Why Does NBA's Popularity Suffer When Bigs are the Best Players?

[Chokic]

Maybe it’s easier to relate to a guard, as “this could be me,” vs a big, like, I can’t delude myself into being 7 feet tall type deal.

Then thinking they could be a +6'8 athletic freak like lebron isnt delusional?

LeBron is kind of caught in between in terms of size and playstyle. He’s also been extremely polarizing as the face.

There's more average ppl that can play like jokic then they can lebron.

[NO-KG-AI]

Then thinking they could be a +6'8 athletic freak like lebron isnt delusional?

LeBron is kind of caught in between in terms of size and playstyle. He’s also been extremely polarizing as the face.

There's more average ppl that can play like jokic then they can lebron.

Maybe? How many average people can dunk without barely jumping while being 300 pounds. Even if we take the skills part out of their games? Lol.

I mean, being fair, people can’t play like any of the NBA players.

[Jcool0]

SHAQ

False premise.
NBA was very popular with Shaq as the biggest star. And Hakeem, Duncan and Admiral, Dirk. Malone of the Stockton and Malone duo, Amare when it was Nash and Amare… plenty popular.

There was no period where Malone was popular without Jordan being in the league.

1994 All Star voting: Karl Malone #6 forward with 322,450

1995 All Star voting: Karl Malone #5 forward with 526,741

Correct. He was never popular.

[FrodoBaggins]

Personally, I've always found post-up play more entertaining than pull-up jump shots and dribble drives. Something about the pivoting & back to the basket elements.

[JonFromVA]

What's best for winning isn't always what's best for the enjoyment of the game unless you're a fan who only cares about winning.

[ShadyMoney]

SHAQ

False premise.
NBA was very popular with Shaq as the biggest star. And Hakeem, Duncan and Admiral, Dirk. Malone of the Stockton and Malone duo, Amare when it was Nash and Amare… plenty popular.

There was no period where Malone was popular without Jordan being in the league.

Yes, Shaq was the biggest star, but Kobe, Vince Carter, Tmac etc. were in the league with him and probably still more popular.

Amare can into the league a year before LBJ and coincided with prime Kobe and athletic prime D-Wade when he played with Nash. Of course, the league was popular then, but Amare had very little to do with it.

Shaq in Orlando was a superstar.

Way before Kobe or Vince or Tmac even sniffed the league.

Shawn Kemp was another one.

Then we have Garnett who’s name is The Big Ticket.

Basketball is a Bigmans Game and the best guards are tall.

[druggas]

Personality makes the player popular, no matter the size.

[og15]

Maybe it’s easier to relate to a guard, as “this could be me,” vs a big, like, I can’t delude myself into being 7 feet tall type deal.

Then thinking they could be a +6'8 athletic freak like lebron isnt delusional?

When they are playing pickup and the average height is like 5'7, then this just means the person has to be like 6'0 - 6'2 and athletic to essentially be a Lebron relative to comp. They would still need to be like 6'5 or 6'6 to be like a 6'11 or 7'0 player relative to comp, and very few are that.

That would be my guess of how it could play out relatively

[BelgradeNugget]

For people who like watching guards and wings doing crazy athletic s**t they will find players to watch no mather weather they are the best players or not.
For people who like watching real team basketball 5 on 5 there is no better era than now.
If NBA can't or won't market Jokic/Giannis/Wemby for it's own benefit it is their problem.
They say there was 30.000 Chinese fans on presentation of Jokic's his new shoes in China. Nice crowd.

Watch on YouTube

[Doctor MJ]

We've had some elite bigs in the league's history but it seems like every time the best players in the league are either wings or guards it seems significantly more popular. I don't think this "no face of the league stuff" is just about the top players being foreign but also the fact that they're bigs too(Jokic/Giannis). You can trace this back to Magic/Bird coming in the 80s along with Isaiah and obviously Jordan. It makes you wonder if not for Jordan in the 90s would the league's popularity have suffered because after him the league's best players were exclusively bigs. It can't just be the way bigs play because we have had many different ones with different skillsets(ex Hakeem, Ewing, Shaq, Robinson, Dirk, KG, Jokic, Giannis, Embiid).

