NBA - Main

Take away the ESPN games and you’re golden. They’re all complete morons

Well have fun with Doris Burke buddy.

Pls god no, NFL is for brain dead people

lol mk

Maybe you should make your sport worth watching before the playoffs.

Will never happen as long as the nba media, fans and players lean into the drama. Everyone was fucking obsessed with the zions baby mama shit, dwight fucking dudes, etc

As long as nba fans care more about the storylines than the game itself, it will never be on the level of nfl reporting

A large part of the NFL fanbase are fans following strictly because they are loyal and avid fans to their local team. As for the NBA, a large part of their fanbase are strictly only watching it to see star players and their favorite stars. And with the natural of basketball, it's focus are more oriented in flashy exciting plays individually being the draw, rather than the game and the sport itself.

I get what he's saying, but basketball is not about a strategy, it's mostly based on reaction and athleticism. Coach can draw a brilliant offensive scheme, but players would still take what's defense is giving them, i.e. mismatch/open lane/open man/iso. A head coach in NBA is arguably the less important position on a team.

needs to be more WWF like

Then do that?

Fellas, is this good? i don't follow american football at all.

I’d like NFL coverage to be more NFL-like this year…KC games are the worst example all they show/talk about is TS in the stands but they’re not alone. It’s gossipy bs now too. Ruined baseball years ago with all the pink hat family friendly bs. Bunch of eggheads in the front offices of every sport just looking to up revenue.

The major difference is that the NFL actually has a lot of rules and regulations they can use to enhance their media coverage. They might throw them away via referees a lot of the time, but they still have them to fall back on. The NBA blatantly disregards the rules to the point you can't really use them. Also, it's much easier to play without technique, if you have the athleticism. Basically, there's less nuance. Therefore, less intelligent coverage.

Watched the Madden documentary and he really pioneered the “teaching” aspect of broadcasting. Using the telestrator and diagramming plays really showed viewers what they were actually watching. As much as Reddit loves to hate him, Collinsworth also does a great job of dissecting plays on SNF.

The NBA needs to find a former coach who wants to talk more X’s and O’s, and give them space to do it. That means a 2 man booth as well.

you cant make a reality show and then be surprised people care only about the contestants and not the game

The difference between the two leagues is the NFL markets team first then the individual players. With the NBA it’s the opposite. Basketball is my number one sport and football is second. So I’d welcome a change in the marketing.

Step 1: Prioritize America, not China.

Mark Cuban said this in his legendary destruction of Skip Bayless. And he was 1000% right and so is Silver

Cut the number of games in half then. NFL coverage is so great because every game matters and the reactionary response to NFL games is massive. Theres 82 games in the NBA season. One game doesnt mean anything at all so theres no room for reactionary content. The games dont matter that much in NBA. Until the regular season actually matters, NBA will continue to decline.

Most NBA players are completely unlikable due to Silver pampering all of them.

I'd say that the NFL does an amazing job of showcasing that they have 32 teams across the country regardless of media market, superstars, or success. The baseline for coverage, analysis, and media assets devoted to teams at the bottom of their division are much higher than those for lottery-level NBA teams. If an NBA team is a Wizards-in-the-last-decade-level bad, the NBA media just tries to skirt around how bad they are and focus on the contending teams unless they're truly, historically bad (Bobcats). In the NFL, even the dumpster fires get critical breakdowns and aren't treated as afterthoughts.

Maybe that's more symptomatic of the NBA being focused on utilizing their largest existing media markets whereas the NFL builds large media markets in places that normally wouldn't have them. Each NFL team is treated like an asset that's meant to succeed marketing & business wise on it's own, versus the NBA where a handful of markets are able to carry the rest of the league on their back.

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This begs the question for me: is the gap between top and bottom tier teams bigger in the NFL or NBA? I don't know enough about football to make a judgment.

I guess I don’t see it. But also, NBA media just covers 4 teams - Lakers, Clippers, Knicks, and Celtics.

The NBA Markets personalities and the media does too for better or for worse. NFL is less narrative driven though. What can people see though? When they watch NBA games they see a shit ton of pick n rolls and a shit ton of three point attempts. Its hard for the casual to see the complexity in that. If there is any at all .

You can’t compare a seven game series to a one game, winner takes all championship.

They’re asking for a lot more from their audience than to go to a party, watch fun commercials (I guess… never got that part), and see a championship decided in a few hours.

It’s not a realistic comparison.

