Future Amendments to Three-Point Shot

[Doctor MJ]

The rule changes drove the league in this direction if they ever want to change it tweak the rules. Zones diminish bigs and no handchecking opens up the game.

Yup. And the time before they changed those rules is known as the ugliest time for basketball since arguably the pre-shot clock era. The rule changes were a good thing from the perspective of the people who made the rule changes.

[GYK]

The rule changes drove the league in this direction if they ever want to change it tweak the rules. Zones diminish bigs and no handchecking opens up the game.

Yup. And the time before they changed those rules is known as the ugliest time for basketball since arguably the pre-shot clock era. The rule changes were a good thing from the perspective of the people who made the rule changes.

You consider the 90's the ugliest time for basketball? Yes the rules were changed in the 90's by it's known the enforcement didn't happen til' the mid 00's.

[Doctor MJ]

The rule changes drove the league in this direction if they ever want to change it tweak the rules. Zones diminish bigs and no handchecking opens up the game.

Yup. And the time before they changed those rules is known as the ugliest time for basketball since arguably the pre-shot clock era. The rule changes were a good thing from the perspective of the people who made the rule changes.

You consider the 90's the ugliest time for basketball? Yes the rules were changed in the 90's by it's known the enforcement didn't happen til' the mid 00's.

The rule changes I'm talking about were in the '00s. '01-02 illegal defense and '04-05 hand check. And '03-04 might have been the single ugliest year in a half century.

[GYK]

Yup. And the time before they changed those rules is known as the ugliest time for basketball since arguably the pre-shot clock era. The rule changes were a good thing from the perspective of the people who made the rule changes.

You consider the 90's the ugliest time for basketball? Yes the rules were changed in the 90's by it's known the enforcement didn't happen til' the mid 00's.

The rule changes I'm talking about were in the '00s. '01-02 illegal defense and '04-05 hand check. And '03-04 might have been the single ugliest year in a half century.

these are the same rules. you can say adjustment period but I find the story of ugly play is coincided with the ratings and ratings coincided with premiere players/teams not winning.
I never seen bad basketball league wide personally but I heard things.

[Dipper 13]

but at his very best he earned that role by playing in a way that I do think was pretty freakish.

Yes he had the face up and post game mastered by then. He was certainly an efficient post player, and I agree generally about big men being the center of the offense since they need someone to actually get the ball inside to them. After all Wilt lost two playoff series to Boston primarily because they couldn't get the ball to him. In the 60s, Wilt was never in a volume scoring role that had him below 25 FGA. He went from 25.2 shots to 14.1 in one year. If we could have seen him from roughly 18-19 FGA per game, I am sure we would also see excellent (estimated) offensive results from the team. I doubt we would see as good an offensive impact from Shaq or KAJ shooting well over 25 FGA per game in the super high pace of the 60s. It's unfortunate there is no game by game ORtg data pre-1986. It would be interesting to see how KAJ fared in Net ORtg in 1975 and 1978.

Even Shaq did not reach that outlier level on offense until 1998.


1996

Magic ORtg with Shaq (54 games) was 114.8 against teams with an average DRtg of 107.9 (+6.9) on the season.

Magic ORtg without Shaq (28 games) was 111.1 against teams with an average DRtg of 107.2 (+3.9) on the season.

Net Difference: +3.0 ORtg



1997

Lakers ORtg with Shaq (51 games) was 108.7 against teams with an average DRtg of 107.3 (+1.4) on the season.

Lakers ORtg without Shaq (31 games) was 109.1 against teams with an average DRtg of 106.9 (+2.2) on the season.

Net Difference: -0.8 ORtg

[Doctor MJ]

You consider the 90's the ugliest time for basketball? Yes the rules were changed in the 90's by it's known the enforcement didn't happen til' the mid 00's.

The rule changes I'm talking about were in the '00s. '01-02 illegal defense and '04-05 hand check. And '03-04 might have been the single ugliest year in a half century.

these are the same rules. you can say adjustment period but I find the story of ugly play is coincided with the ratings and ratings coincided with premiere players/teams not winning.
I never seen bad basketball league wide personally but I heard things.

