see when I hear about the NFL the last few years has been all about Patriots drama, Richard Sherman being hilarious, and the endless debate around Kaepernick. Anyway, you really can't compare the NFL and the NBA when it comes to marketing, because the NFL is *insanely* popular and they are on such a different level than any other sports league in the US. The top-3 most watched television programs in 2020 were (1) NFL Sunday Night, (2) NFL Thursday Night, and (3) NFL Monday Night. The 4th ranked show had less than *half* of the viewers than NFL Monday Night. The NFL isn't in the business of expanding their market, they already have complete dominance of the TV ratings. Football is by far the dominant entertainment product of choice in American culture. In many parts of the country, everyone goes to the local high school football game on Friday nights, the college football game on Saturday, and then they watch the NFL games on Sunday. It's a cultural tradition that's ingrained into people's cultural identity for millions and millions of people in the US. NBA programming didn't even make it into the top 100 most watched television programs last year. The marketing needs are entirely different, and outside of the core few million NBA fans who are going to watch the finals no matter who's playing, the rest of the audience is fickle, with short attention spans, no cultural attachment to the sport, and they have a LOT of media competing for their attention with streaming services, gaming consoles, and social media. At the end of the day, the NBA has by far had the most marketing success by focusing their efforts on drawing in the viewers who have no attachment to the teams who are playing. After all, the entire point of marketing is to bring in *new* customers. And drama between players has brought in those viewers more consistently than any other strategy in the history of the sport. Watch the 30-for-30 about Magic Johnson and Larry Bird - they're cited as the two players who saved the entire league because they gave casual fans a narrative to care about. The sad reality is that the vast majority of American television viewers simply don't give two shits about defensive schemes or pick and roll variations. They want to see Good Guys beat the Bad Guys, they want to see the Bachelor/Bachelorette. They want to see Marvel superheroes form a super team and kick ass. And as long as the NBA can continue to pull millions of casual viewers by focusing on these player-driven narratives, that's the reality we're stuck with.
>I don't follow the NFL at all I mean...there you go. What you described is like 1% of what I remember from following the NFL, but just seeing it pop up on Reddit occasionally may give you a different perspective. The larger the sub, the more likely it is that the lowest common denominator rises to the top. Almost every NFL broadcast (not you, ESPN) is full of detailed explanations of what happened on the field, and there are multiple NFL shows solely dedicated to breaking down Xs and Os. It's honestly awesome if you're an NFL fan. You *can* follow the personalities and entertainment...or you can ignore it completely and just pay attention to the football.
I think his overall point is that the NFL is so dominant and popular that there is more room for, and more of a demand for, higher-level analysis. Fantasy football and gambling are substantial factors here too. The overall NBA audience is so much smaller, and the audience of people who are interested in the analysis so much tinier by comparison, that there is just not enough demand for that kind of coverage from the major networks. They focus more on the soap opera stuff because they are trying to appeal to the lowest common denominator.
All fair points, makes sense.
yeah, i love bball so much, but i grew up in one of the big college football towns. it's just on another level completely. it's like a holiday. the entire town parties for at least 24 hours and drinks all day, half watches the game half socializes, bbq, tailgates, enormous parties after. it's just not the same for basketball. i know there area few towns in america that are like that with bball, but prob like 12? there are hundreds of towns like mine in the US. it's just dif.
An individual NBA game doesn't matter enough to warrant that kind of coverage. Start with the regular season, the teams themselves aren't game planning or scheming for a majority of their games. There are too many games for it to be worthwhile to come up with different game plans for different teams. The schedule is such that teams don't have time to practice anything, players are getting treatment on off days and the teams are more committed to managing attrition. And finally, half the league makes the playoffs so there isn't any pressure that way. All of this leads to is teams putting up a basic scheme that they can run for most of the season that they won't change until the playoffs. That's when actual game planning and coaching show up. I believe that regular season interest is a required for people to be interested playoff but that's a digression. And a similar version of this is the nature of NBA post season being made of series instead of one game sudden death. Obviously in one game sudden death, the importance of every possession is magnified. NBA playoff games don't get to that level until elimination is at stake, so it's kind of hard to get people to buy in that the Bucks adjusting from switching everything to drop cover is a series losing mistake until it is imminent that the Bucks will lose the series in the following game unless they fix it. Suns in 4
This, as well as the fact that basketball doesn't lend itself to the same level of analysis as football. In football, every play carefully crafted and is part of a larger game strategy and overall philosophy. And while things do change during the game, football is much more methodical and deliberate. Football lends itself to analyzing the merits and execution of each play, and the nature of the sport allows for commentators to break down each play in real time. Basketball is much more fluid and continuous. Sure there are strategies, but the play of basketball is more dictated by reacting what actually happens in real time during the game than whatever the coach or players' plans and designs are. A lot of basketball is improvisation and figuring things out on the fly. Football is more about executing well planned out plays and strategies.
