Indeed that right there can def be a KEY part of it the villain element..we saw a great example of it the other day with Trae and New York and whenever they duel it's always had big hype around it you can't deny so to have at least that going on is good for the league more is needed
If everyone appreciated Giannis instead of constantly critiquing him, nba would be in better spot. Who cares that he’s in Milwaukee. Embrace the small market stars.
I believe people wanted the underdog hawks to upset the bucks and make the cup finals due to the fact it brings the storyline up another notch a nice plot twist.. the bucks making it was just too predictable and I believe that's why a whole lot of viewership died off right after they won
@@boondockbwoy14nobody cares about the NBA Cup regardless of who’s in it. It’s literally just scheduled games that they deem tournament game haha dumb. Instead of the All Star break, make that a tournament week that doesn’t count towards the regular season but still get the bonus for winning. If it is consecutive then you lose interest waiting for the next game
As European Basketball fan, I follow the NBA, but hate watching the NBA for one good reason - timeout and stoppage length. NBA is just a business, they only care about money and they made commercial breaks so long, its no longer watchable, to me at least, they even comercialised official reviews, peak capitalistic dystopia. I watch Euroleague games, far less talent on that court, far better product to watch.
People are wrong. It doesn't suck. But it needs work: Too many threes, too many entitled players taking too much time off. But there are so many great things about the current NBA product; I've been hearing about how terrible the NBA is from American fans since the 70s and many of the complaints have a common thread...
He got me thinking when he said NFL only has 10 superstars while the NBA has 35-40. I actually had trouble getting to 10 for the NFL but 35-40 is a stretch for the NBA. NFL: Lamar Jackson, Allen, Burrow, Prescott, Stafford, Jefferson, Mahomes, Kelce, Tyreek Hill, Rodgers (you could argue Stafford/ Prescott are stars because QBs in Dallas and LA but that might be stretching it). NBA: Tatum, Embiid, PG, Giannis, Dame, Young, LaMelo, Jimmy Butler, Joker, Steph, Draymond, Luka, Kyrie, Klay, Ant, Harden, Kawai, Shai, Lebron, AD, Ja, Durant, Booker, Zion, Wemby
"'Too woke,' I'm not gonna touch that." Actually, Bill, it would be nice if you DID touch it. (White) people root for the NBA to fail, they always have. You have a booming, highly profitable league. Ratings no longer matter bc no one watches TV anymore. The NBA is still global and huge. So why is anyone fretting about it? It's just racism. Sorry folks. I said it.
@@manuginobilisbaldspot2 but his argument pretty much was “nba only in good place when Celtics are great” lol his bias is very clear even if he doesn’t want to admit it. Go back and listen when he says the league is in great shape… it’s the times the Celtics are successful - with singular caveat being Jordan bulls
@@HerbHerman-le5uxyeah especially trying to claim that the 76 finals was an example of the nba being massively successful popularity-wise, is fucking crazy
@@HerbHerman-le5uxyou’re not wrong, but that’s kind of how the league works. When the most popular teams/athletes are doing well (Celtics, Lakers, Jordan, LeBron, Curry etc.) typically that helps to prop the rest of the sport up. It’s not a definite rule, like the guy said above, Bill says the NBA is in a bad spot right now while the Celtics have the best team since their big three run over a decade ago. But, if the big teams/ markets/ players are doing great, it brings more eyes to the sport.
For real. (If you are having a gambling problem in Alabama call 1 800 i sold my kids and in Illinois call 888 holy shit and in Texas mail a self addressed stamped envelope to oh no I bet my rent on the OKC Supersonics again, etc. etc. etc.)
Yea this really hurt sports media more than anything. However every time a player gets caught betting it makes me so suspicious of everything, officiating in particular
To me, maybe the biggest issue is the monetization system the NBA is using. How many subscriptions do I need to watch JUST my favorite team?! Its like 6, and if I dont have all of them, I get blacked out. I will continue to steal the product, streaming illegally, until I can pay a FAIR price to ONE subscription. Anything short of that, and I wont spend a dime.
Exactly this right here what you've just pointed out is the MAIN reason behind it all and I have no clue why the NBA doesn't wanna recognize and address this and why many people themselves can't see it..I'm sure they must know it's just ridiculous to have to scramble and subscribe to all these dif outlets just to catch your fav team play, right? So then these streaming sites are created and the product gets stolen
@@Mskedu47 Bill doesn’t understand the difference between lagging and leading indicators. I can tell you no one wants to watch Alex Sarr jack 6 threes a game, though.
Do they matter? The NBA just got a huge new TV deal despite declining ratings for the past decade. It doesn’t make sense to me, but i guess the networks are so desperate for sports programming, they will overpay?
They matter less than in the past. It is a shifting landscape and the traditional "more TV sets in circulation, therefore more direct viewership ratings to boost profitability" rubric is morphing. Traditional ad sales are no longer the focus of most marketing budgets so, that traditional ad spot as the sole goal of content has changed to more of a interactive engagement model. While it is still nascent, it will culminate in personalized ad and sales opportunities becoming the measure over ratings on the current trajectory. The NBA is by far the "best" of the major pro sports leagues in player recognition and online engagement which is what the soon to be target demographic likes. Short highlight packages, clips, non-game content like summer workouts, etc. So it doesn't matter if Embiid is hurt so long as he can still engage (and as we will see in the near future, pitch product) to viewers, fans and followers. That NBA player follower base is the "hidden" value that these new deals are hoping to unlock and monetize - the content is just to get the eyes, but selling add generic spots in world of individual streamers that are ID'ed and can be targeted through direct marketing is the real game of the future. (Maybe Embiid is a bit much, but think of all the rehab videos and come back tweets we see now. 10 years ago, it was like "oh that player is finally back?", now its an event with hype and build up). 24/7/365 story-lines and player engagement is what those record contracts are about. No one care to much about how many fans show up to the game, and its becoming that way with the regular season games too.
@opieg7333 But I would add, as someone who goes to NFL, NBA, and MLB games in Atlanta, the NBA has the best in arena experience, followed by MLB, then NFL. The pitch clock and player personal music intros really helped the MLB. But there is something fun during every stoppage in arena at an NBA game.
Hey guess what? Watching 100 3s go up every game isn't very exciting. It's not a USA thing either I'm in Australia and my friends agree with the too many 3s.
@@mikeclarke3990 international numbers isn't really an issue. The NBA consistently dominates other markets compared to its american counterparts like the NFL and the MLB. I hear on the style of play but to me their biggest problems are the lack of new true superstars and the constant injuries resulting in stars missing a lot of games.
Agree 100% I am a fan in New Zealand and have had league pass for over a decade and find myself actively turning games off this season. A lot of them feel like a chore to sit through with all the threes, stoppages and complaining
@@fkm512yeah it genuinely sucks and I don’t know if it’s some sort of player lack of awareness but I feel the exact way. And I don’t like to make it about money at all but like cmon man your pulling a 40 million dollar paycheck and your going to ruin the entertainment aspect every time you chuck a shot up? Kinda sucks I find myself as a way bigger football fan this year
@trolleyman98 The thing is, Wemby isn't interested in being the face of the league. You're also correct that the NBA does a piss poor job of marketing him and others.
The difference between NFL and NBA media is stark. No one is pushing for Mahomes to go to a bigger market but every time there's a star in the NBA not from the coasts, every show is frothing at the mouth begging them to leave. Christ, countdown was talking about trading Giannis right before the game last night. Shameful.
Wemby has played 92 games so far. He’s not even 1/10th of the player he’ll be in 5 years. And the NBA media only cares about the reigning champ, LA, NY, Lebron, Curry, KD. That’s about it, everyone else feels lucky when their team gets talked about.
He's a non-American playing on a medicore, small market team. Like Jokic, he does as little press as possible. As far as the favoritism to certain areas, welcome to sports, lol. Welcome to the real world as well .
Yes, if Jokic/Giannis/Wemby etc were in NYC or LA, this would be a bit different conversation. But they aren't, and the game still seems less watchable than past years to this NBA fan.
one of the best vids i've seen, nice little trip through nba history. Though i would say magic having hiv and retiring was bigger than the decision bc everyone thought that magic would be dead in a year.
That last element about how easy it is to keep up with the league without actually WATCHING a game is huge. I'm firmly in that camp; i keep crazy up to date with the league, watch tons of content etc... but very very very rarely actually watch a game.
@JamesWill-t8p very interesting comment. I’m wondering which direction you are going with this. do you think most fans are only watching the 10 minute recap of games and only seeing the very end of half of the possessions and that’s why all they think happens in the game is a whole bunch of 3 balls being jacked up and view league redundancy as being more of a serious thing today than it’s been in the past? OR maybe that it’s the fans who only watch the exciting recaps of games, with all of the good plays and MADE 3s and highlights, who think the league today is fun and exciting, only because they aren’t “slogging”( not saying I feel this way, but this is the belief ) through all of the missed 3s and perhaps foul baits and whatnot?
@JamesWill-t8p That's true. The same thing was said in the 90s b/c of the rise of ESPN highlights. Everybody said that people were just watching dunks and not appreciating the game itself and that all the dunk highlights were making younger players focus on trying to be like Mike instead of playing fundamental ball. Younger fans have no idea how hated Kobe was (not to mention J.R. Rider, Harold Miner, all the prior next MJs). It is literally an American pasttime to hate on the NBA, as Bill is explaining in detail.
@JamesWill-t8p I'm from L.A. When Kobe was going off scoring 81 points, 63 in 3 quarters against the 60-win Mavs, and 50 in 4 straight games all anyone did was complain about how much of a ball hog he was and how he diminished his teammates. Every radio show, every TV spot, it was endless. He was negatively compared to MJ before him and LeBron coming up behind him. NBA "fans" just like to complain.
@JamesWill-t8p I think you're missing James's point. He's pointing out the irony and absurdity of criticizing today's players for jacking up too many threes while simultaneously praising Kobe, who is probably the most notorious ball hog in NBA history. The list of complaints lodged against the league has always been a mile long and it is no worse now than at several other times in league history.
@@jaredbattista4985 The real answer is both leagues have maybe 3 that are recognizable to non sports fans. I don't think people realize how siloed media is now a days, if you aren't a sports fan you just don't know shit about sports. I have friends who don't follow sports who couldn't tell you Shohei Ohtani or Aaron Rodgers are. Monoculture died about a decade ago, so anyone who became "famous" after around 2014 will never be a household name.
@@jaredbattista4985 to be fair, the NBA is much more star driven and the players don’t have their faces covered when they play. I do agree that he’s massively overstated the difference though.
You’re so mad the Bucks won and you can’t make up fake Giannis trades up anymore. You decided to skip talking about the Cup just so you didn’t have to praise the Bucks 😂😂😂
Agree this was a miss in the video. But he is focusing on cultural status in the bigger culture, and the Spurs were never that big outside of NBA true fans. Total respect to the Spurs and Duncan and Pop in particular, but they didn't have the overall cultural impact/import like the other stars he mentions.
He mentioned Tim duncan and that nobody resonated with him. He mentioned that no one cared about the 03 finals. The 99 lockout season was a bad moment. There was zero hype for all four titles they won from 99-07. Their style of basketball was boring for the casual fan, and that's not good for business. That's the whole point of this
@@jcf4074 It wasn't boring. It's because they were in a small market. If they were the New York Spurs, they would've been talked about as one of the greatest dynasties of all time.
The nba needs a new commissioner, not a unicorn. The stars are phenomenal. The game is getting dull, defence barely matters, jacking up threes is taking away from the athleticism. Someone with some balls needs to change something in the actual game, hand checking, no corner threes, teams make their own three point lines plenty of fixes just need someone to do it.