Offenses in general weren't doing well until the 2nd rule came into effect, and since that 2nd rule is only there to say "Stop with the obvious cheating people", to me it's pretty clear that that defensive peak came in part from defensive players doing things they were never supposed to be doing in the first place.

Does that mean it was "ugly"? Well not necessarily I suppose. Frankly I really enjoyed watching that Pistons team. But I do think that basketball is more fun to watch now than had been for quite a while at that time. Part of that is just speeding up the game, which is where the first rule change comes into play with something of a gradual effect. The Bird/Magic era is seen as so beautiful and it has everything to do with the kinetic feeling you got from the way they played. Over time after that the league just ground to slower and slower play. I'm glad we've found some ways around that.

[Massamba]

I think the 3's are killing this game. It takes away other skills and the variety of the game. How a stretch 4 like Draymond Green can be one of the most impactfull 4 in the league without being one of the most skilled or dominant? At some point players will stop working on their skills but the 3's and it will be enough to sign a big contract.

[GYK]

The rule changes I'm talking about were in the '00s. '01-02 illegal defense and '04-05 hand check. And '03-04 might have been the single ugliest year in a half century.

these are the same rules. you can say adjustment period but I find the story of ugly play is coincided with the ratings and ratings coincided with premiere players/teams not winning.
I never seen bad basketball league wide personally but I heard things.

Offenses in general weren't doing well until the 2nd rule came into effect, and since that 2nd rule is only there to say "Stop with the obvious cheating people", to me it's pretty clear that that defensive peak came in part from defensive players doing things they were never supposed to be doing in the first place.

Does that mean it was "ugly"? Well not necessarily I suppose. Frankly I really enjoyed watching that Pistons team. But I do think that basketball is more fun to watch now than had been for quite a while at that time. Part of that is just speeding up the game, which is where the first rule change comes into play with something of a gradual effect. The Bird/Magic era is seen as so beautiful and it has everything to do with the kinetic feeling you got from the way they played. Over time after that the league just ground to slower and slower play. I'm glad we've found some ways around that.

I think it's more so to do with ratings and thus to do with fair-weather knowledge of who is supposed to win. The best offenses of all time occurred during this ugly period, Dirk/Nash Mavs and Nash Suns. Also the rise in TS%. The story behind the downfall is really the Lakers didn't win more than 3.

[Goudelock]

I think the 3's are killing this game. It takes away other skills and the variety of the game. How a stretch 4 like Draymond Green can be one of the most impactfull 4 in the league without being one of the most skilled or dominant? At some point players will stop working on their skills but the 3's and it will be enough to sign a big contract.

The dude almost won defensive player of the year. Just sayin'.

[MyUniBroDavis]

tbh, for me, thats why advanced stats shouldnt be so heavily used. yes, they are usefull, but sometimes what they show is just bs. for example, we know winshares is a bull stat. offensive rating and defensive rating is misleading imo.
also,w here did you get rpm stats? the ones on nba reference isnt rpm, box plus minus is completely different.

Actually what they show here is pretty damn intuitive. Hakeem for most of his career was not very efficient as a volume scorer. Add in the issues that always exist in predictably forcing the ball to a big and the WOWY data isn't giving us anything that should shock a seasoned analyst.

I'll apologize for what it's worth for being harsh but: What you're showing here is that you have a rather naive view of things AND that when stats show you you may be wrong you assume you know better. It's going to be hard for you to learn with that attitude.

Here's a very general principle about stats: Don't look at any of them as BS, and don't look at any of them as gospel. Figure out what it is precisely they are saying, and use them for what they are worth. All of these stats are useful when used well.

As far as where he got those stats, well there is a link in his post. Click on it.

Where did the data come from originally? From painstaking research by people on RealGM.

... When I say they shouldnt be so heavily used, im saying that they shouldnt be seen as a end all. for example, winshares and per arent good stats. I love rapm, but we have to look at it in context. based on how its analyzed, its more impressive for someone on a bad team like westbrook to get a good rapm than someone like curry, even though curry has a higher rpm. I misread the post. I though he said rpm.