One reason that the WNBA may actually be on the verge of a breakthrough popularity wise is there may be a point in the future where the league's top players are not exclusively bigs which it has been other than a few exceptions like Moore, Taurasi, and Cooper and Swoopes.

Is their anything that can be done to highlight bigs and sell them to the public better or is this how it will always be?

So, first, let me push back:

I believe that Mikan, Russell & Wilt absolutely propelled the popularity of the NBA forward through the '60s.

From there the NBA plateaued (technically fell in the '70s), until the arrival of Bird, Magic & Jordan, and the game's popularity has been driven by players who can thrive on the perimeter ever since.

My explanation? That Mikan/Russell/Wilt helped a nascent major pro sports league capture a salient niche in the broader American sports landscape, but Bird/Magic/Jordan transformed the game into THE glamour athletic aesthetic.

And I'll say specifically, with Jordan, he became the archetype not just for basketball or sport, but for basically being the ideal human male. After Jordan, basically anyone above a particular height threshold who looked and moved something like an ideal human, wanted to become a basketball players, and the teams and fans wanted that too.

A brief tangent as an anecdote: In American football, many of us consider Barry Sanders (drafted in 1989) to be something of a gold standard for both a) GOAT Peak running backs and b) excitement on the field. His ability to change direction, keep his balance, and keep from getting injured, is like nothing folks who've only watched the NBA have ever seen.

Barry was on record saying basketball was his favorite sport and he'd have gone into that if he had the same type of future in it he had in football, but at 5'7", his talented pointed him toward football. (To be clear, Barry could dunk from 5'7" and it's entirely possible he would have succeeded as an NBA player, but a GOAT, he would not have been.)

Anyway, this to say that post-Jordan, both the league and the fans were looking for guys with obviously insane physical explosiveness with only as much height as he needed to beat all comers.

But I'd be remiss if I just ended it there, or fast-forwarded it to Jokic, because it wasn't obvious to even Nike (the visionaries made Jordan into something like an Old Hollywood Icon with their advertising to sell shoes) that that meant that "big men don't sell shoes" until they tried to sell shoes with David Robinson (while Reebok tried with Shaquille O'Neal).

These were guys who were seen as something like ideal-human-male for their size, who were expected to dominate the sport as top tier superstars, and they seemed like perfect rivals for each other (which to be clear, played a major part in the impact of Russell/Wilt & Bird/Magic) with Robinson really good looking and squeaky clean, while Shaq had an enthusiastic extroverted personality that we'd never seen before in a basketball big.

While I do wonder if the "big men don't sell shoes" would have played a bit differently if Robinson & Shaq gone on to dominate the '90s instead of Jordan returning and ascending into pop culture godhead status, my conclusion was this:

People were just more drawn to players whose moves they could hope to emulate. If you weren't way taller than your peers in school, you probably just didn't identify with the bigs like you did, frankly, all of the other players who had to play AGAINST bigs.

Wilt used to say "Nobody loves Goliath", and while frankly I think he drastically underrated how much he was loved because he dwelled upon the hate - KD before KD - he did speak some truth there. How I'd put it:

It's hard to empathize with Goliath unless you're able to at least imagine yourself in his giant shoes with some kernel of experience.

So here's where I'll jump ahead to Jokic while saying a little bit about myself:

See I'm a 6'9" guy who got a late growth spurt of about a foot, but who growing up (only slightly taller than average for my age) played point guard because of my handle and passing.

Growing up, playing for coaches, I had never heard of anything like the now century-old pivot passer model, which was effectively what Nikola Jokic was raised on. And my god, how I would have loved to play that way! When I got my height, it was like I was expected to forget everything I knew about playing basketball and learn from scratch. (It would have helped if I'd had a Rodman/Pippen/AD like growth spurt where I lost none of the coordination or agility, but I became slow, tired more easily, and my hops failed me.)

This then to say, playing like Jokic for me isn't just something I can imagine, it's something that draws me in. Further, as someone with a quick on-court brain myself imho, Jokic's brain just fascinates me, because he gives me a window into how a true outlier in this guard presents itself and what that says about the neuroscience.