Yet drives and dunks are up. Okc, Houston and Orlando (and Minnesota lately) are putting up defensive ratings that would be above average in the rugged 90s. Teams like the nuggets or kings play very different than for instance the Mavericks. We had hand checking, no flagrant fouls and barely any 3s in the 80s and teams still averaged 110 ppg, some (Denver), even 120 ppg. Pace dictates scoring. And pace is required to beat a set team defence (see early 2000s when teams could finally play team defence with illegal defence gone but offenses were still slow and iso heavy). I feel what you are saying is just echo chamber and you have no actual stats to back it up...
@@hughplayer7612 you just watched the bucks out on a defensive masterclass. The garbage teams are garbage to watch ever since the beginning of the NBA. The top teams actually play defense. That's what separates them from the garbage teams.
The whole too many foreigners thing is such a balogna. I've not heard one real person complain about that. They shoot too many 3s and nobody has cable anymore.
It's crazy watching teams like OKC who are so much better at midrange refuse to stop chucking threes even when it's going like last night too. People act like they had no choice, but that's nonsense. (Never mind that Giannis doesn't shoot 3's and usually is the highest scoring player in games like this too)
@@infasisdo you think they would have been able to keep up with a 17/40 night from the Bucks without the attempted 3s though? I know they missed! So it didn’t work. But let’s say they only took 19 3s instead of the 32 or so they took. So let’s say those 13 possessions they take 2s/. Make 7? That’s really good…let’s say they make 6 cuz bucks D in the paint is really solid lately. So thars 12 points. And let’s give them 2 FTs. They still lose….and that’s being generous. Point being, when one team is making nearly 50 percent of their 3s, at high volume, if you can’t match them it’s going to be very hard to keep up! BUT I understand what I said isn’t a perfect equivalence. It’s not really fair for me to do it that way, but it was just an anecdote to show why teams feel so forced to take 3s. As a Celtics fan, I have seen almost every team in the first month of the year where their interior D was weak trt to beat them via 60% 2s vs the Celtics 3s. And almost NO ONE could. It was actually crazy to see it. Teams would have the game of their lives but Celtics always go on one of their streaks every so often and nail 3 3s in 35 seconds lol. It’s very hard to win when you aren’t making 3s in a league of shooters who take 35-50 per game! That volume is just SO high that unless the teams shoots like below 30 percent, it’s going to be hard to beat them if you only take 2s yourself!
@@schuylersavage276 I only really say that because of their defense. I don't mean for teams playing high paced and getting up tons of shots, but for OKC's specific case and roster it might work better.
@@infasis ok I hear that! I do like the idea of teams being confident enough to think for themselves. I actually believe the Celtics, while they are one of the teams, maybe THE team, that is setting the trend so many are trying to follow with the 3 ball, came up with their own vision a few years ago and have shown exceptional foresight to craft the team and roster and style of play they have weaponized right now. To your point, the Celtics didn’t just start chucking 50 3s per game in 2017 when they first got this idea. They slowly over time made the moves to bring in the players they knew could execute their vision most perfectly. As we saw, Al horford was not a good fit for some teams in the modern game. But, on a team with a specific mantra and approach, he is literally SO valuable to them! Same with Derrick White. NOW everyone sees his value, it’s immense, but in San Antonio he was just sort of wasting away and no one knew it, except for Steven’s and the Celtics! Also Targeting Pritchard and keeping him two summers ago. Bringing in KP when he was also wasting away in DC adter the league sort of forget about him when it went bad with Luka. It’s all so brilliant. And to that point, Presti has done an amazing job crafting his vision in OKC! Like wow! But I guess we’ll see if they are able to stick to the mantra of how they want to play the game, not just who they want playing for them. But I have to say I do think they are a team that should shoot 3s at a decent rate. They have too mant good shooters not to let them. Williams is a great shooter. Isiah Joe tippy top. They got like 7 guys between 38-42 percent. I think they typically do have a nice mix of mid range and interior approach with SGAs unstoppable game and Isiah in the paint, and then they mix in Williams off the dribble shooting and creating ability with the rest of the role players who are almost all best at shooting 3s than they are any other offense approach
Apart from the next unicorn, here's how you fix the NBA: (1) move back the 3 point line enough to dis-incentivize the boring and absurd percentage of 3s taken (2) eliminate the "gather step" and call traveling consistently (3) provide fans with an affordable way to watch every game of *their home team* online, without cable (4) bring back hand checking [this won't happen, but replace this with some realistic defense-positive rule change] (5) shorten the season (6) loosen the trade restrictions on to-the-penny salary matching for capped teams (7) develop young US-based talent at least as well as France does (8) put Bronny James face on every single NBA jersey ever printed from now until the end of time one of these is a joke
Most of these are great recommendations that fans would get behind. If players wanted to compete against each other more and if the teams would stop jacking up 3s the 82 game season would be fine.
This “the old guys won’t go away” thing is very similar to what we’ve seen in corporations and government. All the old people who are supposed to go away refuse to go away.
If the new guys want those folks to go away, they gotta TAKE the torch. Otherwise the new guys won't get any respect. The fact that "LeBron's team" can still put the work on a guy like Morant and the Grizzlies with only AD and a bunch of low caliber roll players shows why those old guys aren't going away. They need to played to a stop in the regular season for a couple few years. A 3peat from Boston with a bad playoff run from all 3 might also have about the same effect. My guess is that the time is coming in the next 2 or 4 years for at least two of Bron, Curry, and Durant. I do want to see someone take up the torch.
@@bagbroch9339 that’s the thing though. I’ve seen podcasts when retired players realized it was time for them to go. The old guys aren’t having that moment because they’re carrying the young guys lol
Giannis and Jokic are literally right here being generational for years and will continue but the media still are just sucking off the aging stars. We all know why. Both small markets,both foreigners....
Denver is a medium size market.....it's 30 teams in the nba 1st 10 are big markets 10-20 are medium size markets and 20-30 are small markets.......Denver atlanta...Phoenix est are medium size markets who get alot of exposure.....
We cant overstate how important the illegal defence rule was. With illegal defence you basically couldnt play team defence and the game was very iso heavy. Without illegal defence, team defence became too good, post ups became very hard and scoring/ratings are terrible. There are 2 solutions to this problem; pace and space. Shoot before the defence is set and/or lure the defence out of the paint, break them with spread out ball movement. Phoenix first embraces this (they would be last in todays game in pace btw), orlando takes it up a notch (with lewis and turkoglu), miami is the first real 5 out with bosh and battier and then curry doubles down on it.
Good thing someone knows their history. There's very little rule change from the 2000s or the deadball to the current NBA. The main change is that Nash and the suns was scoring at will with average players by the simple concept of pace and space. And it's not like the drives per game decreased. Teams just became smart enough to convert those long 2s into 3s. Guys like KG, bosh, Duncan have that long 2 in their shot diet. Players today simply decides to shoot a few more feet away for 1 more point.
@@glovs4188exactly! In the last decade the number of drives has risen significantly and so has the number of dunks. Thats not just the increase in pace. It's those below 40% mid range shots that each team would take 30 times per game that have moved beyond the 3point line. People need to look up this stat (mid range team shooting) for as far back as it is available to see how truly bad it was. Yet nostalgia has a lot of people believing that was great to watch (i mean specifically "the lost art of the mid range game").
Yes we can overstate it. The illegal defense was so rarely called. The offense had to expose it to get the call and elite players regularly got away with playing zone. See: the Jordan rules or Bird in the 86 finals.
Seems like a real 5 head idea but if the NBA ever had a game on a public broadcast channel and not behind a 300 dollar a year nba tv wall i bet people would watch more
I just have regular cable and I have every single one of my teams games, along with every primetime ESPN and TNT game, along with the free nba tv game. What are you talking about?
Yh, growing up in Southern California, every morning I’d go to school and talk about the Laker game with my classmates because they were all on KCAL, so even the poorest kids could watch. Now with games off of public broadcast stations, each generation of fans will get progressively smaller.
I still keep up with the league, but I rarely watch live games for two reasons. I'm not a gambler, so when most the ads are gambling related and you're seeing employees of the networks shilling for gambling sites, I don't like it. Speaking of ads, both the insane amount of commercial breaks and now for the past few seasons in game ads during free throws. I hate it. Also the amount of ads EVERYWHERE on the broadcast (the floor, the uniforms etc.) is visually unappealing to me. One more thing is the NBA cup gimmick courts need to go. They are TERRIBLE!
Lamelo Ball, in Charlotte, and Zion Williams in New Orleans are more recognizable than probably 5 football players for people under 30. Yes, they have at least 35 recognizable stars to anyone with a cursory interest in U.S. sports.
@thefearmakerlive Most people have never heard of those guys. The NBA AT BEST has a handful of recognizable players to the general public. You yourself didn't even get Zion's last name correct, LOL. The modern NBA doesn't have any likeable players or stars that the general public will gravitate to. The glory days of the 1980s and 90s are long gone.
@vincentseidle954 Real beefs, Real rivalries, no bs officiating, Real defense, Letting us hear what the players actually want for example they want more rest but they don't say why they don't shorten season. Enough for you?
@JamesWill-t8p ok dude. That's why ratings are down. How can someone determine who actually is the best if the way the game is called doesn't allow them to find out.
No we don't. We have players switching teams all the time, players yuk-yukking with their pals on the court, rather than hating the guy in the opposing uniform. These guys don't know what 'rivalry' means. Everyone worries about 'brand' and not looking like the villain who might lose social media cred.
Mentioning the '06 finals reffing and not the fact that the Shaq and Kobe "threepeat" would have been a one and done without the referees literally deciding who won the WCF twice, especially in 2002, is certainly a take.
Right... ad Billy Boy will never confess exlicitly that he is a Business Guy, not a Sports Guy, and he loves the money angle much more than he loves--if he ever loved--the cometitive sports angle. He skips over Donaghy and Malice because those memories are bad for business.
@@Black-kv1iv How does that trade work money-wise? You'll likely say "Beal" but don't forget he has a no-trade clause (also, why would Miami want him?) Houston makes so much sense. 1. Jimmy is from there. 2. They have the assets. 3. They actually have pieces that Miami would want.
I remember a time where Ewing, Malone, Dream, Barkley, Payton were all in the league but Stern moved on and began pushing the next wave with Shaq, Duncan, KG, Kobe, TMac, Dirk, Iverson, Carter. Even when Jordan in 2002 returned Stern didnt make him the face of the league, he knew that to keep this thing going you have to push the next wave. Silver's mistake is he never wanted to move on from LeBron, Curry, and KD. HE STILL DOES NOT WANT TO MOVE ON FROM THEM. The league should be pushing Tatum, Giannis, Jokic, Luka, and Shai really hard right now. And on deck are guys like Victor, Paolo, Ant, Ja, Cade, Haliburton.
The carrying of the ball when dribbling, the lack of defense, the 3 pointers, the load management is killing the league. And the younger generation just don’t watch a lot of tv for a long period of time. College basketball is bad. There isn’t any stars in college basketball anymore. This leads to the NBA. No one knows who the stars are in college anymore. And one more thing that is killing the NBA AAU basketball
"The ratings are down but I'm not sure the interest is down." Stop. The interest is obviously down. Where interest is high is with the tik tok generation. But the problem with the tik tok generation is that the overwhelming majority of them don't watch complete games. They only consume highlights. Even when the playoffs come around. That's also the reason why they're the main part of the fanbase in denial that there's a problem with the game. Because all they see is short clips of highlight dunks, game winners and everybody on fire from 3. They're not watching the 75% of threes that don't go in, the sameness on offense or the lack of defense from play to play. Now how's that TV contract going to look in 3 years when advertisers realize the prime demographic isn't watching the actual games and the NBA has done nothing to bring back the 35 and over viewers that this current style has driven away?
Have you watched okc, Houston, Orlando and lately also minnesota play defence? Their rating would be above league average even in the rugged 90s. You're telling me teams like Sacramento or Denver look similar to Boston or Orlando? Have you seen how how Cleveland uses mobley this season? Drives and dunks have steadily gone up in the last decade, the amount of ground defences have to cover keeps increasing. Please watch a 90s game again and count how often teams post up with the rest just standing around and watching. If the game is samey today, it was worse before ..