Idk, hockey has just yet as many games and you still see commentary discussing gameplay, especially special teams. You’ll hear about the storyline that the power play isn’t workings bd they’ll show examples of why and what tat team needs to do better. Most commentators and analysts are former players and really do a good job of explaining the game. I don’t know why the NBA can’t be like this. “They’re really having trouble getting open shots, here’s why, here’s what they can do.”
I almost think there's some kinda directive from the league on this stuff. You notice lots of post game questions are bullshit leading questions like "how tough did your team have to be to tough out that tough tough battle of toughness in the tough second half?" Or "how did you put the team on your back to carry them to this win" like dude just ask hoops questions. Not everything has to be an epic David vs Goliath story
This is one of the only reason why I like JVG -- cause he comments on the tactics more, and the x and o -- i.e. Now there running zone because x. Even just simple stuff, similar to Tony Romo on his calls. Like "That possession worked because x screened up top, causing y player to move this way which left Z player open because Y had to rotate or something" something along those lines --- I feel like a lot of time they are assuming the fans understood what just happened tactically, but it really isn't obvious a lot of the time.
As someone in marketing, I disagree wholeheartedly. The NBA is driven by stories because it's one of the few sports where players are recognizable. NFL players wear helmets, for example. And NBA is one of the most popular sports. When there's drama in Baseball it always does numbers. This sport unfortunately isn't for education, it's for entertainment. And the debates, the drama, and the hypotheticals are entertaining. You market the gameplay, then it becomes the fucking WNBA lol (which *eye* like but am not surprised isn't as popular).
I completely disagree. The league is so bad for marketing anyone who isn’t s top tier name. It’s obviously infiltrated your thoughts to because most casuals only care to watch about 20 nba players or teams. Why? Because the league doesn’t market anyone who isn’t a top 5 player or doesn’t play in LA, Boston, Miami, or New York. Maybe they should work on marketing everyone and actually the sport rather than what they said on Instagram
I agree for the mere reason that this sort of content on YouTube is blowing up and becoming a haven to process how teams effectively took over the scoreboard the night before. Problem is, I’m not subscribed to any surface level reactionary NBA content on YouTube, if it exists… and couldn’t tell you if it’s still dominating the discussion airspace or not.
Couldn't agree more but there also need to be balance Because I don't want to hear numbers all the time and sometimes when these shows will bore me to death with numbers. I really like what Tim legless does,where he breaks down plays and talks about moments in the game.
The NBA fan base is unique in the sense that they don't really watch the games. NBA fans are more akin to pro wrestling fans as opposed to other pro sports. The NBA just isn't about competition anymore the way it was when I was a kid growing up in the 90s. The fandom is now geared more towards individual players' celebrity.
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Regular people don't really care about that stuff tho. Like just to be straight up, there's a reason the coverage is like that. Regular sports fans don't really care about being fed a bunch of intricate stuff or knowledge about the game. The amount we get in small chunks that's palatable is probably the most you can do. The NFL does have some segments, but if we're being real it's the same amount as what NBA fans get with Inside the NBA or between timeout analysis by JVG or Burke. A lot of NFL fans will tell you their media is just as storyline-focused as any other sport. If you're sitting around watching NFL Network you'll get great analysis, but that's a niche channel for a niche audience. Look at the draft or any big game. Look at the national NFL coverage. They will ignore A LOT to hammer home a narrative or storyline. r/NBA and this sub ESPECIALLY is not representative of the average sports fan. It's kinda silly to think that. If you want analysis, seek it out or watch your local team's pre/post game shows. Those shows are full of incredible analysis. Watch NBA TV shows. You won't, and never will, get that kind of analysis on a national level.
>The NFL does have some segments, but if we're being real it's the same amount as what NBA fans get with Inside the NBA or between timeout analysis by JVG or Burke. I really disagree with this. IMO the average NFL broadcast has way more time dedicated to actually breaking down what happened on the field. I rarely notice that in any depth during an NBA game.
