NBA 2024-25 Season Thread
Lettuce NBA!
and lettuce lol @ James Harden
And I basically walked into Steph and Draymond getting injured in the game after I posted that injury post.
watching 3 point vs 3 point over and over is not that appealing from a strategic standpoint of viewership.
I get that it's most +EV it just makes for mostly terrible TV.
If I have a game on these days I really only start paying attention til 5 mins left.
Should watch the Knicks less. 😀
Is "Rivals Week" a made up TNT concept or a NBA one?
Either way, woat. there are no rivalries in the NBA anymore
Sixers-Nuggets is a rivalry??
Too much turnover for real rivalries these days.
Should just have LeBron 1v1 against Beef Stew
Maybe they meant storied rivalries like Kawhi vs. actually playing or Embiid vs. a game scheduled in Denver.
i always expected nba to trend more towards baseball/nhl in terms of becoming more niche, culturally less relevant
but it is happening at breakneck pace now, dont think ive had 1 casual friend of mine ask me about the league all year
The main issue the league is facing is the decline of linear TV (i.e. cord cutting), especially among the younger demographics (i.e. < 50-60), which disproportionately affects the NBA, as it has the youngest fan base out of all the major sports. With the rise of OTT and the increase in time spent on smartphones, it's just a more competitive landscape for your attention.
It doesn't help that the best players of this generation are kind of boring, but it's not a coincidence that the last universally recognizable NBA superstars (Lebron, Curry and to a lesser extent KD) all became superstars before the trend really accelerated (I would say something like 2017-2020). The main issue isn't that the game is more boring, but that other forms of entertainment are more interesting. This isn't unique to the NBA - the most recognizable names in soccer are also retired players or players well past their prime, not the best players in today's game. Messi, Ronaldo and Beckham were household names in a way that Haaland isn't and will probably never be. No one is going to come close to Lebron/Curry in terms of cultural relevance any time soon - you would need someone like Ohtani to reverse this trend even temporarily and even Ohtani still falls well short of the 90's superstars in terms of universal recognition.
With that said, cultural relevance isn't economics - the major sports are all doing really well from that standpoint. The NFL has perhaps done the best to withstand the decline in TV because it's so incredibly optimized for the TV and the MLB is cushioned by having an older fan base and also being relatively affordable live experience for families. The NBA is become more popular overseas, does extremely well on social media and is also incredible live entertainment.
It’s a huge issue. The Celtics might sell for less than 5 billion!
Edwards is playing terrible. It seems e very time he goes to the rim he falls to the ground while shooting an extremely difficult shot.
Bad basketball
Wolves have been as disappointing as anyone. Had a great run with injury and basically 500.
The main issue the league is facing is the decline of linear TV (i.e. cord cutting), especially among the younger demographics (i.e. < 50-60), which disproportionately affects the NBA, as it has the youngest fan base out of all the major sports. With the rise of OTT and the increase in time spent on smartphones, it's just a more competitive landscape for your attention.
It doesn't help that the best players of this generation are kind of boring, but it's not a coincidence that the last universal
All these leagues will definitely be staying flush for awhile, but it is surprising how fast we went from that like 2013-2020ish bball all over twitter, people talking about it being on the ascendance while NFL may fade (this sounds absurd now but when Fertitta bought the Rockets in 2018 he even brought it up), LeBron/Curry/KD being so much larger than life phase with the new unicorns like Giannis/Embiid/Jokic etc to where it is now. I think social media plays a role in this, hard for these guys to feel like mythical creatures when theyre just so exposed to people now. Takes away some mystique. And obviously the event aspect of it all, no regular season game can be that big, even most playoff series turn out to be duds given all the injuries in the playoffs now.
I think last few years have been like a TV show where every season is wrapping a storyline up too. Curry got his cherry on top legacy ring with no KD. Jokic finally got his ring that validated him as the best player, Celts finally got their ring after being a contender since 2018 (in a pretty boring way, basically took a brutal loss vs Heat then made 2 massive ripoff trades)
It's like what is even the next storyline? Do the Thunder win? Cavs?....I was looking at the standings the other day and while there isn't a way to measure this, I found most of the teams winning the title this year would feel sortof weird......OKC, Cavs, Knicks, Rockets, Grizzlies.
All these leagues will definitely be staying flush for awhile, but it is surprising how fast we went from that like 2013-2020ish bball all over twitter, people talking about it being on the ascendance while NFL may fade (this sounds absurd now but when Fertitta bought the Rockets in 2018 he even brought it up), LeBron/Curry/KD being so much larger than life phase with the new unicorns like Giannis/Embiid/Jokic etc to where it is now. I think social media plays a role in this, hard for these guys
I think some of this is that you're getting older - attachment to individual players is generally a decreasing function of the age at which you were first introduced to them.
James Harden is good again.
40/5/9
In 127-117 win vs Bucks.
Uh Oh Happy learned how to putt.
Uh Oh James Harden is motivated and takes care of his body.
How is Harden managing to be good with a .397 fg% ?