@@maartenvz Both have some solid points - to just dismiss the comment flat out is ignorant. People have to so much to watch these days that the standard for maintaining one’s complete attention is quite high.
Not spot on. Sounds like an old man’s take. Interest is not down to any significant degree. The manner in which interest is being demonstrated simply cannot be measured by ratings.
You are 100% correct, Quan. Bill is just describing the peaks and valleys of NBA history and calling all the peaks “unicorn moments.” He went as far as to say the last unicorn moment was 2008-2019. Dude is literally calling an ELEVEN YEAR stretch a “moment.” Glad someone else noticed how silly it is.
Actually to be fair, he said 2008-2019 was a “unicorn stretch”. But an eleven year stretch is kind of the opposite of something you’d label a unicorn (ie, something rare/unique). As you said, it’s an era.
My point would be that the NBA having to do an in-season gimmick tournament to try and incent the players to give a crap is a pretty significant sign of underlying issues. At the end of the day for sports - it is the competition that is entertaining, and the current game doesn't seem to have that competition in relation to the past. I also think that just pointing to the TV deal as sign of health is shortsighted. Legacy TV executives are desperate, and it wouldn't be the first time that the person who made the biggest mistake "won" the bid. If ratings continue to tank, the US right's holders are going to lose ridiculous sums of money, and the goose will be cooked when this contract is up.
I haven't mentioned before, but Bill, you are my fav sports voice to listen to on long drives. I'm a news junkie and binge on that for like 3 hours and finally skip to sports and end up killing another 3 or 4 hours with you and the guys. Always on the right edge of informative and funny and a relazing way to escape from reality of world. Have a nice day.
Aw. Bucks win so Bill can't come up with fake trades for Giannis or Dame, so he doesn't even talk about the game. How about this being the problem: NBA media sucks. They talk too much about trades, Lebron, Steph, the Celtics, Embiid. They only watch their pet teams and when they talk about the league's so-called not-haves, all they have to offer are lame, ignorant hot takes that are really just things they heard their other NBA media buddies say.
It would be more forgivable if Bill had the balls to talk about LeBron (and his doping) properly. But he won't. Bill is access media like everyone else
I enjoyed the NBA Cup Final. Giannis played hard on both ends, stuffed the stat sheet, and had some huge blocks. Dame scored efficiently and his corner step-back three was probably the play of the game. Role players like AJ Green and Splash Mountain contributed… nice team win for Milwaukee. OKC showed their defensive tenacity. Besides the poor shooting from the Thunder, what wasn’t to like?
It was fun because players played with actual intensity. The problem is players only summon that energy for the playoffs and maybe a couple regular season games against rivals and most games end up looking like high level LA fitness runs- one teams runs down chucks up a 3, other team gives minimal defensive effort, etc. The thing is the games are played at too high of a pace/intensity to play that way for 82 games a year, but the players and owners don’t want to shorten the season because it would cost them money.
The problem with the league is that we’re constantly told the only thing that matters is the NBA finals. Nothing in the regular season matters. So the fans and the players don’t take the regular season seriously. Not sure who is to blame for that but the cat is out of the bag. Not sure if it can be fixed.
quite the revisionist retelling of the nba here with bill saying the 2000s were "grim" after saying the league had tim duncan, dirk, kg, shaq/kobe, lebron, dwayne wade
The 2000s was my favorite time to watch. Still tough ish. But players idolized MJ, so a lot of skill started to be introduced. Now it's kinda based on percentages and analytics...how the game is played in general.
At the time (and this was when Bill was in his prime as a columnist), Bill was implicitly and sometimes openly hyping the league as better than MLB and NHL; now I think it was just to counter heavy mainstream narrative regarding the Pistons defense "killing the game".
This doesn’t get talked about enough. The lack of intensity of too many 3’s thing has been an issue for like five years, but the league was still surviving on trade rumors/hype. Now we don’t even get that.
yet you don't want to touch the real problem, just because you don't want to admit it, it matters. The fans have been telling you and the NBA choose not to listen this is what happens when you don't listen to your fans
The one and done college career is killing the game. You use to learn about players from watching them in 2-3 years of college, not to mention they actually were coached up in the day. I am a Blazer fan, and we have a joke of a point guard in Scoot, that can't even hit a jump shot.
"The NBA Needs Its Next “Unicorn” Moment" Man, Wemby was a rookie last year, and you don't get more unicorn than him. Do we really expect a revolution of basketball every year?!
@@Irfanhill yeah I have absolutely no idea with the caption on this one I’m lost as well lol. There has NEVER been a prospect like wembanyama I have no idea what kind of unicorn we’re expecting here😂do we need a guy who’s 7 foot 7 now?
In this scenario he’s talking about dynasties that draw extra attention or particularly good series that become classics. Which is fair. The last intense finals that actually went to 7 games was 2016. That’s insane. And teams are seemingly only capable of going one year at a time making the finals. So no true dynasties
@@gators9570 I mean yeah but I’ve been bringing up this question for a couple years as well. What would be better for the league? Seeing Tatum, Giannis, Jokic, booker/ja/etc get their first rings respectfully or do you think it would be better for just one of those players to win a few in a row? Genuine question because I’m torn on it 100%. I’d love to see a rivalry and another dynasty but at the same time it’s fun to let different teams have their deserved glory
I think Ja Morant/Zion was supposed to be the next unicorn moment, but he got suspended and Zion can't stay in the court. Joker just doesn't resonate with fans the same was Duncan didn't. It's a shame OKC put us such a dud in the NBA cup, they are a fun team casuals could get into they could be the 'unicorn' team the way the warriors were Once ant gets traded to the Lakers that will allow him to break thru and carry the league
a big part is also the cities they went to and how the media reacted to that. Even if zion was great he'd still be playing for the pelicans, they needed him on basically any other team. knicks, bulls, suns, cavs, hawks, mavs were all much better media wise than new orleans and memphis.
People who dislike the nba because of political reasons or general disdain for the players being entitled and putting in low effort/taking games off have been blaming the threes as the sole reason for the dip in ratings or loss of interest when it isn’t as much of an issue as poor marketing and access to the games/load management. Also should bring back the classic theme music on espn and not the garbage they have now
Bring back hand checking, eliminate the corner three and crack down on carry/walk/double dribble. That's it. Teams will be forced to get creative on offense, classic positions will return and different skills will emerge.
@@BillTony2 Yup. People act like hesitation dribbles and step backs and combinations were created in the last 10 years ago. All you have to do is go watch the AND1 mixtapes from the late 90s. This stuff has been around forever but NBA players couldn't break it out in games because refs actually called carries, walks and double dribbles.
This point some people make over too many dominant foreign players or whatever is just… not good enough of a reason for somehow the ratings to go down imo and also just silly for us Americans to worry about. I think it’s a lot of things that have accumulated to what we have now. I’ll call out Harden for the way he took advantage of player empowerment just for one. The all star game also just represents what the game is now to the best players of the league and it’s just a disrespect to the legends of the past who built this and who gave it their all, with consideration of us fans too.
A lot of Americans are racist and xenophobic af. I know that can be difficult for some people to accept, but it's just a fact. Also, a lot of star players and key players are getting injured like crazy. As a Bulls fan, the past decade+ has been dark times for my Bulls as a result of injuries, and the same can be said for so many teams. That's why the all-star games have become trash, because players aren't trying to get injured playing hard. It's a sad fact of reality, but I can't blame 'em. That also bleeds into the player empowerment stuff, because to your point about James Harden, I see both sides of it. When Harden was on the Nets, the covid shutdown happened and Kyrie REFUSED to go to the bubble and REFUSED to get the shot, which pretty much sabotaged the team that year in 2020. The next year, the Nets were pretty much gonna win it all, but they got hit with the injury bug against the Bucks (and then the Big Toe happened). I can't blame Harden for wantin' to leave after that. Then there's that whole thing that happened with Daryl Morey, plus Sixers fans weren't too sad to see him go after his typical hot & cold performances in the playoffs. It's an unfortunate part of sports. There are so many factors that affect various aspects of the game, including unforeseen events and unintended consequences of rules changes and whatnot, so it's difficult to find a balance that pleases everyone and allows the league to continue to profit.
Player empowerment really has hurt the product overall. Sure, guys making insane trade requests and massive stars getting moved every single season draws up talk of the NBA on social media and all that, but it’s slowly killing fandom. Your “team” changes so rapidly, it’s insane, while the organizations are forced to bet everything in their 3-4 year future on 1-2 guys who make like half the money on the team. It’s busted
I'm in the group of people who track the league but rarely watch games. They're too fitful - marred by too many time-outs, ads and refereeing delays. There are too many games which devalues each of them, and they're already devalued by a post-season. And the pattern of play - constantly jacking up threes - is unsightly. The rules and format need a major rethink. When the participants themselves don't feel like every game is important, that's a big problem.
It's not just an american problem, european fans who used to love the nba now roll their eyes at the way the game is played. Also another contributing factor is the degradation of loyalty towards the team amongst players.
@@chrkonst that’s mostly a issue created by ring culture that media & fans promote when y’all talk about these players . How about yall stop supporting first take & shows like that & maybe stars wouldn’t mind retiring with a team even if they don’t win
Bill is so out of touch that it’s scary. I’ve noticed that, ever since he made the big bucks by selling The Ringer, his takes have become wackier and ludicrous. For a guy who kept saying that Eddie Murphy stopped being funny when he lost touch with the everyday man, it’s funny that Bill doesn’t realize the same thing has happened to him. The NBA is awful and he keeps making stuff up to try to convince himself that it’s great, even when everyone’s telling him that it sucks.
@@dameistersports1925 Great take, dude. I’ve followed Bill since his days as a columnist on ESPN’s Page 2. Used to love the guy, but now he has started to sound more and more like present-day Howard Stern.
@JamesWill-t8p The video literally starts off with him saying that the NBA is doing just fine because they signed a multi-billion TV deal, did you not watch it? Also, in previous videos, he's made the comparison with the 1990's and 2000's, stating that the league back then was bad and that it's great now. In addition to all that, in this video he said that the 2010's were not good. Stop being a fanboy and actually pay attention to what your idol's saying in the videos before you come hating on those of us who really do watch them and care about what's being said. I used to love the NBA and it bothers me that those who are profiting from it now (such as Simmons himself) don't give a crap about how the product has diminished just because it makes money.
@JamesWill-t8p Yeah, right. I'm gonna be AI messing with you when I'm quoting Simmons' theory about why Eddie Murphy stopped being funny. It proves that I've followed him for a long time (not a recent fanboy like you) and I really dislike what he's become now, which is an apologist for a league that no longer cares about its hardcore fans. And, since he became a millionaire with his Ringer deal, he's had this know-it-all attitude that doesn't allow him to get in touch with what's really happening.
This was really well done I learned a lot here, and maybe the transition we are in with the NBA is just natural. A lot of added context I didn’t know was in this video. This has to be the only video on YT that addresses the NBAs history with this angle. If there is another one I wanna see it lol
Basketball is as popular as ever but the ratings are going down. Illegal streaming is the reason for that. Nobody spends $100 a month on subscription packages & they shouldn’t.
One of the reasons ratings are down is lack of access to games. They can’t have days where this is 1 nba game, and cup game for that matter, and can’t be viewed on league pass.
@JamesWill-t8p During Thanksgiving I believe they were. Either that or something that was streaming on a common movie channel because I watched. Is the NFL easier or harder to watch?
All Star Game sucks. Regular season is boring and key players are systematically out. In the playoffs 30% of the games are blow outs because of 3 points shots. The game totally like physicality and every game is kinda the same, with very small stylistic variations. I think NBA will need a complete reset.