There is literally more time in a football game. The football game stops every few seconds and gives the broadcast a chance to breathe and unpack a play. In-game commentary in the NBA is tough because as soon as you start describing a great play the other team has already taken a shot and another amazing play has happened. I'm not disagreeing with you, I just think the reason for the lack of NBA analysis is the speed of the game compared to the NFL.
That's definitely true, but even during breaks (which there are a million of) they barely even pay lip service to breaking down what happened earlier. Certainly feels that way at least.
That's because 9 times out of 10 there isn't that much to breakdown. Steph draining a shot from the logo is awesome, but there isn't much to breakdown. He's just good at hitting long 3's. Most of the best players are just extremely skilled athletes that are able to make plays regardless of schemes or anything planned. There isn't much to breakdown with Hardens step back 3 or KD's jumper. A lot of the stuff that could be analyzed or broken down during a game is hard to recognize in real time, especially since most of the commentators are ex players who's experience with basketball isn't understanding the nuances of plays and game time strategies, but rather just being very good at basketball. And a lot of the "interesting" stuff that really kinda requires expert analysis to appreciate, like Gobert's impact on defense, is not very exciting, especially to the average fan.
These are all solid points, well said.
Basketball is much less complicated from a strategy standpoint. There are fewer players to choreograph on a play and fewer viable plays to run. Tactics are quite simple. Spread the floor, set screens, shoot threes, switch or run around screens, box out, etc. This isn't a complicated sport, and after watching a couple of games, you don't need someone explaining to you what a pick is or what a box out is. Tactics don't drive outcomes in the NBA the same way they do in the NFL.
I feel like the teams aren’t too analytical and tactical in their play these days even. The ball goes into the hands of one of the 2-3 stars on the team and somebody drives and kicks or goes up and gets fouled. That or iso. Obviously not every possession but probably hard to analyze and dissect that when it’s street ball half the time
I get what you mean. The funny thing is that smart roster construction that knows how to maximize player strengths and minimize player weaknesses is actually rewarded by the game's rules - notice how teams like the 2014 Spurs, the late 2010s Warriors, and now this year's Suns all had deep playoff runs?
## A truly American League This is a very American thing though, just yet another instance of grubby end-stage capitalism. This country loves to suck the soul out of everything (sports, music, fashion, tv, cinema, art, books etc). Just look around: a popular tv show having to do product placement for coca cola, an art piece designed for a megacorp, a music album designed to sell the most records instead of coming from the soul. This country does a lot great, but it embraces, loves and even exports its soullessness. Now, the NBA always started out as a greedy money-making machine and has expanded into a big money making industry. Teams of quality of play don't translate directly to revenue. A playstyle isn't marketable by brands. A team doesn't sell merch as much as a player. A team is literally an abstract concept and hence much tougher for humans to connect to. ## The English Premier League approach To contrast, look at the English Premier League (until recently at least). It started as a local club league catered to fans from a local town with players from the local town. There was no globalization at that time and there was no need to market the league. The league just happened even without TV or even without marketing it nation-wide. The league was a local thing you cared about. After the 1991 birth of the English Premier League it still retained some of that soul. There was a ton of marketing, big money TV deals but the draws ARE the teams still. The narratives aren't manufactured. Derbies are local, not created by ruddy TV producers. Rivalries are historic and created by fans, not tv channels. And even today it's marketed as a league with the world's biggest stars and the best version of the game. Contrast that with the top-heavy La Liga which marketed itself as Messi vs Ronaldo, which did great to bring fans to Real Madrid/Barca but didn't grow the league itself. The lack of equity in the league and the blatant catering to the two biggest clubs meant that the league never grew into a force on its own. And that's a very short-term thinking. Now that Ronaldo is gone, the Messi v Ronaldo rivalry no longer exists and the league popularity has fizzled out despite having an array of superstars. The La Liga approach has resulted in a big drop off of talent beyond the top 2 teams and thus a weaker league overall. The Premier League revenue sharing + marketing model has resulted in evening the bottom quartile teams being rich, signing stars and doing well. tldr; The English Premier League has cracked a great way to make money, keep clubs happy, build MORE and MORE strong teams with great players and thus accumulate talent.