Also, I misread the post. I thought it said Hakeem made the rockets worse offensively

I use stats ALOT. its just that sometimes, they can be misleading. For example, rebound percentage can be misleading. to see how valuable "rebounding" is, you have to see which rebounds are contested, which rebounds arent, and how the player himself plays. for example, 10 rebounds from davis is much more important than 9.8 rebounds from love, because love averages 3.7 contested rebound a gam , which is the 2nd worst in the league for players who rebound more than 9.5 times,while davis averages 4.7 contested rebounds a game which is 7th in the league, which is more impressive considering davis usually is running in transition.

But love has a higher rebound percentage.

defensive win shares make davis 10th at his position, and while he isnt draymond green level, im sure that he is oen of the top 6 defensive big men. also, the advanced stats contradict each other at times, and I value rpm over win shares. this is because win shares can make people make crazy assumptions.

for example that above post is seemingly implying that hakeem is only slightly better than average offensively. while obviously offensive rating can be used to imply that maybe his impact wasnt as significant as it seemed, i doubt that we can use offensive/defensive rating to see how players would do today. Im the biggest davis fan there is, but there is no way his offense is as good as hakeem's yet.


ive heard people say that paul pierce is a more effective defenderr than dwight because paul had higher career defensive win shares. obviouslhy, this stat is being misused, but there are other instances when win shares have been overly used.


Like i said, normally I use advanced stats ALOT, but looking at the playstyle/way a team functions is important.

what im trying to argue is that SOMETIMES, we cant use advanced stats on the surface. there has to be a real analysis of the game. there are many things i agree with advanced stats on though. on the SURFACE, nate thurmond is a better defender than bill russell, based on how he was definately better in terms of man to man against wilt and kareem, as he relitevely held them in their peaks. however, we know that overall, wehn other factors of defense are included, bill russell is a much better defender. Win shares can give a basic grasp of an idea, but it takes deeper analysis to see who is better than who.

Now, im not trying to say advanced stats are bad. Im saying that SOMETIMES, there needs to be a deeper analysis. hakeem being "average" as an offensive player is simply foolish. yes, the system/way they played could have made it seem that way, with the emphasis to give him the ball and everything, but I doubt that you could put a player with a higher offensive rating at the same position and expect that the rocckets would be better offensively.

[Doctor MJ]

these are the same rules. you can say adjustment period but I find the story of ugly play is coincided with the ratings and ratings coincided with premiere players/teams not winning.
I never seen bad basketball league wide personally but I heard things.

Offenses in general weren't doing well until the 2nd rule came into effect, and since that 2nd rule is only there to say "Stop with the obvious cheating people", to me it's pretty clear that that defensive peak came in part from defensive players doing things they were never supposed to be doing in the first place.

Does that mean it was "ugly"? Well not necessarily I suppose. Frankly I really enjoyed watching that Pistons team. But I do think that basketball is more fun to watch now than had been for quite a while at that time. Part of that is just speeding up the game, which is where the first rule change comes into play with something of a gradual effect. The Bird/Magic era is seen as so beautiful and it has everything to do with the kinetic feeling you got from the way they played. Over time after that the league just ground to slower and slower play. I'm glad we've found some ways around that.

I think it's more so to do with ratings and thus to do with fair-weather knowledge of who is supposed to win. The best offenses of all time occurred during this ugly period, Dirk/Nash Mavs and Nash Suns. Also the rise in TS%. The story behind the downfall is really the Lakers didn't win more than 3.

You're confused. For some reason you're putting '04-05 in the old era when it very clearly starts the new era. Also, the only reason people sometimes argue the Dirk/Nash Mavs as the best offense in history is from a perspective of how much above league norms they were. They were nowhere close to the most effective offense in history from an absolute perspective, but given how well they did in that ugly era, you can argue it was the most impressive offensive performance in history.

[GYK]

Offenses in general weren't doing well until the 2nd rule came into effect, and since that 2nd rule is only there to say "Stop with the obvious cheating people", to me it's pretty clear that that defensive peak came in part from defensive players doing things they were never supposed to be doing in the first place.

