Which players/teams/concepts have you changed your mind on in the past 5 years?

[falcolombardi]

while is true they are in a easier position injuries wise and such

somethingh that cannot be held against nba players Association is that the big stars have been a lot more Active in unionizing

when Oscar robertson and bill russel organizar boycotts, amd chris paul/lebron James run the players Association that gives them a lot more leverage than otherwise

[Doctor MJ]

I think its interesting (and not really a PC board topic) but what Blazers said above is accurate. Larger markets (well, more specifically LA than others) traditionally aren't guaranteed to be good teams. But they can overcome poor management to still be good teams. This is the crux of what is being said, and seems the least controversial thing ever and is being taken as some "pro billionaire" stance:

I am pro-organization in that I want to see teams functioning properly in terms of drafting, talent pipeline, cap/asset management, and putting themselves in a position to win. I don't really care a ton about profitability for ownership, but I guess those two are tied?

A small market requires great management, a larger market doesn't necessarily. And in the end, if incompetence is rewarded at a high level it's just frustrating. The Lakers made multiple large errors over half a decade, showed no great signs of being well run and Lebron went there because they're the Lakers. You don't get that if you're the Grizzlies or Blazers or Pacers.

The NBA is a league that is based on being entertaining for fans and for fans everywhere, not just the biggest cities (heck TV money comes from that too). If we're not in it for the fans, what's the point (and I don't mean this in a self important way, but that's actually the point)?

People are cheering for teams, and teams being run well that are still at a huge disadvantage is at minimum frustrating to say the least. Wanting a team that is well run team to be rewarded seems pretty logical over wanting a team with a large market that's run worse to be rewarded.

Edit: And saying this as someone who's been more pro-worker in the past, this isn't some "keeping the workers down" thing, its just wanting fairness in competition. It is interesting the NFL and other sports don't have the same issues in this regard.

So I know that I'm coming in here with a Laker logo on my profile and that makes everyone from small markets roll their eyes, but to give my perspective:

1. While I was born in LA and live in LA now, I spent my coming-of-age years in San Diego cheering for San Diego teams, so I do know what it's like to resent bigger markets. Ironically, my cousins works for the Dodgers, and while I think that's cool and I love Dodger stadium, I just can't make myself care about the Dodgers or Angels. Padres for me - though I stopped following MLB a long time ago - and I remember going to see the Padres and saying "Where's Fred McGriff?" only to realize later that he'd just been traded for no reason other than the fact the owner felt he needed to cut payroll.

2. I think we have to start here by understand what the purpose of a league traditionally has been. The reason why the 1930s is known as a barnstorming era for basketball is that professional leagues could no longer be supported, and so what you were left with was a future of the very best teams continuing to make money by "storming barns" playing people who lived near said barn...while every other team just died.

Leagues thus are not intended to be championship-deciding machines but a way to secure reliable revenue, adding as many teams and cities to the fray as could be made fiscally solvent and using revenue-sharing models to various extents to help the teams with smaller fanbases not go bankrupt.

We can even see when the NBA really turned the corner there. 1950 was the last major die-off of NBA teams. After that, to my knowledge, only one other NBA team has disbanded (Indianapolis Olympians, after a gambling scandal). So I think it makes sense then to ask whether the NBA was doing more for small market teams back then than they are now.

I think they're doing more now. Now you have global media revenue split amongst the franchises. Now you have a draft. Now you contracts designed to make players less likely to want to switch teams.

None of this is to say that new tweaks shouldn't be considered, but I think it's really problematic when the perspective of fans begins to be that all teams should have an equal shot at winning a championship, because that's just not something that's ever been the case.

3. We are now facing a specific reckoning that has to do with "Player Empowerment", but which mirrors society. Wealth is having a gravitational attraction to itself. It is consolidating. The rich are getting richer in all walks of life for reasons that might be summed up with the metaphor to aqueducts facilitating liquid flow.

In other places in the country, I'd imagine this can easily be seen as a flow of capital to places like where I live in California.
In California, we're seeing this in a faultline splitting those with real estate from those without, bitter long-time residents feeling a financial pull to leave the state, and an ugly homeless crisis.

And in the NBA, yeah, we're seeing a similar type of frictionless flow, which while it isn't driven primarily by market size, seems destined to have a gradient toward the bigger markets.

4. And this isn't the only reckoning that the NBA is dealing with right now. Times are changing, and change often causes conflict.

[bondom34]

I think its interesting (and not really a PC board topic) but what Blazers said above is accurate. Larger markets (well, more specifically LA than others) traditionally aren't guaranteed to be good teams. But they can overcome poor management to still be good teams. This is the crux of what is being said, and seems the least controversial thing ever and is being taken as some "pro billionaire" stance:

I am pro-organization in that I want to see teams functioning properly in terms of drafting, talent pipeline, cap/asset management, and putting themselves in a position to win. I don't really care a ton about profitability for ownership, but I guess those two are tied?

A small market requires great management, a larger market doesn't necessarily. And in the end, if incompetence is rewarded at a high level it's just frustrating. The Lakers made multiple large errors over half a decade, showed no great signs of being well run and Lebron went there because they're the Lakers. You don't get that if you're the Grizzlies or Blazers or Pacers.

The NBA is a league that is based on being entertaining for fans and for fans everywhere, not just the biggest cities (heck TV money comes from that too). If we're not in it for the fans, what's the point (and I don't mean this in a self important way, but that's actually the point)?

People are cheering for teams, and teams being run well that are still at a huge disadvantage is at minimum frustrating to say the least. Wanting a team that is well run team to be rewarded seems pretty logical over wanting a team with a large market that's run worse to be rewarded.

