The NBA (and Adam Silver) sorely need a Knicks championship to reignite passion and US media interest in the league

[Charlie Sollers]

I just don't understand why the NBA is willing to rig the lottery to get Cooper Flagg to the Mavs but not right the playoffs to have the Knicks win /s

[Message Boar]

Hmm, it would be a 'helpful thing', yes.

But they don't 'NEED' it.

[cgf]

Silver should force some team to give us a legit backup C for Dadiet+WSH FRP

Brunson / Clarkson / Kolek
Bridges / McBride
Anunoby / Hart / McCullar
Towns / Yabusele
Robinson / trade / Hukporti

[King Of The 4th]

This reads as though TC wrote this while being held at gunpoint.

[Quattro]

Why? They didnt need the Knicks in the 80s, 90s or 2000s. Why do they desperately need them now?

[LordCovington33]

The Lakers just sold for $10 billion, I don't think the NBA is in any kind of trouble.

It never sold for that amount. It was valued at that amount in order for Walter to get a controlling share of the franchise. An acquisition to get a controlling share of any company usually requires paying a premium in order to get the deal completed.

[gottamakeit]

I am not happy saying this either as a life long Boston sports fan (admittedly from Australia) but all this talk about so called flagging interest/ratings and from it appears to be a general somewhat apathetic general US media and general/casual sports fan interest in the NBA (especially with the lack of a quality MVP/league best US born superstar since LeBron James) it strikes me that (gulp) a New York Knicks championship (after 50 odd years) would re-ignite interest, passion and massive media and celebrity interest in the league which hasn't been around for a while.

The Knicks imo more than the Lakers is the NBA's most valuable and marketable franchise and they have been ring less for way too long.

The biased/homie Boston Celtics fan in me would never want to see The Knicks win another championship, but the pragmatic NBA and pure basketball Hoops putist who is a bit worried about the current state of interest (mostly in the US) of the NBA thinks a New York Knickerbockers championship is exactly the shot in the arm the NBA needs.

This is not a dig/slight against OKC and the other small market/city teams that have won a chip recently, but i think it's easy to forget (especially as a foreigner like i am) how massive a basketball mad city New York is, and how a Knicks world championship would not just benefit their long suffering fan base and city but I honestly think it would be a massive shot in the arm for the rest of the NBA and teams (well maybe except us Celtics fans, also Sixers and Nets lol)

Ultimately I think a Knicks chip would absolutely revitalise the NBA and give it massive PR boost it maybe didn't know it needed.

Maybe what this league really needs is to bottom out to figure out things at a more fundamental level. Finding the balance of games played. How to deal with load-managing strategies. Keeping stars healthy for the playoffs. How to make the regular season more compelling without the use of tacky methods (in-season tourney). How to market teams as well they have learned to market stars. The question of expansion. Etc.

There's a lot to push thru. Slapping a band-aid only delays the hard stuff needing to be addressed.

[Michael Bradley]

It would do good ratings for one season, but not sure it will have some sort of long term ripple effect. Basketball is already popular in New York, it's not going to get more popular, and nationally, how many new fans are they going to get around the country/world just because the Knicks won?

If you want a highly rated NBA Finals, then yes, the Knicks would help that.

[NO-KG-AI]

Almost no one here even watched basketball when the Knicks could even be argued as the marquee franchise. The most they have ever been in the last 50 years is a footnote in the Michael Jordan story.

I’m not even **** on them, but the idea that the league needs them to be a dominant franchise, when that has never actually been a thing is totally asinine.

[DimesandKnicks]

I'm not convinced anyone outside of NYC actually cares about the Knicks like that. They don't have that global following like the Lakers, Man U, etc.

They don't have the marketable star players either, Brunson doesn't have that level of clout, and KAT isn't even a real star.

Good team, great fanbase, very impressive city, but don't think it will make a difference to the popularity of the league if they win.

When the Knicks are good, you can hear their fans during away games

[Yank3525]

They dont need a Knicks championship for that. They need superstars...

The NBA has always been marketed as a superstar league. It was by design that the focus of the league was always on the players and not on the teams. Casual audience doesnt tune in when the Knicks play against the Nuggets. They tune in to watch LeBron, Kobe, Shaq or whoever. Because that's how the NBA decided to position its league and marketing effort around. That was awlays the strategy to draw the mainstream and casual audience.

This strategy works, as long as the NBA has marketable and charismatic superstars. Which they always had...until now.
The KD, LeBron generation is close to 40 and not able to carry the league anymore and the best player after that is who? Tatum? Because Jokic and co dont count, since americans dont care about international players.

Its not a coincidence that this years final had the worst ratings since 20 years. Its not a coincidence that the ratings keep going then the older the last superstar generation gets. There just aren't any marketable players anymore.

Silver and the NBA are trying to push the NBA into more of a parity and team oriented league after the model of the NFL, where people tune in without even knowing who the players are, because they also know that always hoping for superstars to carry your league is not sustainable. But the problem for that is that casual audience just dont care about the teams and the actual sport. Because frankly, the NBA is a terrible product to watch for a casual audience. Who actually has fun watching an NBA game, if youre not already a Basketball fan? Constant fouls, constant interruptions, constant timeouts, last 2 minutes take 30 minutes and so on. None of my non-Basketball friends were ever able to have fun or watch a Basketball game. Its just a drag. oh with one exception, Fiba Ball.. Why? Because you dont have these thousand timeouts and fouls and long ass breaks there. Its much more free flowing.
As long as the actual sport is so not fun to watch, the NBA needs its superstars to carry the league. Which they dont have atm. And in this case a Knicks championship also wont help. Unless they have LeBron or Curry on the team

Pretty much this.

The NBA's problem is that they have no post LeBron/Steph era stars that are interesting. Also Silver trying to adopt the NFL model will not work. The NFl has parity, but it is still built around it's stars and the NFL is always 20 deep in that regard. They also have the benefit of fantasy football which makes the public familiar with their players. The NBA doesn't have anything like that to boost it's current players. No one cares about fantasy basketball.

[Celts17Pride]

If the NBA needs a Knicks championship then the league is in trouble

[stillgotgame]

You want a scumbag owner like Dolan to win a chip? Why?

[LakerLegend]

Forget a championship… can the Knicks just get better uniforms?

[taikibansei]

OP, don't worry about the haters posting to this thread. I personally found the reasoning in your original post brilliant. I can only hope that Adam Silver reads that post carefully and acts accordingly--Giannis for KAT straight up should do it.

Thanks in advance, Mr. Silver!

[WolfAddict]

Best thing for the league is a Timberwolves championship

Also, when I say "league" I mean me... just me.

[Lalouie]

the nba has been doing well without the knicks for 50 years

and they don't speak for the nba and frankly they've been horrible ambassadors for the game

[hauntedcomputer]

Nobody outside of New York cares about New York

[bkkrh]

The Knicks haven´t won in over 50 years and the Knicks were by far the worst franchise of the 2000s that included not firing Isiah Thomas after a sexual harassment case and wrongful termination with a former employee. Still the league had insade growth since the early 70s.

Being a foreigner myself I can only go here with 3rd party feedback, but I don´t feel that this had any impact on the fan base. I was active in those years in online groups related and that was the general feedback. Yeah the Knicks sucked, we disliked a lot of the players, we hated Dolan and Isiah, but everybody that was living in NY still said that it´s Knicks City.

So yeah, I want us to win a title, but based on us earning it and being the best team, not because it might be good for the league.