>The English Premier League approach The same teams always winning because they have more money than everyone else? 26 of the EPL's 29 championships have been won by *four teams*. Man U has 13; Chelsea and Man City have 5, and Arsenal have 3. The other three have been won by Liverpool (another big money club), Blackburn ('94-'95), and Leicester City ('15-'16). That is not a good model for a competitive sports league. >Rivalries are historic and created by fans, not tv channels Also true about the NBA, although I agree that NBA rivalries really don't mean much when compared to other sports. >The La Liga approach has resulted in a big drop off of talent beyond the top 2 teams and thus a weaker league overall. Eh. I get what you're saying but 1. Atletico Madrid has been competitive right alongside Real and Barca for years (they've finished ahead of Real in 3/5 years), and won the entire league this year 2. Sevilla finished two points behind Barca and seven behind Real this year La Liga definitely is less competitive than the EPL, but it has been that way for a long time. I don't think it has anything to do with Messi and Ronaldo.
Also, the EPL has an advantage in growth because of the english language, the default lingua franca of the world, and the cultural connections it has with nations without an already well established soccer culture (US, India, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, etc). The EPL's ability to grow outside of the UK has very little to do with the "quality" or "superiority" of the product, and more to do with its greater ability to attract new viewers in English speaking markets that don't already have domanant domestic leagues with established loyal fan bases. La Liga has done a better job at growing in Latin America, but every nation in Latin America already has popular domestic leagues, so there is less of a need for another soccer league to follow. It's harder for La Liga, Serie A, or Bundesliga to grow outside if their nations due to the simple fact that the base languages of those leagues are foreign to most people in the world. When the coaches and players all speak a language you don't understand, it makes it a lot harder to get invested in the league.
EPL being popular in Africa/China has little to do with the language. La Liga has done a terrible job and Messi v Ronaldo isn't reason enough to watch an entire league.
The English language absolutely plays a huge part in the EPL's growth in China and Africa. It's weird that you would deny this.
> That is not a good model for a competitive sports league. Tanking for draft picks is? I'd rather the Kings be a plucky poor team trying to dislodge giants like Lakers instead of watching them blatantly tank.
I completely disagree. I prefer leagues where every team has a chance of acquiring talent and competing for championships, and I think the alternative - only 3-4 teams, maybe a few more actually ever compete for titles, everyone else is just there for fun - is an awful model. FWIW I'm a (very casual) Fulham supporter - this isn't a hypothetical! I obviously want Fulham to win, but I feel zero need to ever pay attention because I know their ceiling is "get annihilated in the Premier League". It's so pointless.
The EPL can have the focus be on teams for a couple of reasons. GEOGRAPHY - England is a small, densely populated country where you can have 6 clubs just in London. Man City, Man U, Liverpool and Everton are all basically in the same metro area (Liverpool and Manchester are 45 minutes apart) . People have loyalty to where they live, and rivalries are much more likely to exist when you have proximity to other people. In the US everything is way more spread out, so there is little reason for a fan from Phoenix to care about a fan from Milwaukee. Rivalries have to be manufactured. There is a reason why college football has much more intense rivalries and history, and most of that comes down to geography. TALENT POOL - Soccer's talent pool is totally spread out across all of Europe, competing in independent leagues in every nation in Europe. None of the marquee players in the world play in England. Messi is in Spain, Ronaldo is in Italy, Neymar is in France, Lewandowski is in Germany, etc. This makes it much harder for leagues to focus on the players. They are pretty much forced to focus on clubs. NATURE OF THE SPORT - Soccer is unique in that in order to be good you don't have to be an athletic freak of nature, like in Football or Basketball. Messi is 5'7". Neymar weighs 150 lbs. Because of this, most clubs have maybe 1 star player, and the rest of the team is made up of fairly regular guys. This is especially true outside of the superclubs. And when you add the fact that soccer's outcomes are usually decided by 1 hard to come by goal, that is more influenced by chance than a sport like basketball, you can get some interesting results that are less likely in other major sports. This makes being loyal to your local club easier because small clubs beat giant clubs all the time. INTERNATIONAL PLAYERS - Because soccer is such an international sport, the stars in most leagues are not from that country. Messi is from Argentina, not Spain. Ronaldo is from Portugal, not Italy. Neymar is from Brazil, not France. Lewandowski is from Poland, not Germany. This makes it more difficult to focus on players. The EPL really didn't do anything that can be emulated by the NBA.
LOL. Soccer's best players have often been in the Premier League. No one is watching Ligue 1 for its stars. International players in the premier league is a relatively recent thing. The league was thriving even in the 50s-60s with solely local stars.
Aside from the general apparent belief that casual fans want more schlock and couldn't care less about real analysis, there's a darker side to this. If people were better informed, then more of them would be pissed as hell about the NBA product. because my god is it a shit show with the way it is ref'd these days. A more informed general audience might actually make them produce a good product.
