The NBA is as talented and skilled as it's ever been. So why all the negativity?

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6019886/2025/04/01/nba-media-negativity-charles-barkley-shaq/

by ocean12 • 1 year ago

3 8 1 year ago

ocean12• 1 year ago

No serious person can argue the skill level of today’s NBA players isn’t vastly superior to those of 10, 20, 30 and 40 years ago.

bdangubic2• 1 year ago

isn’t it silly to even discuss this for NBA when this is true by default for every single sport including curling :)

for some reason this is always a topic for NBA and no other professional sport…

duxup• 1 year ago

I think the NBA has a sort of social media style negativity meme culture that is just feeding on itself. It's bizarre. It's even more bizarre that the NBA and it's media partners seem to WANT this to continue.

The media meta surrounding the NBA is very negative. Old players hating on new players, new players hating on old players. Media hating on everyone, all with flimsy arguments and sometimes with no argument at all. It's unbearable, and the negativity is unlike any other major American sport.

So it almost doesn't matter what they're talking about it, someone has a lot of negativity about everything.

Orgs like ESPN, and others seem to just feed it as if they don't know what else to do. Draymond Green, a player with some serious behavioral issues and numerous suspensions (and he should have more than that), was made a guest commentator last playoff season ... a completely inexplicable choice, but apparently everyone was ok with it.

I don't know why, but with the NBA everyone involved seems to "WANT" this.

bdangubic2• 1 year ago

Draymond Green, a player with some serious behavioral issues and numerous suspensions (and he should have more than that), was made a guest commentator last playoff season

he is a character :) funny and charismatic, good on TV and generally in media and will likely have a better broadcasting/media career than his bball playing career. randy moss was similar as a player and is now on TV all the time. the way they were both playing doesn’t represent either off the court…

bfc765• 1 year ago

Simple answer - too much Content chasing too few Eyeballs.

Content (Supply) keeps growing but Eyeballs (Demand) is fixed by the number of people and time available.

This is an unstable State in an Attention based Economic system that doesnt acknowledge the massively growing difference between those 2 curves.

We have seen this in Cash based Economic systems where cash is printed faster than products entering the market. People in the market spent centuries attributing the consequences to everything other excessive money printing cause it was non obvious to them that money supply was increasing too fast. This is why central banks emerged.

Same story here. People will talk about everything other than Supply massively overshooting demand because there is no Central Attention Bank monitoring the divergence. So we just get huge amount of cannabilism and everyone shocked and suprised by it.

kristianp• 1 year ago

I've watched a few games recently and I don't see them being dominated by 3's. Sure you notice a few from beside the straight line, but it's still an enjoyable game to watch. What puts me off is the number of ads and the distracting constantly-updating bar along the bottom of the screen on ESPN. It really distracts and makes it harder to concentrate on the action. When ESPN first came to Disney+, for the first few days they didn't have the ads and bar implemented yet and you could enjoy watching the game distraction free. Now I've really noticed the burden that all those distractions take on my ability to concentrate. Especially for those who have a trace of ASD and/or ADHD.

https://archive.is/xDgMU

baranul• 1 year ago

I like your take about this. Teams play the game based on their strengths. Basketball is clearly global, and has many fans. The hero stories and rivalries are there to be told and enjoyed. Where the sour taste can come from, is the style of marketing and advertising being used. No need to hit people over the head or be that distracting from letting people enjoy the game.

jqpabc123• 1 year ago

Crazy idea --- A high level of skill and talent doesn't necessarily equate to a more enjoyable game for fans.

Personally, I'd rather watch the women. Their play relates more to my (and I think most fans) personal experience with the game of basketball.

The men's professional play looks totally foreign to the game the average fan has played. A lot of this has to do with the fact that most ordinary players can't begin to hit 35% from 3 point range.

The NBA is as talented and skilled as it's ever been. So why all the negativity?

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