All this talk about "stylistic variation" (which is mostly false cause teams from the same era usually play the same and have similar shot profiles) don't compare to the real issue, which is the lack of american superstars and the constant injuries.
@@deepvoicedude4749No, that’s not true. The All-Star games from 1984-2004 were much more competitive than the ones we have seen in the last 20 years. Guys actually played defense and didn’t just shoot threes and go for wide open dunks in transition. Guys actually fouled opposing players but they didn’t foul as hard as they would during a regular game.
Get rid of the 3 point shot and make all shots equal. The NFL shows courage to change things up to make its product better. Sports are a show. And NBA content is boring.
Because the days of 88-72 blowouts weren't boring? It got so bad that the All Star Game was the only time all year I didn't have to see nothing but boring defense brickfests
@@chrisuncleahmad666 remove the three point line and make all baskets equal-encourages more offensive diversity and creativity in getting the ball into the basket. Right now, we have 3 point shot chucking LA fitness style basketball. It’s boring! Be like the NFL and make adjustments! Fire Adam Silver.
@@harveycminusmansfiel You know what WAS boring? 84-80 brickfests where you almost wish there was a 3 pointer instead of isoball spamming, which wasn't exactly diversity or creativity.
Yea seeing the 2000s nostalgia I feel like I’m in the twilight zone lol. People don’t actually want to go back to that time cuz they didn’t like it back then when it was happening. All those rule changes weren’t for no reason
The NBA will be just fine. Their TV ratings in the US are down because cable TV is down. All of cable TV is on a death spiral. Moving the NBA off TNT and onto ABC on Saturday nights and NBC on Sunday nights is going to be great for the league. Welcome back to broadcast network TV the rest of this stuff about stars and what not will take care of itself as it always does.
@@maartenvz guys used to actually play games. And the games used to be like 98-94. The norm now is for a game to be 124-101 It’s possible to watch 100 nba games and not see 1 come down to the final minute.
@JamesWill-t8p fair enough, I’m just remembering a typical game being way more competitive than they are now. Obviously if these teams are taking 40 threes, if one team makes 21 and the other team 13 then that 24 points you have to make up Somewhere, otherwise we just get a blowout. When I’m watching a game, I just want it to be competitive and have a “crunch time” it won’t happen all the time of course but IMO they are wayyyy to many games decided by 20+ points considering how deep the league is.
Every other league's viewership has rebounded since Covid, or even increased in the MLB's case. The NBA just puts out a bad product despite having the most player talent in 30 years.
@@chrisuncleahmad666Their product doesn’t suck… their playoffs is the best out of the 4 major sports. Their problem is too much parity. Hockey is a Rangers Stanley Cup win away from showing much more positive ratings. The problem with Hockey is the Florida Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning dominating the sport. If it were the Rangers or the Toronto Maple Leafs or the Philadelphia Flyers, the numbers would increase drastically.
BRING BACK THE HAND CHECK. Hand check from inbound until the 3pt line. Make the 3 ball harder to take. Once the opponent crosses passed their 3 pt line they are now a driving opponent. The hand check cant be used. Allows freedom of movement. Encourages teams to drive inside. Makes 3s harder to take. No unchecked 3s and bad shots. Revenue is divided among the 30 teams at a base level. After that base level is hit the rest of the money is divided up between the teams who compete and win. The losing teams have to do more to earn more of the pie. NBA needs to restructure guaranteed contracts at next CBA. I know it wont happen but progress in that direction is the only thing that will help these bums play more. ALL STAR GAME- East vs West. Only winning team gets a bonus. Nothing for losing team. MVP and Defensive MVP get huge bonus and prestige. This sets tone hopefully for players to compete more. Some players still wont give a shit but if you have players trying to win and others are just letting guys go by, they may feel pressure to step it up. With expansion to 32 teams, the NBA needs to have nfl style 8 divisions of 4. Each division winner is a playoff team and the other 8 are wildcards. Adds meaning to winning the divisions.
There was never a moment football was in question. There was a moment Bill ran his mouth about goddell because of deflate gate. Bill was all in his feels and thought his view was the one everyone shared about goddell and the league
@JamesWill-t8p actually ratings went from 14 million in 2008 to 17 million in 2010 and have stayed above 15 million since. The NBA ratings in the same time have dropped from 9-11 million to 5 million.
Gen x is getting tired of the nba, its like rec league no defense run down and jack 3s, nothing like the nba gen x was raised on. Then add gen z who doesn't have cable or the attention span for full games, that's why the ratings are down. Bad things are on the way with lebron on the way out and the raiting tanking already.
Jokic doesn't play defense. All around, Giannis is a better player. As for ratings, it's hard to tell because most people don't watch the game through cable.
And there you go that's one of if not the MAIN reason ratings have plummeted and that's because the product has been overly monetized..it's become difficult to catch a game without having to have subscriptions to multiple outlets to access them and therefore you have less and less people watching, it's just a waste of money which leads to more and MORE people having to steal the product from illegal streaming sites
NBA is utterly unwatachble - literally half of NBA fans that existed 3 years ago told you your sport sucks. That has not actually happened before even though Bill claims it happens eveyr decade. And the biggest booster of the sport pretending that because franchise values are going up in an incredibly inflationary enviorment (40% in 4 years) that things are good is utterly ridiculous.
The past 2.5 years the nba and nba media has decided to completely black ball one of their t2 players in the world, in favor of completely going all in on a player who’s whole gimmick is that he doesn’t care about the sport or the game. Maybe that wasn’t a good idea
Interesting how every “unicorn moment” must involve L.A. or Boston (usually both). Simmons’ coastal-centric view of NBA history fairly sums up the approach of the league and the national sports media in regards to coverage. There is a refusal to properly discuss and highlight superstars from smaller markets and has led to a self fulfilling prophecy where if the top player/s don’t play for the biggest markets, viewership (at least in the United States) goes down. This is where the NFL is successful where the NBA isn’t. NFL coverage goes where the talent is instead of wishing the talent was in a different city.
Respectfully, that’s a lazy take as I watched the whole video. Being 40 and a lifelong laker and nba fan, I can’t get myself motivated watch the games anymore. I can’t pinpoint to one thing but in short, it’s just not entertaining me any more. I really hope you’re right and something changes to get me interested again.
I keep hearing "unicorns" to pass the torch but tbh I think we need more villains
Villains only exist when rivalries exist. Rivalries were killed with player movement in free agency and fans rooting for players over their own teams.
Villain Brooks
Luka Book started and ended couple of months after.
@@vitocarlucci111social media killed rivalries, players are too concerned with their image.
Indeed that right there can def be a KEY part of it the villain element..we saw a great example of it the other day with Trae and New York and whenever they duel it's always had big hype around it you can't deny so to have at least that going on is good for the league more is needed
If everyone appreciated Giannis instead of constantly critiquing him, nba would be in better spot. Who cares that he’s in Milwaukee. Embrace the small market stars.
He got pushed aside for The one hit wonder Jokic
@@DrakeMaybe Giannis is also a “one hit wonder”
I believe people wanted the underdog hawks to upset the bucks and make the cup finals due to the fact it brings the storyline up another notch a nice plot twist.. the bucks making it was just too predictable and I believe that's why a whole lot of viewership died off right after they won
@@boondockbwoy14nobody cares about the NBA Cup regardless of who’s in it. It’s literally just scheduled games that they deem tournament game haha dumb. Instead of the All Star break, make that a tournament week that doesn’t count towards the regular season but still get the bonus for winning. If it is consecutive then you lose interest waiting for the next game
@@DrakeMaybe Jokic a one hit wonder... asinine take
I don't think people are saying the NBA will go out of business but folks are saying the product sucks
Hence the video
As European Basketball fan, I follow the NBA, but hate watching the NBA for one good reason - timeout and stoppage length. NBA is just a business, they only care about money and they made commercial breaks so long, its no longer watchable, to me at least, they even comercialised official reviews, peak capitalistic dystopia. I watch Euroleague games, far less talent on that court, far better product to watch.
@@TheRealUcanUwill welcome to the future of America. Money is the end that all means contribute to in this form of capitalism. It’s getting darker..
@@TheRealUcanUwill It's probably partially why soccer struggles here, not enough stoppage time for advertising.
People are wrong. It doesn't suck. But it needs work: Too many threes, too many entitled players taking too much time off. But there are so many great things about the current NBA product; I've been hearing about how terrible the NBA is from American fans since the 70s and many of the complaints have a common thread...
Peak Simmons. NBA historian.
He got me thinking when he said NFL only has 10 superstars while the NBA has 35-40. I actually had trouble getting to 10 for the NFL but 35-40 is a stretch for the NBA.
NFL: Lamar Jackson, Allen, Burrow, Prescott, Stafford, Jefferson, Mahomes, Kelce, Tyreek Hill, Rodgers (you could argue Stafford/ Prescott are stars because QBs in Dallas and LA but that might be stretching it).
NBA: Tatum, Embiid, PG, Giannis, Dame, Young, LaMelo, Jimmy Butler, Joker, Steph, Draymond, Luka, Kyrie, Klay, Ant, Harden, Kawai, Shai, Lebron, AD, Ja, Durant, Booker, Zion, Wemby
@@Chudsic "Recognizable" stars he said. KAT, Zach Lavine, Jalen Brunson, Jaylen Brown, Chris Paul, Donovan Mitchell, Trae Young, Demar Derozan, Van Fleet, Bradley Beal, Tyrese Haliburton, De'Aaron Fox, Jamal Murray,.
"'Too woke,' I'm not gonna touch that." Actually, Bill, it would be nice if you DID touch it. (White) people root for the NBA to fail, they always have. You have a booming, highly profitable league. Ratings no longer matter bc no one watches TV anymore. The NBA is still global and huge. So why is anyone fretting about it? It's just racism. Sorry folks. I said it.
@@Chudsic NFL used to market their defensive stars much better, who is a big defensive star now? Tj Watt? hard to think of any really.
Dropped a “ballyhoo” on us 6:56
I love when Historical Bill starts throwing his fastball like Nolan Ryan in 1986.
It felt like 'Book of Basketball' the audio version
@@manuginobilisbaldspot2 but his argument pretty much was “nba only in good place when Celtics are great” lol his bias is very clear even if he doesn’t want to admit it. Go back and listen when he says the league is in great shape… it’s the times the Celtics are successful - with singular caveat being Jordan bulls
@@HerbHerman-le5uxyeah especially trying to claim that the 76 finals was an example of the nba being massively successful popularity-wise, is fucking crazy
@@HerbHerman-le5ux the Celtics are successful right now and he is saying the league is in trouble right now.
@@HerbHerman-le5uxyou’re not wrong, but that’s kind of how the league works. When the most popular teams/athletes are doing well (Celtics, Lakers, Jordan, LeBron, Curry etc.) typically that helps to prop the rest of the sport up. It’s not a definite rule, like the guy said above, Bill says the NBA is in a bad spot right now while the Celtics have the best team since their big three run over a decade ago. But, if the big teams/ markets/ players are doing great, it brings more eyes to the sport.
This is the reason Bill Simmons the media personality exists
To bootlick for Adam Silver trashing the league by letting Pop and Nick Kerr’s dad run their idiotic mouths?
I blame sports betting. It made all sports conversations so fucking boring. I don't fucking care about you draft kings blah blah blah.
For real. (If you are having a gambling problem in Alabama call 1 800 i sold my kids and in Illinois call 888 holy shit and in Texas mail a self addressed stamped envelope to oh no I bet my rent on the OKC Supersonics again, etc. etc. etc.)
Yea this really hurt sports media more than anything. However every time a player gets caught betting it makes me so suspicious of everything, officiating in particular
Money money money
So there’s no betting at all in the NFL. Clown
I agree ! Sports betting is so annoying
To me, maybe the biggest issue is the monetization system the NBA is using.
How many subscriptions do I need to watch JUST my favorite team?! Its like 6, and if I dont have all of them, I get blacked out.