Produce a better product and maybe there will be more hype and effort put in by the media. Hard to put in effort when we get the shit basketball we get. And it’s Silver’s fault.

Heat Check has entered the chat

He's so worried about color commentary, how about end local blackouts if you have league pass so I can actually watch my favorite team.

Well the official nba YouTube has gotten better. Combined with smart tube I’m caught up watching every game played that day in under an hour.

I just listened to this podcast episode and I 100% agree with Adam Silver’s take. Most media outlets only cover the game at a surface-level and make it about the players and the matchups like it’s some sort of wrestling match. It’s rare to hear in-depth analysis that goes into the coach’s strategy and defensive schemes. When color commentators try to describe the scheme in the moment, I feel like they usually get it wrong, too.

Former players turned analysts in the media, like Brian Scalabrine on the Celtics broadcast, do a decent job breaking down the schemes on replays. It’s hard to call it correctly in real time, though.

The product isn't as worthy

If the talent was more evenly dispersed across the league I’d prolly watch it more. I miss 1990’s basketball, especially growing up a Bulls fan

I think he needs one of his players to steal Taylor from Kelce. Then he'll get the coverage he wants.

Then put games on regular TV like NFL games. Everyone has moved on from cable but that's the only way to watch your games. You're not where the audience is anymore, Silver.

As long as they don't make announcers as obnoxious when they comment about a team or players. The NFL sounds like American guys being bros a lot of the time

Too many games. If NBA was covered the way NFL was the media would be swamped

Fuck the NBA…

Well how about you stop letting players ruin the game, and their teams, by asking for trades every time something doesn't go their way, people getting sick of this soft ass diva shit

I never paid attention to how bad MBA media was until I heard Kendrick Perkins talk about how the only reason Jokic was getting MVP love over Embiid was cause he was white. This is a former professional player, and a supposed analyst and instead of thinking up statistical reasons, or showing film on why Embiid was more impactful to his team, Perk just decided “nah it has to be racism cause why would anyone vote for white guy over black guy if they weren’t racists”

Half of NBA media the last decade has been purely about the money and contracts and who’s going where in free agency. Takes so much away from sports and the beauty of competition at a high level

The coverage is different partially due to the nature of the sports. It s also the sheer number of games played in a season.

NBA finals is a series best of 7. Super Bowl is one game and winner takes it all. It is just different. Regular season is the same thing 82 games across 6 months per team in NBA vs 17 games across 4 months per team in NFL. It is easy to miss an NBA game and not feel it, unlike NFL.

Want each game to matter more and get more coverage? Then maybe reduce the number of games, but that is against the financial incentive of TV rights and ticket sales. You cannot avoid dilution of your product when you expand the quantity and make it more available more frequently.

I agree. I watched the Knicks/Spurs game last night and they literally weren’t even talking about the game at all. They just rambled on and on and on about Wembanyama being 19 years old even though he had no impact on the game being played.

Step 1: Clean up the refs

Step 2: Protect the fans (i.e. stop teams from tanking & players from disrupting seasons for contract/trade demands)

Step 3: Take away a time out from each half and convert normal commercial breaks into split-screen ads

Step 4: Set a high minimum requirement for in-season coverage time during cumulative highlight/reporting/commentary shows (total, morning, and primetime) for media outlets that license highlight clips (25%+ during regular season, 40%+ during postseason)

Step 5: Push/subsidize more substantial endorsements (both timewise and brandwise) for the top players, especially those that overperform on the court but don't do a lot of ads

More NFL like? Can we get the reporters for the NBA to stop slobbing on every player? Never before has a media collection coddled and praised and soft shoe’d any criticism than the shitty NBA media.

I don't really see what he's asking for here. His argument is that everyone watches the NFL's Super Bowl Sunday regardless of the teams involved, while NBA fans may skip based on who makes it to the Finals.

Super Bowl Sunday is one day a year, and it's carved out on the calendar well in advance.

The NBA Finals are up to 7 games, many of which are on a week-day. I watch because I'm genuinely interested in the NBA, but you can't expect casual fans to carve that much time out in their schedule to accommodate your championship round.

The only way Silver gets his way is if the NBA goes to a 1 or maybe 3 Game Finals, which would make the product much worse for the true fans.

There is decent NBA coverage and has been for a while, just not front and center in sports media, let's not pretend NBA isnt covered, its just not taken seriously though its regular season, and for good reason at times.

Reduce the number of games

Does this mean we can put Ben Taylor next to Harlan for a stretch and see how it goes? Because I would LOVE that.