Does that mean it was "ugly"? Well not necessarily I suppose. Frankly I really enjoyed watching that Pistons team. But I do think that basketball is more fun to watch now than had been for quite a while at that time. Part of that is just speeding up the game, which is where the first rule change comes into play with something of a gradual effect. The Bird/Magic era is seen as so beautiful and it has everything to do with the kinetic feeling you got from the way they played. Over time after that the league just ground to slower and slower play. I'm glad we've found some ways around that.

I think it's more so to do with ratings and thus to do with fair-weather knowledge of who is supposed to win. The best offenses of all time occurred during this ugly period, Dirk/Nash Mavs and Nash Suns. Also the rise in TS%. The story behind the downfall is really the Lakers didn't win more than 3.

You're confused. For some reason you're putting '04-05 in the old era when it very clearly starts the new era. Also, the only reason people sometimes argue the Dirk/Nash Mavs as the best offense in history is from a perspective of how much above league norms they were. They were nowhere close to the most effective offense in history from an absolute perspective, but given how well they did in that ugly era, you can argue it was the most impressive offensive performance in history.

That's exactly how i compare offenses. Being efficent in an efficent league isn't as impressive as a gap.
If pre-Lebron is the ugly era it's weird cause that's a high ratings era. The predictability set by the Lakers had the public involved and "knowledgable". I really don't know what your idea of ugly is. Retrospectively I'm sure there are holes, 80's weak outisde of the powerhouses. So which years are ugly?

[Doctor MJ]

I think it's more so to do with ratings and thus to do with fair-weather knowledge of who is supposed to win. The best offenses of all time occurred during this ugly period, Dirk/Nash Mavs and Nash Suns. Also the rise in TS%. The story behind the downfall is really the Lakers didn't win more than 3.

You're confused. For some reason you're putting '04-05 in the old era when it very clearly starts the new era. Also, the only reason people sometimes argue the Dirk/Nash Mavs as the best offense in history is from a perspective of how much above league norms they were. They were nowhere close to the most effective offense in history from an absolute perspective, but given how well they did in that ugly era, you can argue it was the most impressive offensive performance in history.

That's exactly how i compare offenses. Being efficent in an efficent league isn't as impressive as a gap.
If pre-Lebron is the ugly era it's weird cause that's a high ratings era. The predictability set by the Lakers had the public involved and "knowledgable". I really don't know what your idea of ugly is. Retrospectively I'm sure there are holes, 80's weak outisde of the powerhouses. So which years are ugly?

Again, you're confused.

It's well and good to praise an offense relative to the effectiveness of its contemporaries, but when we talk about an era that's good for offense, we're talking about offenses in general being effective. Using your definition we could have rule changes that lowered scoring down to 5 points per 100 possessions and you'd be saying it was a good offensive era if one offense scored 25 points per 100 possessions. Do you see why that doesn't make sense?

Re: High ratings era. I'm not sure by what standard you're making that claim. It would be good if you could elaborate. It's important to recognize that ratings in different eras cannot be compared apples-to-apples because of changes in society and technology.

I think it's useful though to compare the MLB World Series to the NBA Finals.

If we look at the NBA Finals ratings over the past decade plus we see positive trends for the most part:



If we look at the World Series, not so much:



Obviously there's variance from year to year (nice to have the Lakers in the finals when you can), but I don't see how you make the case that popularity hasn't shifted over to basketball relative to baseball. I understand that from some perspective you could see basketball not looking like an improvement and baseball just looking like a huge drop off, but the reality that salaries are skyrocketing in sports right now precisely because sports programming is actually holding up WELL compared to other programming in this age where it's so hard to grab on to an audience distracted by ten thousand digital butterflies.

Re: definition of ugly. To put it as simply as I can: Ugly basketball is basketball that is slow and dominated by brute force, beautiful basketball is faster and finesse driven.