I will continue to steal the product, streaming illegally, until I can pay a FAIR price to ONE subscription. Anything short of that, and I wont spend a dime.
@@dearmas9068 ab so fucking lutely. I need eight different subscriptions to watch the whole damn season. Fuck this shit.
@@dearmas9068 im watching the games via illegal streaming. I don't feel guilty about it
Exactly this right here what you've just pointed out is the MAIN reason behind it all and I have no clue why the NBA doesn't wanna recognize and address this and why many people themselves can't see it..I'm sure they must know it's just ridiculous to have to scramble and subscribe to all these dif outlets just to catch your fav team play, right? So then these streaming sites are created and the product gets stolen
NBA League Pass???
Amen (Thompson)!
Saying the NBA ratings don’t matter because they signed a new TV deal is like saying Embiid being hurt doesn’t matter because he signed an extension
@@Mskedu47 Bill doesn’t understand the difference between lagging and leading indicators. I can tell you no one wants to watch Alex Sarr jack 6 threes a game, though.
What a totally incompetent comparison lmao.
Do they matter? The NBA just got a huge new TV deal despite declining ratings for the past decade. It doesn’t make sense to me, but i guess the networks are so desperate for sports programming, they will overpay?
They matter less than in the past. It is a shifting landscape and the traditional "more TV sets in circulation, therefore more direct viewership ratings to boost profitability" rubric is morphing. Traditional ad sales are no longer the focus of most marketing budgets so, that traditional ad spot as the sole goal of content has changed to more of a interactive engagement model. While it is still nascent, it will culminate in personalized ad and sales opportunities becoming the measure over ratings on the current trajectory.
The NBA is by far the "best" of the major pro sports leagues in player recognition and online engagement which is what the soon to be target demographic likes. Short highlight packages, clips, non-game content like summer workouts, etc.
So it doesn't matter if Embiid is hurt so long as he can still engage (and as we will see in the near future, pitch product) to viewers, fans and followers. That NBA player follower base is the "hidden" value that these new deals are hoping to unlock and monetize - the content is just to get the eyes, but selling add generic spots in world of individual streamers that are ID'ed and can be targeted through direct marketing is the real game of the future. (Maybe Embiid is a bit much, but think of all the rehab videos and come back tweets we see now. 10 years ago, it was like "oh that player is finally back?", now its an event with hype and build up).
24/7/365 story-lines and player engagement is what those record contracts are about. No one care to much about how many fans show up to the game, and its becoming that way with the regular season games too.
@opieg7333 But I would add, as someone who goes to NFL, NBA, and MLB games in Atlanta, the NBA has the best in arena experience, followed by MLB, then NFL. The pitch clock and player personal music intros really helped the MLB. But there is something fun during every stoppage in arena at an NBA game.
I am sure it was just a coincidence that nearly everyone of Bill's NBA "Unicorn Moments" just happened to be a Celtics championship?
Hey guess what?
Watching 100 3s go up every game isn't very exciting.
It's not a USA thing either I'm in Australia and my friends agree with the too many 3s.
@@mikeclarke3990 international numbers isn't really an issue. The NBA consistently dominates other markets compared to its american counterparts like the NFL and the MLB. I hear on the style of play but to me their biggest problems are the lack of new true superstars and the constant injuries resulting in stars missing a lot of games.
Agree 100% I am a fan in New Zealand and have had league pass for over a decade and find myself actively turning games off this season. A lot of them feel like a chore to sit through with all the threes, stoppages and complaining
@@fkm512 The NBA 20 years ago was a chore to watch. No threes, isoball, over and over again. And yet people revere that era because 'tough defense'
So he speaks on ratings and you argue global ratings with you and your 3 dumb ass Aussie friends.
@@fkm512yeah it genuinely sucks and I don’t know if it’s some sort of player lack of awareness but I feel the exact way. And I don’t like to make it about money at all but like cmon man your pulling a 40 million dollar paycheck and your going to ruin the entertainment aspect every time you chuck a shot up? Kinda sucks I find myself as a way bigger football fan this year
Isn't that what Wemby was supposed to do? The NBA media only cares about teams from LA Boston or NYC. That's the biggest problem.
@trolleyman98 The thing is, Wemby isn't interested in being the face of the league. You're also correct that the NBA does a piss poor job of marketing him and others.
The difference between NFL and NBA media is stark. No one is pushing for Mahomes to go to a bigger market but every time there's a star in the NBA not from the coasts, every show is frothing at the mouth begging them to leave.
Christ, countdown was talking about trading Giannis right before the game last night. Shameful.
Wemby has played 92 games so far. He’s not even 1/10th of the player he’ll be in 5 years.
And the NBA media only cares about the reigning champ, LA, NY, Lebron, Curry, KD. That’s about it, everyone else feels lucky when their team gets talked about.
He's a non-American playing on a medicore, small market team. Like Jokic, he does as little press as possible. As far as the favoritism to certain areas, welcome to sports, lol. Welcome to the real world as well .
Yes, if Jokic/Giannis/Wemby etc were in NYC or LA, this would be a bit different conversation. But they aren't, and the game still seems less watchable than past years to this NBA fan.
one of the best vids i've seen, nice little trip through nba history. Though i would say magic having hiv and retiring was bigger than the decision bc everyone thought that magic would be dead in a year.
@@teejaye6226 😲
3-4 years
That last element about how easy it is to keep up with the league without actually WATCHING a game is huge. I'm firmly in that camp; i keep crazy up to date with the league, watch tons of content etc... but very very very rarely actually watch a game.
@JamesWill-t8p very interesting comment. I’m wondering which direction you are going with this. do you think most fans are only watching the 10 minute recap of games and only seeing the very end of half of the possessions and that’s why all they think happens in the game is a whole bunch of 3 balls being jacked up and view league redundancy as being more of a serious thing today than it’s been in the past? OR maybe that it’s the fans who only watch the exciting recaps of games, with all of the good plays and MADE 3s and highlights, who think the league today is fun and exciting, only because they aren’t “slogging”( not saying I feel this way, but this is the belief ) through all of the missed 3s and perhaps foul baits and whatnot?
@JamesWill-t8p That's true. The same thing was said in the 90s b/c of the rise of ESPN highlights. Everybody said that people were just watching dunks and not appreciating the game itself and that all the dunk highlights were making younger players focus on trying to be like Mike instead of playing fundamental ball.
Younger fans have no idea how hated Kobe was (not to mention J.R. Rider, Harold Miner, all the prior next MJs). It is literally an American pasttime to hate on the NBA, as Bill is explaining in detail.
because there are too many subscriptuoions
@JamesWill-t8p I'm from L.A. When Kobe was going off scoring 81 points, 63 in 3 quarters against the 60-win Mavs, and 50 in 4 straight games all anyone did was complain about how much of a ball hog he was and how he diminished his teammates. Every radio show, every TV spot, it was endless. He was negatively compared to MJ before him and LeBron coming up behind him. NBA "fans" just like to complain.
@JamesWill-t8p I think you're missing James's point. He's pointing out the irony and absurdity of criticizing today's players for jacking up too many threes while simultaneously praising Kobe, who is probably the most notorious ball hog in NBA history. The list of complaints lodged against the league has always been a mile long and it is no worse now than at several other times in league history.
Bill gave a performance on this one. Bravo.
And 40 recognizable players is being very generous
Thanks. If the NFL only has 10 then no way NBA has 40
@@jaredbattista4985 The real answer is both leagues have maybe 3 that are recognizable to non sports fans. I don't think people realize how siloed media is now a days, if you aren't a sports fan you just don't know shit about sports. I have friends who don't follow sports who couldn't tell you Shohei Ohtani or Aaron Rodgers are. Monoculture died about a decade ago, so anyone who became "famous" after around 2014 will never be a household name.
25 recognizable players playing today at the most when I just started naming players off the top of my head.
That’s why the NFL is so big. It’s about the game and the teams, not individuals.
@@jaredbattista4985 to be fair, the NBA is much more star driven and the players don’t have their faces covered when they play. I do agree that he’s massively overstated the difference though.
Whenever the Bucks win anything it seems like the entire media only talks about negatives and how the league is in trouble
Right , or the fact that the Cavs have the best record ... something must be WRONG !!! The league is completely BROKEN. lol .
You’re so mad the Bucks won and you can’t make up fake Giannis trades up anymore. You decided to skip talking about the Cup just so you didn’t have to praise the Bucks 😂😂😂
@@TrustTheProcess34 exactly, he’s such a joke, bucks won? Let’s talk about how the league is garbage dump
Not just him but media wide it’s been excuses for the thunder and not much credit to the bucks
From 1999 to 2014, the San Antonio Spurs won 5 championships, and had an incredible rivalry with the Lakers.
Bill Simmons:
And they actually started the 3 point revolution in 2012-13. Years before curry. Curry made it popular
And to a lesser degree with the Mavericks.
Agree this was a miss in the video. But he is focusing on cultural status in the bigger culture, and the Spurs were never that big outside of NBA true fans. Total respect to the Spurs and Duncan and Pop in particular, but they didn't have the overall cultural impact/import like the other stars he mentions.
He mentioned Tim duncan and that nobody resonated with him. He mentioned that no one cared about the 03 finals. The 99 lockout season was a bad moment. There was zero hype for all four titles they won from 99-07. Their style of basketball was boring for the casual fan, and that's not good for business. That's the whole point of this
@@jcf4074 It wasn't boring. It's because they were in a small market. If they were the New York Spurs, they would've been talked about as one of the greatest dynasties of all time.
The nba needs a new commissioner, not a unicorn. The stars are phenomenal.
The game is getting dull, defence barely matters, jacking up threes is taking away from the athleticism.
Someone with some balls needs to change something in the actual game, hand checking, no corner threes, teams make their own three point lines plenty of fixes just need someone to do it.
Woke bill doing woke things. NBA is trash just say it woke bill
Yet drives and dunks are up. Okc, Houston and Orlando (and Minnesota lately) are putting up defensive ratings that would be above average in the rugged 90s. Teams like the nuggets or kings play very different than for instance the Mavericks. We had hand checking, no flagrant fouls and barely any 3s in the 80s and teams still averaged 110 ppg, some (Denver), even 120 ppg. Pace dictates scoring. And pace is required to beat a set team defence (see early 2000s when teams could finally play team defence with illegal defence gone but offenses were still slow and iso heavy).
I feel what you are saying is just echo chamber and you have no actual stats to back it up...
@@ads211Bill gives so many arguments in this video and you just shoot it down as woke without giving any explanation or argument. Great job buddy....
BINGO. We just need to keep boycotting the league til it listens to us.
@@hughplayer7612 you just watched the bucks out on a defensive masterclass.
The garbage teams are garbage to watch ever since the beginning of the NBA. The top teams actually play defense. That's what separates them from the garbage teams.
The whole too many foreigners thing is such a balogna. I've not heard one real person complain about that. They shoot too many 3s and nobody has cable anymore.
It's crazy watching teams like OKC who are so much better at midrange refuse to stop chucking threes even when it's going like last night too. People act like they had no choice, but that's nonsense.
(Never mind that Giannis doesn't shoot 3's and usually is the highest scoring player in games like this too)
@@infasis This! I was actually intrigued at the beginning of the game seeing OKC scoring in the mid range/post pretty easily.
@@infasisdo you think they would have been able to keep up with a 17/40 night from the Bucks without the attempted 3s though? I know they missed! So it didn’t work. But let’s say they only took 19 3s instead of the 32 or so they took. So let’s say those 13 possessions they take 2s/. Make 7? That’s really good…let’s say they make 6 cuz bucks D in the paint is really solid lately. So thars 12 points. And let’s give them 2 FTs. They still lose….and that’s being generous.
Point being, when one team is making nearly 50 percent of their 3s, at high volume, if you can’t match them it’s going to be very hard to keep up!