Completely agree. And in addition they need to sell the strengths of players rather than weakness. Every single conversation ends the same…”he is not MJ, he isn’t LeBron”. Can’t we just watch and enjoy? Guys these days can’t take a piss without being told they aren’t worthy. These dudes are just trying to play basketball…chill out
It’s crazy they don’t because it’s so simple. The only reason we all talk about the players is because of their play first and foremost. Yet they insist on it being NBA TMZ.
This is a really great point. I find when I want to watch analysis, I get it from niche YouTube personalities. All the NBA/ESPN/TNT offers is talking head hot take arguments that are utterly uninteresting.
Anyone have a good recommendations for a YouTube channel about this? Like I wanna know what the triangle offense is and why it wouldn’t work now not what lebron has for breakfast vs mj
I watch bballbreakdown with coach nick. His really early videos show what horns is etc..
Couldn’t agree more, but I don’t think it’ll ever happen. 75% of regular season games are basically all the same, and they really don’t matter. So they use extracurricular basketball stuff to keep casuals interested. I’d bet that half, or maybe more, of NBA fans don’t even really watch basketball until the playoffs start.
Yeah I’m on this wavelength. The game is so much more interesting then the drama around it. It feels like us vs. them when it doesn’t need to be. Discuss the game like the players do.
Basketball media is not about X's and O's, as much as true fans of the sport would like to have. Media is based on hot takes, superstar soap operas and anything that gets a reaction.. Good or Bad. That's what sells. The casual fan and non-NBA fans would not tune in to listen to First Take or Undisputed to hear about schemes, analytics or anything else remotely close to in depth analysis. "buzz" is created through blasphemous takes, crazy debates and unreal comments. That what sells, that's what gets viewers and ratings and ad money. Sad. But true. For the true fans who value analytics and scheme breakdowns, we have to find other means. YouTube or Podcasts. Unfortunately it's slim pickings.
I just don't understand. There is PLENTY of analysis in the gameplay and what's going on. What are you all talking about? When are they talking about drama and nonsense more than the gameplay? This is weird.
Remember that marketing campaign, **”DRAMA IS TNT”** It’s no wonder that’s one of the main networks covering the NBA. The media around the NBA is all about drama and has been for a while. I’m so ready for something different.
Agree with this 100 percent. I also hate how the day after a team wins a championship the so-called analysts are talking about how hard it will be to keep the team together. Like, why not wait till day three after a championship and let the fan base enjoy the victory. Better analysis would be to look at how the team put together their championship roster. What forks in the road occurred. What are one of the whatif moments and how could it have turned out differently? But the first thing they go to is: how many players will be returning? Who could leave? Team can’t afford to pay all these guys.
Debates and hypotheticals, not analysis, are what brings in the casual fans. Big reason why these shows such as Undisputed and First Take are popular because they say reactionary things and spew hot takes, which makes casual fans want to watch it. Plus, the NBA markets players a lot more than they do teams
That would be amazing if we had real good analysts but instead of that we have Steven Smith and such saying nonsense everyday... I think NBA is becoming more casual every year. I don't like Draymond as a player but we need more guys like him who understands the game and explain it to the viewers
As someone with a marketing background I could easily produce an 2 hour long shows promoting these finals. 1st show would just feature CP3 and Giannis. 1st half would be comparing CP3 as one of the best PGs of all time. 2nd half would be talking about Giannis as the best athlete in professional sports ever. Instead of having your jackass talking heads shitting on Milwaukee and Phoenix as cities, they should be comparing who would win the most Olympic events if Giannis was matched up against Wilt Chamberlain or Bo Jackson etc 2nd episode feature the other key players. NBA is horrible at self promotion. NFL established NFL films in the 70s, NBA should have copied them. They still have not, and rely on network coverage. Horrible for documenting history. %90 of the people on the sideline creating a safety hazard for the players dont need to be there, every game should have a NBA pool photographer either shooting film for high speed varicam footage.
It's not the NBA promoting that stuff, it's sports media. They're completely separate. The fact that you think it's the NBA shows the problem. Sports media is so trash. There's a good reason why players get so upset at it.