Now as I say that, I"m sure some will say, "That's your opinion, but I happen to like...", but my point is that this is not my "opinion". It may be your personal preference, and thus your opinion that you like grind-it-out battles, but people in general are drawn to what I'm talking about. Individually each of those people have no more right to get what they want than someone else, but if we can predict pretty easily what will make people enjoy a game more, we have to be able to attach some kind of adjective to that.

Thus I could say "more enjoyable" as opposed to "more beautiful", but would that really be less objectionable?

And also just to be clear, I'm not bringing up "beauty" out of the blue. The tradition of referring to certain styles of play in sports as "beautiful" has been around a very long time. The meaning is far more established than "more enjoyable".

Re: '80s weak outside the powerhouses. Well there's a truth in the matter that an era tends to be defined by the best of that era. It's wrong to say everyone in the '80s was playing beautiful basketball simply because Bird & Magic were outlier geniuses, but on the other hand, Bird & Magic's popularity had everything to do with why the NBA took off in the '80s so making such links has a very hard, financial truth to it.

[GYK]

You're confused. For some reason you're putting '04-05 in the old era when it very clearly starts the new era. Also, the only reason people sometimes argue the Dirk/Nash Mavs as the best offense in history is from a perspective of how much above league norms they were. They were nowhere close to the most effective offense in history from an absolute perspective, but given how well they did in that ugly era, you can argue it was the most impressive offensive performance in history.

That's exactly how i compare offenses. Being efficent in an efficent league isn't as impressive as a gap.
If pre-Lebron is the ugly era it's weird cause that's a high ratings era. The predictability set by the Lakers had the public involved and "knowledgable". I really don't know what your idea of ugly is. Retrospectively I'm sure there are holes, 80's weak outisde of the powerhouses. So which years are ugly?

Again, you're confused.

It's well and good to praise an offense relative to the effectiveness of its contemporaries, but when we talk about an era that's good for offense, we're talking about offenses in general being effective. Using your definition we could have rule changes that lowered scoring down to 5 points per 100 possessions and you'd be saying it was a good offensive era if one offense scored 25 points per 100 possessions. Do you see why that doesn't make sense?

Re: High ratings era. I'm not sure by what standard you're making that claim. It would be good if you could elaborate. It's important to recognize that ratings in different eras cannot be compared apples-to-apples because of changes in society and technology.

I think it's useful though to compare the MLB World Series to the NBA Finals.

If we look at the NBA Finals ratings over the past decade plus we see positive trends for the most part:



If we look at the World Series, not so much:



Obviously there's variance from year to year (nice to have the Lakers in the finals when you can), but I don't see how you make the case that popularity hasn't shifted over to basketball relative to baseball. I understand that from some perspective you could see basketball not looking like an improvement and baseball just looking like a huge drop off, but the reality that salaries are skyrocketing in sports right now precisely because sports programming is actually holding up WELL compared to other programming in this age where it's so hard to grab on to an audience distracted by ten thousand digital butterflies.

Re: definition of ugly. To put it as simply as I can: Ugly basketball is basketball that is slow and dominated by brute force, beautiful basketball is faster and finesse driven.

Now as I say that, I"m sure some will say, "That's your opinion, but I happen to like...", but my point is that this is not my "opinion". It may be your personal preference, and thus your opinion that you like grind-it-out battles, but people in general are drawn to what I'm talking about. Individually each of those people have no more right to get what they want than someone else, but if we can predict pretty easily what will make people enjoy a game more, we have to be able to attach some kind of adjective to that.

Thus I could say "more enjoyable" as opposed to "more beautiful", but would that really be less objectionable?

And also just to be clear, I'm not bringing up "beauty" out of the blue. The tradition of referring to certain styles of play in sports as "beautiful" has been around a very long time. The meaning is far more established than "more enjoyable".

Re: '80s weak outside the powerhouses. Well there's a truth in the matter that an era tends to be defined by the best of that era. It's wrong to say everyone in the '80s was playing beautiful basketball simply because Bird & Magic were outlier geniuses, but on the other hand, Bird & Magic's popularity had everything to do with why the NBA took off in the '80s so making such links has a very hard, financial truth to it.