BUT I understand what I said isn’t a perfect equivalence. It’s not really fair for me to do it that way, but it was just an anecdote to show why teams feel so forced to take 3s. As a Celtics fan, I have seen almost every team in the first month of the year where their interior D was weak trt to beat them via 60% 2s vs the Celtics 3s. And almost NO ONE could. It was actually crazy to see it. Teams would have the game of their lives but Celtics always go on one of their streaks every so often and nail 3 3s in 35 seconds lol. It’s very hard to win when you aren’t making 3s in a league of shooters who take 35-50 per game! That volume is just SO high that unless the teams shoots like below 30 percent, it’s going to be hard to beat them if you only take 2s yourself!
@@schuylersavage276 I only really say that because of their defense. I don't mean for teams playing high paced and getting up tons of shots, but for OKC's specific case and roster it might work better.
@@infasis ok I hear that! I do like the idea of teams being confident enough to think for themselves. I actually believe the Celtics, while they are one of the teams, maybe THE team, that is setting the trend so many are trying to follow with the 3 ball, came up with their own vision a few years ago and have shown exceptional foresight to craft the team and roster and style of play they have weaponized right now. To your point, the Celtics didn’t just start chucking 50 3s per game in 2017 when they first got this idea. They slowly over time made the moves to bring in the players they knew could execute their vision most perfectly. As we saw, Al horford was not a good fit for some teams in the modern game. But, on a team with a specific mantra and approach, he is literally SO valuable to them! Same with Derrick White. NOW everyone sees his value, it’s immense, but in San Antonio he was just sort of wasting away and no one knew it, except for Steven’s and the Celtics! Also Targeting Pritchard and keeping him two summers ago. Bringing in KP when he was also wasting away in DC adter the league sort of forget about him when it went bad with Luka. It’s all so brilliant. And to that point, Presti has done an amazing job crafting his vision in OKC! Like wow! But I guess we’ll see if they are able to stick to the mantra of how they want to play the game, not just who they want playing for them. But I have to say I do think they are a team that should shoot 3s at a decent rate. They have too mant good shooters not to let them. Williams is a great shooter. Isiah Joe tippy top. They got like 7 guys between 38-42 percent. I think they typically do have a nice mix of mid range and interior approach with SGAs unstoppable game and Isiah in the paint, and then they mix in Williams off the dribble shooting and creating ability with the rest of the role players who are almost all best at shooting 3s than they are any other offense approach
Apart from the next unicorn, here's how you fix the NBA:
(1) move back the 3 point line enough to dis-incentivize the boring and absurd percentage of 3s taken
(2) eliminate the "gather step" and call traveling consistently
(3) provide fans with an affordable way to watch every game of *their home team* online, without cable
(4) bring back hand checking [this won't happen, but replace this with some realistic defense-positive rule change]
(5) shorten the season
(6) loosen the trade restrictions on to-the-penny salary matching for capped teams
(7) develop young US-based talent at least as well as France does
(8) put Bronny James face on every single NBA jersey ever printed from now until the end of time
one of these is a joke
Most of these are great recommendations that fans would get behind. If players wanted to compete against each other more and if the teams would stop jacking up 3s the 82 game season would be fine.
This “the old guys won’t go away” thing is very similar to what we’ve seen in corporations and government. All the old people who are supposed to go away refuse to go away.
If the new guys want those folks to go away, they gotta TAKE the torch. Otherwise the new guys won't get any respect. The fact that "LeBron's team" can still put the work on a guy like Morant and the Grizzlies with only AD and a bunch of low caliber roll players shows why those old guys aren't going away.
They need to played to a stop in the regular season for a couple few years. A 3peat from Boston with a bad playoff run from all 3 might also have about the same effect.
My guess is that the time is coming in the next 2 or 4 years for at least two of Bron, Curry, and Durant. I do want to see someone take up the torch.
No corporation will keep someone who is useless to the bottom line. Now will they hire someone of similar nature
@@bagbroch9339 that’s the thing though. I’ve seen podcasts when retired players realized it was time for them to go. The old guys aren’t having that moment because they’re carrying the young guys lol
@@methodsignature The Lakers are ADs team and they would be in a much better place if a 39 year old wasnt taking up $50 million in annual salary.
@@methodsignature they already took the torch. Jokic owns Lebron. Ant swept Durant. And the Kings didnt even let Curry get out the play in.
Giannis and Jokic are literally right here being generational for years and will continue but the media still are just sucking off the aging stars. We all know why. Both small markets,both foreigners....
Denver is a medium size market.....it's 30 teams in the nba 1st 10 are big markets 10-20 are medium size markets and 20-30 are small markets.......Denver atlanta...Phoenix est are medium size markets who get alot of exposure.....
20:00 “they have their little run” = 4 rings in 6 finals in 8 years….
Tell us more about the Celtics, Bill.
We cant overstate how important the illegal defence rule was. With illegal defence you basically couldnt play team defence and the game was very iso heavy. Without illegal defence, team defence became too good, post ups became very hard and scoring/ratings are terrible. There are 2 solutions to this problem; pace and space. Shoot before the defence is set and/or lure the defence out of the paint, break them with spread out ball movement. Phoenix first embraces this (they would be last in todays game in pace btw), orlando takes it up a notch (with lewis and turkoglu), miami is the first real 5 out with bosh and battier and then curry doubles down on it.
I remember Michael Jordan being against zone defense, saying it would've changed who he was as a player.
Good thing someone knows their history.
There's very little rule change from the 2000s or the deadball to the current NBA. The main change is that Nash and the suns was scoring at will with average players by the simple concept of pace and space.
And it's not like the drives per game decreased. Teams just became smart enough to convert those long 2s into 3s.
Guys like KG, bosh, Duncan have that long 2 in their shot diet. Players today simply decides to shoot a few more feet away for 1 more point.
@@glovs4188exactly! In the last decade the number of drives has risen significantly and so has the number of dunks. Thats not just the increase in pace. It's those below 40% mid range shots that each team would take 30 times per game that have moved beyond the 3point line. People need to look up this stat (mid range team shooting) for as far back as it is available to see how truly bad it was. Yet nostalgia has a lot of people believing that was great to watch (i mean specifically "the lost art of the mid range game").
Yes we can overstate it. The illegal defense was so rarely called. The offense had to expose it to get the call and elite players regularly got away with playing zone. See: the Jordan rules or Bird in the 86 finals.
Seems like a real 5 head idea but if the NBA ever had a game on a public broadcast channel and not behind a 300 dollar a year nba tv wall i bet people would watch more
@JamesWill-t8p $100 to not watch your local team because of blackouts. What a value!
I just have regular cable and I have every single one of my teams games, along with every primetime ESPN and TNT game, along with the free nba tv game. What are you talking about?
Yh, growing up in Southern California, every morning I’d go to school and talk about the Laker game with my classmates because they were all on KCAL, so even the poorest kids could watch. Now with games off of public broadcast stations, each generation of fans will get progressively smaller.
@@eliyarrows2456 that’s just because you happen to have whatever cable provider your local team happened to cut a deal with.
The Giannis/Lopez 2 man game dominating was not on my NBA card
Facts won't you agree it would have been awesome if the hawks had made it instead
@@boondockbwoy14nah
I still keep up with the league, but I rarely watch live games for two reasons. I'm not a gambler, so when most the ads are gambling related and you're seeing employees of the networks shilling for gambling sites, I don't like it. Speaking of ads, both the insane amount of commercial breaks and now for the past few seasons in game ads during free throws. I hate it. Also the amount of ads EVERYWHERE on the broadcast (the floor, the uniforms etc.) is visually unappealing to me. One more thing is the NBA cup gimmick courts need to go. They are TERRIBLE!
The NBA does not have 35 recognizable stars 😂
@JamesWill-t8pThe Premier League.
@@Dbo_SportsThis is an American sports discussion. No one here cares about the cheeks Premier League
@@jobebryant bad take
Lamelo Ball, in Charlotte, and Zion Williams in New Orleans are more recognizable than probably 5 football players for people under 30. Yes, they have at least 35 recognizable stars to anyone with a cursory interest in U.S. sports.
@thefearmakerlive Most people have never heard of those guys. The NBA AT BEST has a handful of recognizable players to the general public. You yourself didn't even get Zion's last name correct, LOL. The modern NBA doesn't have any likeable players or stars that the general public will gravitate to. The glory days of the 1980s and 90s are long gone.
Bill simmons narratives is what is wrong with nba. The fans want raw truth.
Raw truth in what way?
@vincentseidle954 Real beefs, Real rivalries, no bs officiating, Real defense, Letting us hear what the players actually want for example they want more rest but they don't say why they don't shorten season. Enough for you?
@JamesWill-t8p ok dude. That's why ratings are down. How can someone determine who actually is the best if the way the game is called doesn't allow them to find out.
@@GNTHEGUNS I hear ya
No we don't. We have players switching teams all the time, players yuk-yukking with their pals on the court, rather than hating the guy in the opposing uniform. These guys don't know what 'rivalry' means. Everyone worries about 'brand' and not looking like the villain who might lose social media cred.
Can't believe Billy skipped over Donaghy and Malice at the Palace.
Mentioning the '06 finals reffing and not the fact that the Shaq and Kobe "threepeat" would have been a one and done without the referees literally deciding who won the WCF twice, especially in 2002, is certainly a take.
And the spurs of the early 2010s sharing the 3 point revolution crushing Miami
@Jay-om8gr he's still a quiet spurs hater/Duncan lover because he is still salty about that draft.
Right... ad Billy Boy will never confess exlicitly that he is a Business Guy, not a Sports Guy, and he loves the money angle much more than he loves--if he ever loved--the cometitive sports angle. He skips over Donaghy and Malice because those memories are bad for business.
Move the 3 point line further away? You have to get 3 point averages down so the math between 2s and 3s is more balanced.
I'm telling ya, OKC is still a year away. If they run into a Dallas/Denver/maybe Houston (especially if they get Jimmy) they will fall.
@@andrewbaker3855 Jimmy will be a sun
Okc aren’t legit won’t be until MAYBE 3 years if Chet is a top 15-25 player in the league
@@Black-kv1iv How does that trade work money-wise? You'll likely say "Beal" but don't forget he has a no-trade clause (also, why would Miami want him?) Houston makes so much sense. 1. Jimmy is from there. 2. They have the assets. 3. They actually have pieces that Miami would want.
next minute okx trade for jimmy
@@andrewbaker3855 Houston?!?! They are both young the defense of the thunder will beat them
impressive historical perspective and contextual analysis of the NBA - fun listen
"Ain't no party like a Diddy party" - LBJ.
I remember a time where Ewing, Malone, Dream, Barkley, Payton were all in the league but Stern moved on and began pushing the next wave with Shaq, Duncan, KG, Kobe, TMac, Dirk, Iverson, Carter. Even when Jordan in 2002 returned Stern didnt make him the face of the league, he knew that to keep this thing going you have to push the next wave. Silver's mistake is he never wanted to move on from LeBron, Curry, and KD. HE STILL DOES NOT WANT TO MOVE ON FROM THEM. The league should be pushing Tatum, Giannis, Jokic, Luka, and Shai really hard right now. And on deck are guys like Victor, Paolo, Ant, Ja, Cade, Haliburton.
@@nanagyambibi7426 I agree. Its literally like taking your medicine. Maybe not the best thing in that exact moment, but best for the long run
Exactly.
The carrying of the ball when dribbling, the lack of defense, the 3 pointers, the load management is killing the league. And the younger generation just don’t watch a lot of tv for a long period of time. College basketball is bad. There isn’t any stars in college basketball anymore. This leads to the NBA. No one knows who the stars are in college anymore. And one more thing that is killing the NBA AAU basketball
"The ratings are down but I'm not sure the interest is down."