Anyway, y'all can tell I'm a science nerd, and I'm afraid that's telling. The reality is, if you're my fave in pop domains, you're probably not the most popular of your peers.


And yeah, while I think it's not impossible to keep improving the spread of the appeal for any MVP level NBA player, the reality is that the marketability of the league is not just dependent on providing the best quality of basketball by existing standards, and the key leaders in basketball have absolutely known this for a very long time. Before the basketball world was dominated by the NBA, it was dominated by Phog Allen and the group who organized themselves as the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) around the leadership of Phog Allen - coach of University of Kansas, and called the "Father of Basketball Coaching".

And so it's because of the NABC that we a) stopped having jump balls after every possession and b) outlawed goaltending, and those weren't even the biggest thing, as they were fighting against the "cage" version of the sport that dominated the pro game until the college game won out. ("The cage" was made of rope and separated the players from the intoxicated fans who would literally grab at players when they got thrown into the ropes like some combination of rugby and pro wrestling.)

So make no mistake, the game of elite basketball has been crafted to be as popular as possible for a very long time, and the NBA has carried that torch - though, we might say, not driven by their own creativity, but by the good ideas of others - by doing things like widening the key (twice, to the point where it now no longer looks like an actual key), putting in a shot clock, and painting a 3-point stripe.

This then to say, if David Stern were Commish today, he'd be seriously convening his chosen basketball experts to decide if anything needs to be done to undermine players like Jokic. I'm dead serious about this - I don't know what they would decide, but they'd absolutely be considering making changes to favor the players they consider to be more marketable, just like they did when they made the Illegal Defense rule in 1981 (by coaches Fitzsimmons/Nelson/Motta)... and just like they did when they removed the Illegal Defense rule 20 years later (led by marketing director/scout/coach/GM/owner Colangelo), ironically enough (they didn't always get things right, and they course corrected if they saw the need). (Eh, I should also note it's possible that Adam Silver has done this, but my sense is that NBA owners have made a point to keep Silver from being able to push initiatives like this because they don't want a commish as powerful as Stern was.)

To be clear, I'd strongly advise the NBA against trying to undermine the Jokic's of the world for reasons that have nothing to do with the fact that I personally think it's incredible to watch:

a) The primary goal of the NBA now clearly has to be not simply "globalizing", but recognize that the time is RIGHT NOW to focus on this precisely because the NBA is becoming dominated at the top by international players, who are also experienced playing FIBA ball. If the NBA were to try to undermine Jokic type play only to watch Serbia tops Team USA at the Los Angeles Olympics of 2028, that could start a trend of ultra-rich internationals stealing the best international players back from the NBA. (And of course, this could happen anyway and there might be no stopping it.)

So no, I wouldn't try to undermine the first international player to ever dominate the NBA, if I wanted to be a globally dominant league, which the NBA absolutely does.

b) Um, you gonna outlaw passing or what? If you're not doing something to disincentivize thinking faster than everyone else on the court, you're not actually combating Jokic's advantage. There are certainly things that could be done to make Jokic less dominant - ironically, removing the 3-point line would make his offense less valuable so that might do the trick, but of course, that undermines the future Stephs of the world, and we know they wouldn't want that. (Full disclosure, Steph is my other fave for this era, and it's interesting because in that case, the masses have long been all in, proving that even a broken clock like me can align with popular in my taste every so often.)

c) While we talk about Jokic's underwhelming popularity, we have to talk about Luka Doncic's appeal. Luka's been able to resonate a lot better in general with American basketball fans, and it's important to understand why, given that the two players have so much in common.

If the reason for Jokic's lesser appeal is cannot actually be tied specifically to his lack of Jordan physique, nor his foreign status, what's actually the problem that we need to try to solve to have less Jokices and more Lukas?

There's room for a debate specifically talking about basketball tendency (ball dominant vs quick passing), but I'd say that belongs to a broader social umbrella:

Luka fits in with American basketball culture's penchant for individual stars who act adversarial toward their opponents, and Jokic just doesn't.
I'd also say that Luka's more photogenic than Jokic, but others may feel free to disagree there.