Didn't you say post 05 with the rule change is the resurgence? I'm sure I said the Lakers era was fine and Lebron going on his run(should have known to add Kobe) was the clear start of change.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Basketball_Association_Nielsen_ratings
Yea I'm still confused. I'm not sure when your talking about. I been standing on basketball is always good and that predictability of winners or lack of is really when the league is beautiful or ugly(at least the narrative).

And yea the game changes a lot. I find it only right to compare teams amongst comtemparies. Style of play/rules changes/emphasizes on enforcement make even year to year comparisons kinda foolish. Ratings above average have worked well for me.

[mysticOscar]

The rule changes drove the league in this direction if they ever want to change it tweak the rules. Zones diminish bigs and no handchecking opens up the game.

Include the defensive 3 seconds with the zones...that not only diminishes the bigs impact on both ends...it requires for him to be able to shoot to make life easier for perimeter penetration

[Moonbeam]

^ I once played in a 3on3 tournament (Gus Macker style) where shots in the paint were worth one, shots from a straight flat line 20 feet away at center (which doubled as "check") were worth three and everything else was worth two. I wouldn't recommend it for the NBA, but in a half court game it created a fun dynamic. Your list of silly suggestions might actually contain a few gems we just can't distinguish yet.

I played in the Gus Macker tournament for many years! Fun memories.

As for the topic, I understand the concern that the 3-point revolution has perhaps contributed to a decline in ultra-skilled big men, but I think when someone comes along (say a Boogie with his head screwed on straight, or Anthony Davis if he develops hat kind of game) and exploits the extra space afforded by better shooting, there will be precedents to follow.

I think this is a really underrated aspect of the development of top-end basketball talent. For decades, the stars of the league were predominantly big men, and they clearly inspired others to follow through Hakeem, Ewing, etc. but when Jordan took off, a whole new legion of fans wanted to be like Mike, and it has fuelled the increase in perimeter play, IMO. Shaq was a huge star as well, and in a sense it is surprising that his influence on incoming talent hasn't been as great (or perhaps my theory is bogus), but a lot of kids looked up to AI and Kobe, and that has continued the cycle of guys wanting to kill you with crossovers and fadeaways. I wish more kids would take a liking to Kobe's post game.

[day1086]

Is it a bad thing if the physical requirements for the game are lowered and replaced by a skill component?

So many 7 footers with zero skills have played in the NBA

[Doctor MJ]

Didn't you say post 05 with the rule change is the resurgence? I'm sure I said the Lakers era was fine and Lebron going on his run(should have known to add Kobe) was the clear start of change.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Basketball_Association_Nielsen_ratings
Yea I'm still confused. I'm not sure when your talking about. I been standing on basketball is always good and that predictability of winners or lack of is really when the league is beautiful or ugly(at least the narrative).

And yea the game changes a lot. I find it only right to compare teams amongst comtemparies. Style of play/rules changes/emphasizes on enforcement make even year to year comparisons kinda foolish. Ratings above average have worked well for me.

The new era started in '04-05, the TV ratings didn't immediately improve in part because the casual fan has a delayed reaction to such improvements. They don't start watching more until the trends are more widespread, and often until he's told about the trends.

But also, as I've said, it's critical to understand the changing landscape of television in media. TV watching has gotten more and more distributed over time.



While Jordan's era had Jordan and that did represent a peak of interest, when you look at those Nielsen ratings and see the '90s being huge compared to later eras, a big part of that is that it's simply harder to draw big ratings now period. If it were otherwise - if basketball were truly much less popular than it was back then, then the league would be in hard times - like what the NBA saw in the '70s when their finals ratings were actually quite comparable to now - rather than in the midst of a revenue explosion.

Okay so going further, it seems like you're skeptical that style of play actually matters much. Perhaps you're advocating that the specific players and teams involved matter more than the style. There's truth in that. Those things matter a great deal.

But are you seriously going to argue that if the NBA saw offensive efficacy go down enough, that that wouldn't have a negative impact on popularity in the long-term?