Stop. The interest is obviously down. Where interest is high is with the tik tok generation. But the problem with the tik tok generation is that the overwhelming majority of them don't watch complete games. They only consume highlights. Even when the playoffs come around. That's also the reason why they're the main part of the fanbase in denial that there's a problem with the game. Because all they see is short clips of highlight dunks, game winners and everybody on fire from 3. They're not watching the 75% of threes that don't go in, the sameness on offense or the lack of defense from play to play.
Now how's that TV contract going to look in 3 years when advertisers realize the prime demographic isn't watching the actual games and the NBA has done nothing to bring back the 35 and over viewers that this current style has driven away?
Have you watched okc, Houston, Orlando and lately also minnesota play defence? Their rating would be above league average even in the rugged 90s.
You're telling me teams like Sacramento or Denver look similar to Boston or Orlando? Have you seen how how Cleveland uses mobley this season?
Drives and dunks have steadily gone up in the last decade, the amount of ground defences have to cover keeps increasing. Please watch a 90s game again and count how often teams post up with the rest just standing around and watching. If the game is samey today, it was worse before ..
@@maartenvz Both have some solid points - to just dismiss the comment flat out is ignorant. People have to so much to watch these days that the standard for maintaining one’s complete attention is quite high.
NAILED IT!!!
Spot on.
Not spot on. Sounds like an old man’s take. Interest is not down to any significant degree. The manner in which interest is being demonstrated simply cannot be measured by ratings.
That was amazing Bill. I truly enjoyed that. You and your team keep up the great work!
Agreed! This was AWESOME. The history of the NBA very efficiently explained. Thank you Bill. HOF NBA Fan/historian
Did he just describe the eras of the NBA and name em unicorn moments.
@JamesWill-t8p i disagree.
@JamesWill-t8p you are but okay.
@JamesWill-t8p ok buddy
You are 100% correct, Quan. Bill is just describing the peaks and valleys of NBA history and calling all the peaks “unicorn moments.” He went as far as to say the last unicorn moment was 2008-2019. Dude is literally calling an ELEVEN YEAR stretch a “moment.” Glad someone else noticed how silly it is.
Actually to be fair, he said 2008-2019 was a “unicorn stretch”. But an eleven year stretch is kind of the opposite of something you’d label a unicorn (ie, something rare/unique). As you said, it’s an era.
I'm too young to have experienced most of this, but listening to this makes me feel it somehow, thank you Bill!
So he completely ignores LeBron’s toxic effect on the NBA. The Decision was really about compromising the competitiveness of the league.
They always do... Caught up in stats
My point would be that the NBA having to do an in-season gimmick tournament to try and incent the players to give a crap is a pretty significant sign of underlying issues. At the end of the day for sports - it is the competition that is entertaining, and the current game doesn't seem to have that competition in relation to the past.
I also think that just pointing to the TV deal as sign of health is shortsighted. Legacy TV executives are desperate, and it wouldn't be the first time that the person who made the biggest mistake "won" the bid. If ratings continue to tank, the US right's holders are going to lose ridiculous sums of money, and the goose will be cooked when this contract is up.
NBA needs to invest in Giannis and Jokic
I haven't mentioned before, but Bill, you are my fav sports voice to listen to on long drives. I'm a news junkie and binge on that for like 3 hours and finally skip to sports and end up killing another 3 or 4 hours with you and the guys. Always on the right edge of informative and funny and a relazing way to escape from reality of world. Have a nice day.
Aw. Bucks win so Bill can't come up with fake trades for Giannis or Dame, so he doesn't even talk about the game. How about this being the problem: NBA media sucks. They talk too much about trades, Lebron, Steph, the Celtics, Embiid. They only watch their pet teams and when they talk about the league's so-called not-haves, all they have to offer are lame, ignorant hot takes that are really just things they heard their other NBA media buddies say.
It would be more forgivable if Bill had the balls to talk about LeBron (and his doping) properly. But he won't. Bill is access media like everyone else
This was a good one. Great recap. Counting the amount of "lull moments" and how long they last could've made it even more interesting.
Love these nba history lessons
That’s why people like bill is so necessary he is just educating me about the history of the nba & so interesting
I enjoyed the NBA Cup Final. Giannis played hard on both ends, stuffed the stat sheet, and had some huge blocks. Dame scored efficiently and his corner step-back three was probably the play of the game. Role players like AJ Green and Splash Mountain contributed… nice team win for Milwaukee. OKC showed their defensive tenacity. Besides the poor shooting from the Thunder, what wasn’t to like?
It was fun because players played with actual intensity. The problem is players only summon that energy for the playoffs and maybe a couple regular season games against rivals and most games end up looking like high level LA fitness runs- one teams runs down chucks up a 3, other team gives minimal defensive effort, etc.
The thing is the games are played at too high of a pace/intensity to play that way for 82 games a year, but the players and owners don’t want to shorten the season because it would cost them money.
The problem with the league is that we’re constantly told the only thing that matters is the NBA finals. Nothing in the regular season matters. So the fans and the players don’t take the regular season seriously. Not sure who is to blame for that but the cat is out of the bag. Not sure if it can be fixed.
quite the revisionist retelling of the nba here with bill saying the 2000s were "grim" after saying the league had tim duncan, dirk, kg, shaq/kobe, lebron, dwayne wade
The 2000s was my favorite time to watch. Still tough ish. But players idolized MJ, so a lot of skill started to be introduced. Now it's kinda based on percentages and analytics...how the game is played in general.
At the time (and this was when Bill was in his prime as a columnist), Bill was implicitly and sometimes openly hyping the league as better than MLB and NHL; now I think it was just to counter heavy mainstream narrative regarding the Pistons defense "killing the game".
@@salleone7649 Maybe I'm a weirdo but I liked the Pistons/Spurs years.
i think a lot of people resent how much money these guys make now
Apron thing makes trading boring too
This doesn’t get talked about enough. The lack of intensity of too many 3’s thing has been an issue for like five years, but the league was still surviving on trade rumors/hype. Now we don’t even get that.
yet you don't want to touch the real problem, just because you don't want to admit it, it matters. The fans have been telling you and the NBA choose not to listen this is what happens when you don't listen to your fans
This is one of the best pure history videos I've seen on the NBA. Execellent stuff Bill!
The one and done college career is killing the game. You use to learn about players from watching them in 2-3 years of college, not to mention they actually were coached up in the day. I am a Blazer fan, and we have a joke of a point guard in Scoot, that can't even hit a jump shot.
"The NBA Needs Its Next “Unicorn” Moment"
Man, Wemby was a rookie last year, and you don't get more unicorn than him. Do we really expect a revolution of basketball every year?!
@@Irfanhill yeah I have absolutely no idea with the caption on this one I’m lost as well lol. There has NEVER been a prospect like wembanyama I have no idea what kind of unicorn we’re expecting here😂do we need a guy who’s 7 foot 7 now?
In this scenario he’s talking about dynasties that draw extra attention or particularly good series that become classics. Which is fair. The last intense finals that actually went to 7 games was 2016. That’s insane. And teams are seemingly only capable of going one year at a time making the finals. So no true dynasties
@@gators9570 I mean yeah but I’ve been bringing up this question for a couple years as well. What would be better for the league? Seeing Tatum, Giannis, Jokic, booker/ja/etc get their first rings respectfully or do you think it would be better for just one of those players to win a few in a row? Genuine question because I’m torn on it 100%. I’d love to see a rivalry and another dynasty but at the same time it’s fun to let different teams have their deserved glory
@@willlydon1863it’s cuz he’s not American. Bill beats around the bush about it but doesn’t admit to it himself
I think Ja Morant/Zion was supposed to be the next unicorn moment, but he got suspended and Zion can't stay in the court. Joker just doesn't resonate with fans the same was Duncan didn't.
It's a shame OKC put us such a dud in the NBA cup, they are a fun team casuals could get into they could be the 'unicorn' team the way the warriors were
Once ant gets traded to the Lakers that will allow him to break thru and carry the league
a big part is also the cities they went to and how the media reacted to that. Even if zion was great he'd still be playing for the pelicans, they needed him on basically any other team. knicks, bulls, suns, cavs, hawks, mavs were all much better media wise than new orleans and memphis.
We need to talk about how some ppl were hyping Jalen Williams to be a superstar yet he underperforms in damn near every big game 🤷🏾
thunder are all fluff, 2 great players shai and chet and a bunch of avg overhyped guys . reminds me of the grizz a few years back
@@Chudsic y'all are the problem OKC lost so what
He’s a 3rd year player, he’s extremely good
Him and hardenstein were the only 2 players for okc that played well all game.
@@Chudsicthinking Chet is great is hilarious
People who dislike the nba because of political reasons or general disdain for the players being entitled and putting in low effort/taking games off have been blaming the threes as the sole reason for the dip in ratings or loss of interest when it isn’t as much of an issue as poor marketing and access to the games/load management. Also should bring back the classic theme music on espn and not the garbage they have now
Bring back hand checking, eliminate the corner three and crack down on carry/walk/double dribble. That's it. Teams will be forced to get creative on offense, classic positions will return and different skills will emerge.
@@UpTheDown7 If the old school guys could carry and walk, they would have looked more athletic. Vice-versa for the current guys.
Get rid of the dumb extra step after pivoting, too, it's weird.
@@BillTony2 Yup. People act like hesitation dribbles and step backs and combinations were created in the last 10 years ago. All you have to do is go watch the AND1 mixtapes from the late 90s. This stuff has been around forever but NBA players couldn't break it out in games because refs actually called carries, walks and double dribbles.
I was going for no three pt areas anymore but your suggestions are more realistic.
My main problem with the NBA aside from too many games is it’s become a 3 point shooting contest. Everyone plays the same it’s homogenized
Yeah. I don't want Ant Edwards to play like Steph Curry. What a waste of the best dunker in the game...
This point some people make over too many dominant foreign players or whatever is just… not good enough of a reason for somehow the ratings to go down imo and also just silly for us Americans to worry about.
I think it’s a lot of things that have accumulated to what we have now. I’ll call out Harden for the way he took advantage of player empowerment just for one. The all star game also just represents what the game is now to the best players of the league and it’s just a disrespect to the legends of the past who built this and who gave it their all, with consideration of us fans too.
A lot of Americans are racist and xenophobic af. I know that can be difficult for some people to accept, but it's just a fact. Also, a lot of star players and key players are getting injured like crazy. As a Bulls fan, the past decade+ has been dark times for my Bulls as a result of injuries, and the same can be said for so many teams.
That's why the all-star games have become trash, because players aren't trying to get injured playing hard. It's a sad fact of reality, but I can't blame 'em. That also bleeds into the player empowerment stuff, because to your point about James Harden, I see both sides of it.
When Harden was on the Nets, the covid shutdown happened and Kyrie REFUSED to go to the bubble and REFUSED to get the shot, which pretty much sabotaged the team that year in 2020. The next year, the Nets were pretty much gonna win it all, but they got hit with the injury bug against the Bucks (and then the Big Toe happened). I can't blame Harden for wantin' to leave after that. Then there's that whole thing that happened with Daryl Morey, plus Sixers fans weren't too sad to see him go after his typical hot & cold performances in the playoffs.
It's an unfortunate part of sports. There are so many factors that affect various aspects of the game, including unforeseen events and unintended consequences of rules changes and whatnot, so it's difficult to find a balance that pleases everyone and allows the league to continue to profit.
Player empowerment really has hurt the product overall. Sure, guys making insane trade requests and massive stars getting moved every single season draws up talk of the NBA on social media and all that, but it’s slowly killing fandom. Your “team” changes so rapidly, it’s insane, while the organizations are forced to bet everything in their 3-4 year future on 1-2 guys who make like half the money on the team. It’s busted
I'm in the group of people who track the league but rarely watch games. They're too fitful - marred by too many time-outs, ads and refereeing delays. There are too many games which devalues each of them, and they're already devalued by a post-season. And the pattern of play - constantly jacking up threes - is unsightly. The rules and format need a major rethink. When the participants themselves don't feel like every game is important, that's a big problem.