And so the thing there is, you can't "fix the game" here by doing anything other than going full pro wrestling, and select performers primarily based on aesthetic. The reality is that international players in general will not be able to capture the American vibe as well as Americans, and that's just one more reason why the focus needs to be on capturing foreign markets.

So yup, right now, the NBA is suffering in the US market to some degree because their best players haven't resonated like MJ/Kobe/LeBron/Steph, but there's no way out but through. The NBA needs to figure out how to market whatever they've got better.

Circling back to the topic, in a nutshell, it's a question of whether the spectator can essentially merge themselves with the star in question, and that's generally going to make it harder to market those we cannot pretend to be.

[Doctor MJ]

Maybe it’s easier to relate to a guard, as “this could be me,” vs a big, like, I can’t delude myself into being 7 feet tall type deal.

Then thinking they could be a +6'8 athletic freak like lebron isnt delusional?

LeBron is kind of caught in between in terms of size and playstyle. He’s also been extremely polarizing as the face.

This. The reason why the Kobe vs LeBron argument dominated these boards for years had everything to do with people having an aesthetic preference for Kobe's game and the attitude they perceived as going with it.

[Doctor MJ]

Personally, I've always found post-up play more entertaining than pull-up jump shots and dribble drives. Something about the pivoting & back to the basket elements.

I think it's good to talk about where the enjoyable complexity is in a style of play.

There's a "chess match" aspect of post offense that builds as the seconds unfold, and which doesn't built with either quick shots or the umpteen dribbles the driver took before he decided to stop resting and attack.

For me, the problem with the NBA during it's peak post-play era (basically Hakeem-to-Shaq's eras), was in what the other 8 guys were doing. What were they doing? The short answer would be "Not much.", while a long answer would give a dissertation on Illegal Defense rules that fans never really understood which implied that the other players were actually doing what they were supposed to be doing, even if they weren't actually expending much physical or mental energy as they waited to see how the chess match mere feet away played out.

This then to say, from a perspective of team dynamics, I think the Illegal Defense era was an ugly crippling of the sport that did not have the effect that its designers intended, which is pretty funny given that the fact that as coaches, you'd think they know best.

But none of this takes away from the beauty of the chess match if you can just zoom in on that. What Olajuwon did out there was like dancing.

[tsherkin]

This then to say, from a perspective of team dynamics, I think the Illegal Defense era was an ugly crippling of the sport that did not have the effect that its designers intended, which is pretty funny given that the fact that as coaches, you'd think they know best.

Ironically, this is what people pine for to this day: put your guy on an island while everyone else stands still and just run wretched iso ball.

In-era, people even COMPLAINED about the style of ball played in the Euroleague with all of its passing to attack the zone, and what-not.

[Statlanta]

You can't replicate their style of play. I'd like to skyhook like Kareem if I wasn't 5'7' and it ends up back in my face. I'd like to bully like Shaq but you can't do that at 180lbs.

Hell nobody made any fanfare about Giannis being in the dunk contest because nobody cares about tall dudes.

Iverson is more fun to root for, for the general audience than Kevin Garnett

[tsherkin]

You can't replicate their style of play. I'd like to skyhook like Kareem if I wasn't 5'7' and it ends up back in my face. I'd like to bully like Shaq but you can't do that at 180lbs.

The skyhook was explicitly developed to attack players who are taller initially. If you do it right, unless they're like 7 inches taller than you, then you should be in good shape. Not sure that specific criticism flies too well, to be honest.

Meantime, Shaq was popular as hell. Loads of people loved watching him in his heyday, breaking backboards and with big power jams, knees up and all that. He wasn't quite as easy to emulate, no doubt, but just like Reignman, people enjoyed watching the aesthetic of his power game just fine. The difference there is more he doesn't influence how people play on the blacktop, not so much that it harms his individual popularity.

[Doctor MJ]

This then to say, from a perspective of team dynamics, I think the Illegal Defense era was an ugly crippling of the sport that did not have the effect that its designers intended, which is pretty funny given that the fact that as coaches, you'd think they know best.