[GYK]

Didn't you say post 05 with the rule change is the resurgence? I'm sure I said the Lakers era was fine and Lebron going on his run(should have known to add Kobe) was the clear start of change.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Basketball_Association_Nielsen_ratings
Yea I'm still confused. I'm not sure when your talking about. I been standing on basketball is always good and that predictability of winners or lack of is really when the league is beautiful or ugly(at least the narrative).

And yea the game changes a lot. I find it only right to compare teams amongst comtemparies. Style of play/rules changes/emphasizes on enforcement make even year to year comparisons kinda foolish. Ratings above average have worked well for me.

The new era started in '04-05, the TV ratings didn't immediately improve in part because the casual fan has a delayed reaction to such improvements. They don't start watching more until the trends are more widespread, and often until he's told about the trends.

But also, as I've said, it's critical to understand the changing landscape of television in media. TV watching has gotten more and more distributed over time.



While Jordan's era had Jordan and that did represent a peak of interest, when you look at those Nielsen ratings and see the '90s being huge compared to later eras, a big part of that is that it's simply harder to draw big ratings now period. If it were otherwise - if basketball were truly much less popular than it was back then, then the league would be in hard times - like what the NBA saw in the '70s when their finals ratings were actually quite comparable to now - rather than in the midst of a revenue explosion.

Okay so going further, it seems like you're skeptical that style of play actually matters much. Perhaps you're advocating that the specific players and teams involved matter more than the style. There's truth in that. Those things matter a great deal.

But are you seriously going to argue that if the NBA saw offensive efficacy go down enough, that that wouldn't have a negative impact on popularity in the long-term?

I don't see your graphic.
Yes I don't see style mattering when it comes to the rhetoric behind the nba. Malice in the palace was probably the most damaging thing to the nba.
When exactly is the era's seperate to you?

[Doctor MJ]

Didn't you say post 05 with the rule change is the resurgence? I'm sure I said the Lakers era was fine and Lebron going on his run(should have known to add Kobe) was the clear start of change.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Basketball_Association_Nielsen_ratings
Yea I'm still confused. I'm not sure when your talking about. I been standing on basketball is always good and that predictability of winners or lack of is really when the league is beautiful or ugly(at least the narrative).

And yea the game changes a lot. I find it only right to compare teams amongst comtemparies. Style of play/rules changes/emphasizes on enforcement make even year to year comparisons kinda foolish. Ratings above average have worked well for me.

The new era started in '04-05, the TV ratings didn't immediately improve in part because the casual fan has a delayed reaction to such improvements. They don't start watching more until the trends are more widespread, and often until he's told about the trends.

But also, as I've said, it's critical to understand the changing landscape of television in media. TV watching has gotten more and more distributed over time.



While Jordan's era had Jordan and that did represent a peak of interest, when you look at those Nielsen ratings and see the '90s being huge compared to later eras, a big part of that is that it's simply harder to draw big ratings now period. If it were otherwise - if basketball were truly much less popular than it was back then, then the league would be in hard times - like what the NBA saw in the '70s when their finals ratings were actually quite comparable to now - rather than in the midst of a revenue explosion.

Okay so going further, it seems like you're skeptical that style of play actually matters much. Perhaps you're advocating that the specific players and teams involved matter more than the style. There's truth in that. Those things matter a great deal.

But are you seriously going to argue that if the NBA saw offensive efficacy go down enough, that that wouldn't have a negative impact on popularity in the long-term?

I don't see your graphic.
Yes I don't see style mattering when it comes to the rhetoric behind the nba. Malice in the palace was probably the most damaging thing to the nba.
When exactly is the era's seperate to you?

I don't know what to do about the traffic. The link is visible in what you quoted so you can look at it there.

Re: Malice most damaging. Well sure, I'm not saying style is everything, but how can it not be something? Why do YOU watch basketball? How did it rise to the top of your interest heap? Imagine things changing that had less of what you like and more of what you don't. Don't say that wouldn't matter to you.

Re: eras to me. I don't typically make hard & fast rules on this stuff, but to me '03-04 to '04-05 marked a clear change in the NBA far more significant than most consecutive seasons.