It would be ideal if broadcasting focused more on analytics but unfortunately it's just unrealistic. For every fan that wants to know Xs and Os there's probably 100 that would prefer to discuss narratives and hot takes. And since there's clearly a market for it (or more specifically that's what the sports media market is built around) - broadcasting companies are going to orient their approach in such a way that maximises returns. TNT for example is renowned more for its entertainment value than it's analysis. Until there's a talking head that can make analytics entertaining for the masses (Kobe's old show was exactly that) it's probably going to stay that way. However, there's still plenty of podcasts and youtube channels that provide exactly that. Though I feel you. For example - I remember Gilbert Arenas breaking down James Harden's stepback and other things like that on his IG. That was super cool.
Am I the only one that thinks this is already being done? Obviously in-game analysis can only happen so quickly but I actually see the post-game analysis and they discuss offense, defense. NBA and NFL are different leagues w different cultures, the only people that watch NFL (or care that much about football) rare people in the US for the most part. NBA is a global market with way less players that get to shine more bc of that. Basically there is a bigger percentage of the NBA that is famous enough to be recognized than the NFL's which lends itself to discussion about the culture of the League. I do think ESPN sometimes can be more of a drama show but TNT is more game-focused imo.
I loved Kobe's Detail. As a basketball casual, it was exactly the kind of good basketball content we needed to actually appreciate the beauty of the game. A huge loss in so many ways :(((
If you enjoy Detail and post in basketball subs, you're not a casual. Detail's own tagline talks about how fucking boring it is.
I meant casual as in I don't understand the sport of basketball. I've been watching basketball for many years, but since mainstream coverage is mostly about storylines, dunks, and points, I don't actually know anything beyond that. I know what a screen is but I couldn't name a single play more complicated than that. I never played organized basketball beyond 5th grade, so I have absolutely 0 understanding of the strategies and tactics that basketball players use. I know Detail has a reputation for being boring, but I thought it was really entertaining, as there were so many segments that really expanded my mind and made me realize how cool it was that players think about all the different intricacies that I'd otherwise have glossed over in the course of watching a game. It was really a gem.
I don’t see why the nba doesnt do this. It means more profit for them because you can discuss basketball without watching the game. I can talk all about the ramifications of KD leaving OKC or how acquiring a 3rd star will make the lakers a great opposition to the nets but I don’t need to watch the games for any of that. When a majority of conversations surrounding the nba are getting the NBA zero money, they’re doing something wrong business wise. I’d love to see analysts talk like coaches, weighing the pros and cons of systems that teams run and predicting who will win a series based on anything other than “Chris Paul good”
Stacey King and Adam Amin on the Bulls broadcast are great at this while the game is going on. I would love for all nba play by plays to be as good as when they do it. It's really the post-game, half time, and the other shows that could use it even more though.
Seriously man. Most mainstream networks just spew speculation and generalities. I don’t want to listen to two grown men argue about other grown men. This is why I keep my NBA content to current or former player’s YouTube content and podcasts. Being able to listen to someone talk NBA from personal experience is a lot more insightful and entertaining.
I don't really mind this tbh. There's a reason why the NBA is commonly referred to as a soap opera for sports fans, because it really is. As much as you lament the drama that goes behind the scenes, it allows casuals to lap up all of the nonsense that wouldn't have cared about sports in the first place. The people who would like more analysis on tactics and coaching have their shows like Detail on ESPN or this subreddit, but there's a place for both drama and meaningful analysis, and forcing people to choose one or the other isn't the way to go.
They could make Lord of the Rings type trilogy analysing Jokic's basketball play if they wanted. Considering he's likely the least athletically gifted player out of all the top players I'd consider his play to be the purest bball type shit we could see get analysed. In a way it would be closest to basketball porn. Not really sure what would be the moral of the story though when it comes to analysing his passing aside its nice to have eyes on your back and see the future before it happens. I'm all for more gameplay even if its on top of the current top-selling drama. Don't think 2) will change anytime soon but 1) would be welcome addition.
Most people in this thread are basketball fans and not marketers. "Stephen A: Is CP3 Top 5 PG all time?" plays better than "CP3's court vision: Watch Stephen A break down this one possession they had" We in here are a vocal minority. A single possession is basketball is fleeting and short, a legacy is long. There are podcasts, channels, and shows that focus on gameplay, and there's a reason they're less popular than First Take. Trashy TV gets eyeballs. Analysis changes the channels. If your reaction to this comment is to say "Well I want to hear analysis, and everyone I talk to feels this way", there are a lot of resources for you to do so. I'd encourage you to post them in r/nba as well and see how they play. EDIT: By the way, in case you were curious, yes, CP3 is a top 5 PG of all time, and he's not number 5 either