Ironically, this is what people pine for to this day: put your guy on an island while everyone else stands still and just run wretched iso ball.

In-era, people even COMPLAINED about the style of ball played in the Euroleague with all of its passing to attack the zone, and what-not.

I think anyone who grew up focusing on an individual star going to work tended to not really think about all the weirdness on the periphery.

This very much in contrast to how basketball fans saw the game basically from inception through the '80s where getting everyone involved by constant passing, and the number of double digit scorers for your team in a game spoke to how good your team play actually was.

Had Wilt been more successful things would have changed earlier, but as is, I really think Jordan rising from scoring leader to dynasty leader allowed the basketball world to convinced themselves that basketball was an individual sport, which makes analysis far less work.

[tsherkin]

I think anyone who grew up focusing on an individual star going to work tended to not really think about all the weirdness on the periphery.

That tracks, absolutely.

This very much in contrast to how basketball fans saw the game basically from inception through the '80s where getting everyone involved by constant passing, and the number of double digit scorers for your team in a game spoke to how good your team play actually was.

Passing certainly seemed popular with the Showtime Lakers and their rival Celtics, indeed.

Had Wilt been more successful things would have changed earlier, but as is, I really think Jordan rising from scoring leader to dynasty leader allowed the basketball world to convinced themselves that basketball was an individual sport, which makes analysis far less work.

Yeah, I mean... it affected everything when people wanted to be like Mike, and then later, Kobe and Iverson and that entire era of early-2000s guards raised a generation of young basketball fans on isolation-heavy play, no doubt.

[FrodoBaggins]

Personally, I've always found post-up play more entertaining than pull-up jump shots and dribble drives. Something about the pivoting & back to the basket elements.

I think it's good to talk about where the enjoyable complexity is in a style of play.

There's a "chess match" aspect of post offense that builds as the seconds unfold, and which doesn't built with either quick shots or the umpteen dribbles the driver took before he decided to stop resting and attack.

For me, the problem with the NBA during it's peak post-play era (basically Hakeem-to-Shaq's eras), was in what the other 8 guys were doing. What were they doing? The short answer would be "Not much.", while a long answer would give a dissertation on Illegal Defense rules that fans never really understood which implied that the other players were actually doing what they were supposed to be doing, even if they weren't actually expending much physical or mental energy as they waited to see how the chess match mere feet away played out.

This then to say, from a perspective of team dynamics, I think the Illegal Defense era was an ugly crippling of the sport that did not have the effect that its designers intended, which is pretty funny given that the fact that as coaches, you'd think they know best.

But none of this takes away from the beauty of the chess match if you can just zoom in on that. What Olajuwon did out there was like dancing.

Agreed on all points. The Illegal Defense Guidelines (1981-2001) had short-term benefits that precipitated the NBA's cultural zenith, but were inherently flawed and arguably did more damage to the game in the long run. It just got more exploited as time passed, influencing the team strategy & tactics, the valued skillsets, and ultimately the personnel. Hence, the Danny Fortson, Reggie Evans types - a product of the Dead Ball Era.

I do think there are some interesting parallels between the '70s and the Dead Ball Era. The state of the game was a focus point and the NBA introduced several rules to improve offensive play. Hand-checking (1979, 2005), Illegal Defense (1981), Defensive Three Seconds (2002), Restricted Area (1998), etc. I remember a passage from Bill Simmons' book talking about why Illegal Defense was introduced:

The new wave of coaches made defenses sophisticated enough by 1981 that the league created an “illegal defense” rule to open up the paint. Here’s how referee Ed Rush explained it to SI: “We were becoming a jump-shot league, so we went to the coaches and said, ‘You’ve screwed the game with all your great defenses. Now fix it.’ And they did. The new rule will open up the middle and give the great players room to move. People like Julius Erving and David Thompson who used to beat their own defensive man and then still have to pull up for a jump shot because they were being double-teamed, should have an extra four or five feet to move around in. And that’s all those guys need.”

And a 1979 NY Times article discussing the original hand-checking ban. There was initial backlash from the players:

The National Basketball Players Association says it will work toward the removal of the rule. Most of the players feel the rule is not working for them and is making the game dull for the fans.