It's not just an american problem, european fans who used to love the nba now roll their eyes at the way the game is played. Also another contributing factor is the degradation of loyalty towards the team amongst players.
@@chrkonst that’s mostly a issue created by ring culture that media & fans promote when y’all talk about these players . How about yall stop supporting first take & shows like that & maybe stars wouldn’t mind retiring with a team even if they don’t win
Dr. J was an Atlanta Hawk, with Maravich and Lou Hudson, until he wasn't.
⚡️Giannis 👑
The problem is there is a unicorn moment happening in basketball its just not in the NBA. Caitlin Clark is the clear basketball unicorn right now
what a white girl that shoot like steph...okay....thrilling.......
Bill is so out of touch that it’s scary. I’ve noticed that, ever since he made the big bucks by selling The Ringer, his takes have become wackier and ludicrous.
For a guy who kept saying that Eddie Murphy stopped being funny when he lost touch with the everyday man, it’s funny that Bill doesn’t realize the same thing has happened to him.
The NBA is awful and he keeps making stuff up to try to convince himself that it’s great, even when everyone’s telling him that it sucks.
@@dameistersports1925 Great take, dude. I’ve followed Bill since his days as a columnist on ESPN’s Page 2. Used to love the guy, but now he has started to sound more and more like present-day Howard Stern.
@JamesWill-t8p The video literally starts off with him saying that the NBA is doing just fine because they signed a multi-billion TV deal, did you not watch it? Also, in previous videos, he's made the comparison with the 1990's and 2000's, stating that the league back then was bad and that it's great now.
In addition to all that, in this video he said that the 2010's were not good. Stop being a fanboy and actually pay attention to what your idol's saying in the videos before you come hating on those of us who really do watch them and care about what's being said.
I used to love the NBA and it bothers me that those who are profiting from it now (such as Simmons himself) don't give a crap about how the product has diminished just because it makes money.
@JamesWill-t8p Yeah, right. I'm gonna be AI messing with you when I'm quoting Simmons' theory about why Eddie Murphy stopped being funny. It proves that I've followed him for a long time (not a recent fanboy like you) and I really dislike what he's become now, which is an apologist for a league that no longer cares about its hardcore fans. And, since he became a millionaire with his Ringer deal, he's had this know-it-all attitude that doesn't allow him to get in touch with what's really happening.
This was really well done I learned a lot here, and maybe the transition we are in with the NBA is just natural. A lot of added context I didn’t know was in this video. This has to be the only video on YT that addresses the NBAs history with this angle. If there is another one I wanna see it lol
Basketball is as popular as ever but the ratings are going down. Illegal streaming is the reason for that. Nobody spends $100 a month on subscription packages & they shouldn’t.
THANKYOU 💯
People illegally stream the NFL too...yet ratings are sky high.
Weak excuse
@rgreenberg35 Exactly. Today's NBA is weak, and the game is like bad pickup ball with NBA athletes. It's awful.
One of the reasons ratings are down is lack of access to games. They can’t have days where this is 1 nba game, and cup game for that matter, and can’t be viewed on league pass.
@JamesWill-t8p this is the truest complaint. I couldnt even watch the emirates Cup last night and i have nba league pass
100% true. I couldnt watch the game last night.
@JamesWill-t8p im not an NFL fan, only Bears and they have them on Amazon often.
But i have nba league pass, and still miss most the good nba games.
@JamesWill-t8p During Thanksgiving I believe they were. Either that or something that was streaming on a common movie channel because I watched. Is the NFL easier or harder to watch?
@JamesWill-t8p gotcha.
This is great 👍🏾 I need this, bring me back to my childhood, love it
All Star Game sucks. Regular season is boring and key players are systematically out. In the playoffs 30% of the games are blow outs because of 3 points shots. The game totally like physicality and every game is kinda the same, with very small stylistic variations. I think NBA will need a complete reset.
All this talk about "stylistic variation" (which is mostly false cause teams from the same era usually play the same and have similar shot profiles) don't compare to the real issue, which is the lack of american superstars and the constant injuries.
All star game always sucked, you only liked it when you a kid because you didn’t know any better.
@@deepvoicedude4749No, that’s not true. The All-Star games from 1984-2004 were much more competitive than the ones we have seen in the last 20 years. Guys actually played defense and didn’t just shoot threes and go for wide open dunks in transition. Guys actually fouled opposing players but they didn’t foul as hard as they would during a regular game.
Get rid of the 3 point shot and make all shots equal. The NFL shows courage to change things up to make its product better. Sports are a show. And NBA content is boring.
Because the days of 88-72 blowouts weren't boring?
It got so bad that the All Star Game was the only time all year I didn't have to see nothing but boring defense brickfests
I highly doubt other countries are watching the NBA like that
Nobody cares about NBA world wide. NBA IS DONE
"This is the league we have chosen." Bill is wise to be quoting Godfather 2.
Fans hated when scores were too low in the 2000s
Fans now hate when scores are too high
You can’t have it both ways
its almost like u need balance
@@chrisuncleahmad666 remove the three point line and make all baskets equal-encourages more offensive diversity and creativity in getting the ball into the basket. Right now, we have 3 point shot chucking LA fitness style basketball. It’s boring! Be like the NFL and make adjustments! Fire Adam Silver.
Sounds like we had it pretty good in the 2010s
@@harveycminusmansfiel You know what WAS boring?
84-80 brickfests where you almost wish there was a 3 pointer instead of isoball spamming, which wasn't exactly diversity or creativity.
Yea seeing the 2000s nostalgia I feel like I’m in the twilight zone lol. People don’t actually want to go back to that time cuz they didn’t like it back then when it was happening. All those rule changes weren’t for no reason
The NBA will be just fine. Their TV ratings in the US are down because cable TV is down. All of cable TV is on a death spiral. Moving the NBA off TNT and onto ABC on Saturday nights and NBC on Sunday nights is going to be great for the league. Welcome back to broadcast network TV the rest of this stuff about stars and what not will take care of itself as it always does.
Why has the NFL been setting viewership records?
Regular season is just boring unless I’m betting. And the odds are so trash now I don’t even bet.
The regular season has always been the same
@@maartenvz guys used to actually play games. And the games used to be like 98-94. The norm now is for a game to be 124-101
It’s possible to watch 100 nba games and not see 1 come down to the final minute.
seek help
@JamesWill-t8p fair enough, I’m just remembering a typical game being way more competitive than they are now. Obviously if these teams are taking 40 threes, if one team makes 21 and the other team 13 then that 24 points you have to make up Somewhere, otherwise we just get a blowout.
When I’m watching a game, I just want it to be competitive and have a “crunch time” it won’t happen all the time of course but IMO they are wayyyy to many games decided by 20+ points considering how deep the league is.
3am Bill post, we love it
Every other league's viewership has rebounded since Covid, or even increased in the MLB's case. The NBA just puts out a bad product despite having the most player talent in 30 years.
The NHL hasn't. Hockey's product sucks and the ratings are still as bad as ever.
@@chrisuncleahmad666Their product doesn’t suck… their playoffs is the best out of the 4 major sports. Their problem is too much parity. Hockey is a Rangers Stanley Cup win away from showing much more positive ratings. The problem with Hockey is the Florida Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning dominating the sport. If it were the Rangers or the Toronto Maple Leafs or the Philadelphia Flyers, the numbers would increase drastically.
Thanks for this one Bill
This video looks like ai bill simmons
BRING BACK THE HAND CHECK. Hand check from inbound until the 3pt line. Make the 3 ball harder to take. Once the opponent crosses passed their 3 pt line they are now a driving opponent. The hand check cant be used. Allows freedom of movement. Encourages teams to drive inside. Makes 3s harder to take. No unchecked 3s and bad shots.
Revenue is divided among the 30 teams at a base level. After that base level is hit the rest of the money is divided up between the teams who compete and win. The losing teams have to do more to earn more of the pie.
NBA needs to restructure guaranteed contracts at next CBA. I know it wont happen but progress in that direction is the only thing that will help these bums play more.
ALL STAR GAME- East vs West. Only winning team gets a bonus. Nothing for losing team. MVP and Defensive MVP get huge bonus and prestige. This sets tone hopefully for players to compete more. Some players still wont give a shit but if you have players trying to win and others are just letting guys go by, they may feel pressure to step it up.
With expansion to 32 teams, the NBA needs to have nfl style 8 divisions of 4. Each division winner is a playoff team and the other 8 are wildcards. Adds meaning to winning the divisions.
There was never a moment football was in question. There was a moment Bill ran his mouth about goddell because of deflate gate. Bill was all in his feels and thought his view was the one everyone shared about goddell and the league
@JamesWill-t8p actually ratings went from 14 million in 2008 to 17 million in 2010 and have stayed above 15 million since. The NBA ratings in the same time have dropped from 9-11 million to 5 million.
Gen x is getting tired of the nba, its like rec league no defense run down and jack 3s, nothing like the nba gen x was raised on. Then add gen z who doesn't have cable or the attention span for full games, that's why the ratings are down. Bad things are on the way with lebron on the way out and the raiting tanking already.
Jokic doesn't play defense. All around, Giannis is a better player. As for ratings, it's hard to tell because most people don't watch the game through cable.
And there you go that's one of if not the MAIN reason ratings have plummeted and that's because the product has been overly monetized..it's become difficult to catch a game without having to have subscriptions to multiple outlets to access them and therefore you have less and less people watching, it's just a waste of money which leads to more and MORE people having to steal the product from illegal streaming sites
@boondockbwoy14 True, but we are saying the same thing. Because of what you just said, you can not know the true ratings.
Jokic is 5th in steals and #1 in defensive rebounds but he doesn't play defense?
@BigginsInAmerica offensive wise, you can compare but defense, Jokic is not close.
The NBA start dying the moment you had big men jacking up 3's instead of dominating the paint.
NBA is utterly unwatachble - literally half of NBA fans that existed 3 years ago told you your sport sucks. That has not actually happened before even though Bill claims it happens eveyr decade. And the biggest booster of the sport pretending that because franchise values are going up in an incredibly inflationary enviorment (40% in 4 years) that things are good is utterly ridiculous.
The sport doesn’t suck, the league does.
“You can follow the league without watching the games” This is 100% me.
The past 2.5 years the nba and nba media has decided to completely black ball one of their t2 players in the world, in favor of completely going all in on a player who’s whole gimmick is that he doesn’t care about the sport or the game. Maybe that wasn’t a good idea
Love this comment. To blackball Ja Morant in favor of Ant was a huge mistake.
The NFL it’s the shield over the players and they want to keep it that way so that they aren’t dependent on stars to make the league
After the helping BLM steal all that money year I tuned out 😂
Interesting how every “unicorn moment” must involve L.A. or Boston (usually both). Simmons’ coastal-centric view of NBA history fairly sums up the approach of the league and the national sports media in regards to coverage. There is a refusal to properly discuss and highlight superstars from smaller markets and has led to a self fulfilling prophecy where if the top player/s don’t play for the biggest markets, viewership (at least in the United States) goes down. This is where the NFL is successful where the NBA isn’t. NFL coverage goes where the talent is instead of wishing the talent was in a different city.
The fact that you said I'm not touching that one, kind of proves it is a legitimate problem. Lol
define woke
@delmasmorrow3429 for what purpose?
Because people want to know what it means?
@@ryanblosser6081 what people?
@@JK-mh8olanyone. Educate us on what "woke" means
One thing I like about bill simmons is his historical knowledge and ability to put it in simple form
Respectfully, that’s a lazy take as I watched the whole video. Being 40 and a lifelong laker and nba fan, I can’t get myself motivated watch the games anymore. I can’t pinpoint to one thing but in short, it’s just not entertaining me any more. I really hope you’re right and something changes to get me interested again.