Larry Fleisher, the general counsel of the players’ association, said:

“People want to see players work harder to get their 2 points. The thrill of seeing a guy take a 20‐foot jump shot, glide to the basket or stuff a ball is over. What the fan cries out for is hardnosed defense and team play. It's clear the ban on hand‐checking makes it more difficult and you have to go through a whole new learning process to play defense.”

Some players liked the change:

Abdul‐Jabbar agrees with the ban. The change has freed the 7‐foot‐2‐inch Abdul‐Jabbar to unleash his total offensive arsensal.

“For the first time in years,” said Abdul‐Jabbar “we're back to playing basketball. Last season Artis Gilmore would push me out of the way to post up. Now he's reluctant to do that, because they're calling fouls on the contact, which is the way it should be.

“Admittedly, it makes the game tougher for everybody. You have to play defense the way it should be played, instead of relying on pushing, shoving and elbowing. When a player does that now, he can expect to hear whistle and have a foul called on him.”

Jerry West, the Laker coach, echoes his star center's words.

“The ban on hand‐checking would have been great when I was .playing,” said West. “That's one thing I despised more than anything, was the ‐pushing and shoving. The ban has helped the finesse players. I was taught that to play defense, you had to learn to handcheck. But I never liked playing that way. I've always believed that the best way to play defense was to move your feet, not your hands.”

While others didn't:

Most players, feel the ban cramps their style.

Tom Henderson, the Washington Bullets’ backcourt man, has complained:

“They're ruining the game, calling all this hand‐checking. “We have been hand‐checking since we've been in the league and it isn't an easy habit to break.”

Bob Lanier, the Detroit Piston center, said: “I didn't hand‐check much anyway so it didn't make much difference to me on defense. But when you've got to play Kareem, Walton and Gilmore, you've got to rely on hands. How else are you going to stop them?”

M.L. Carr of the Pistons said that the ban benefits the offensive player and it shouldn't be that way. He added: “I don't think the fights were directly attributed to hand‐checking anyway. Mostly they are caused by frustration. A player is upset with himself and he swings out at the nearest guy because he's frustrated.”

Paul Silas, the Seattle SuperSonics’ forward and president of the players’ group, said, “ It is a non‐contact rule in a contact sport.”

With time, we've learned that the three-point shot was the true solution/antidote. It just took a few decades for the basketball world to realize that.

[Masigond]

With time, we've learned that the three-point shot was the true solution/antidote. It just took a few decades for the basketball world to realize that.

While it should also be more sophisticated passing. And we are seeing that, too. I get that it's spectacular when a player is making contested shots against double or triple teams, but I always thought that this play is rather dumb as double and triple teams mean teammates being (wide) open but being ignored.

From a marketing point it is clear: Fans want to duplicate plays that they can do alone. Noone is copying Jordan making the pass to Ehlo or Kerr, but they try to simulate Jordan shaking off defenses with crossovers and taking an artistic jumpshot or dunking. And that was also a part of some rather questionable basketball in my eyes in the early 00s: All those isolation plays that resulted in rather mediocre outcome. I've played with selfish teammates myself and found it very annoying to not being involved other than positioning myself, especially when I was in a better position than my teammate pounding and pounding in isolation.
This game made guys like Iverson superstars, and he needed to be taken somewhat off the ball for some success. The reason for that is clear: You don't win if the outcome of your offense is too mediocre. Your superstar might average 35 ppg, but when he's scoring on league average (and his teammates don't make up for it by being superefficient on their own scoring, or when they aren't holding opponents to sub-par performances by playing great defense - as seen with the Sixers in 2001), an average team is enough to win half of the games against you. A contested 2P shot that you hit with below 40% accuracy won't make you win, and don't tell me that a pass to an open teammate is a worse option. These are all pros, and most of them are very capable of scoring more efficient, especially when not guarded well.

Fortunately teamplay prevailed, be it TPO, superstars playing off another or more sophisticated strategies like the beautiful play we've seen from the Spurs in 2014 for example. The three-point shot opened up space for that as well, even though a barrage of long-range shooting might become a bit stale itself.