Edit: And saying this as someone who's been more pro-worker in the past, this isn't some "keeping the workers down" thing, its just wanting fairness in competition. It is interesting the NFL and other sports don't have the same issues in this regard.

So I know that I'm coming in here with a Laker logo on my profile and that makes everyone from small markets roll their eyes, but to give my perspective:

1. While I was born in LA and live in LA now, I spent my coming-of-age years in San Diego cheering for San Diego teams, so I do know what it's like to resent bigger markets. Ironically, my cousins works for the Dodgers, and while I think that's cool and I love Dodger stadium, I just can't make myself care about the Dodgers or Angels. Padres for me - though I stopped following MLB a long time ago - and I remember going to see the Padres and saying "Where's Fred McGriff?" only to realize later that he'd just been traded for no reason other than the fact the owner felt he needed to cut payroll.

2. I think we have to start here by understand what the purpose of a league traditionally has been. The reason why the 1930s is known as a barnstorming era for basketball is that professional leagues could no longer be supported, and so what you were left with was a future of the very best teams continuing to make money by "storming barns" playing people who lived near said barn...while every other team just died.

Leagues thus are not intended to be championship-deciding machines but a way to secure reliable revenue, adding as many teams and cities to the fray as could be made fiscally solvent and using revenue-sharing models to various extents to help the teams with smaller fanbases not go bankrupt.

We can even see when the NBA really turned the corner there. 1950 was the last major die-off of NBA teams. After that, to my knowledge, only one other NBA team has disbanded (Indianapolis Olympians, after a gambling scandal). So I think it makes sense then to ask whether the NBA was doing more for small market teams back then than they are now.

I think they're doing more now. Now you have global media revenue split amongst the franchises. Now you have a draft. Now you contracts designed to make players less likely to want to switch teams.

None of this is to say that new tweaks shouldn't be considered, but I think it's really problematic when the perspective of fans begins to be that all teams should have an equal shot at winning a championship, because that's just not something that's ever been the case.

3. We are now facing a specific reckoning that has to do with "Player Empowerment", but which mirrors society. Wealth is having a gravitational attraction to itself. It is consolidating. The rich are getting richer in all walks of life for reasons that might be summed up with the metaphor to aqueducts facilitating liquid flow.

In other places in the country, I'd imagine this can easily be seen as a flow of capital to places like where I live in California.
In California, we're seeing this in a faultline splitting those with real estate from those without, bitter long-time residents feeling a financial pull to leave the state, and an ugly homeless crisis.

And in the NBA, yeah, we're seeing a similar type of frictionless flow, which while it isn't driven primarily by market size, seems destined to have a gradient toward the bigger markets.

4. And this isn't the only reckoning that the NBA is dealing with right now. Times are changing, and change often causes conflict.

I think to some extent they're doing more now. Saying that, the big shift in the NBA was opening of free agency I believe. And to be clear, I'm not against free agency at all (heck I was a trade board mod and the transaction/trade stuff is really fun and interesting to me in terms of team building), but it's a bit different in the NBA than in other sports. I'm not really entirely sure why it's this way, but in the NFL there's nothing really abnormal about the Packers or Bears getting a free agent despite being not traditionally large markets and being cold weather. In the NBA it's unheard of.

I'm not entirely sure a fix for the problem either (I think falco's note of a contract not counting entirely against the cap could be something maybe), but think it definitely exists and can reward large market franchises who are run relatively poorly and punish smaller ones. And (saying this to someone w/ a Lakers logo is making it harder) but to be blunt seeing the Lakers making a ton of incompetent moves only to fall ass backward into Lebron and Anthony Davis for a title after watching a team I'm a fan of make mostly competent moves only to fall just shy is infuriating as a fan.


As well I don't think that looking at it the way fpliii is is really "siding with billionaires" how people seem to be taking it, its simply acknowledging that as a league there's a gap there and it needs to be worked on. If the purpose of the league is to secure revenue and adding teams/cities is a key way to do so (TV contracts from local markets certainly are) there should be some way to try to make these markets more sustainable and beneficial to the league. Having a 10 team NBA of 2 teams in LA/Philly/Boston/Chicago/etc isn't really beneficial to anyone, and continued efforts to expand the NBA would only make it harder.

I'd also like to note here that a lot of the pushback toward players in these instances to me isn't really pushback on players themselves, its on how they've handled a situation and how a team has handled it. To use a few examples as a Thunder fan:

Durant left OKC on not so good terms. Now I don't think this means free agency needs to be stopped, but yeah I'll admit I'm certainly not a fan of how it was handled in that situation.

Paul George left Indiana on very shaky ground. Any Pacers fan who has some negativity there I get. At the same time seeing how his departure from OKC was handled I have zero ill will and remain cheering for him to do well.

Lebron exercised his free agency multiple times now. He got the most backlash for going to Miami. He became beloved on his return to Cleveland by many.

Anthony Davis and Harden are more who took how they left their first franchise and made it more about how it was done than that it was done. Same for Melo in Denver or Dwight in Orlando. I understand people not feeling good about how that was handled and don't see how that's interpreted by some as people wanting to stop players from moving entirely.

[Doctor MJ]

I think to some extent they're doing more now. Saying that, the big shift in the NBA was opening of free agency I believe. And to be clear, I'm not against free agency at all (heck I was a trade board mod and the transaction/trade stuff is really fun and interesting to me in terms of team building), but it's a bit different in the NBA than in other sports. I'm not really entirely sure why it's this way, but in the NFL there's nothing really abnormal about the Packers or Bears getting a free agent despite being not traditionally large markets and being cold weather. In the NBA it's unheard of.

I'm not entirely sure a fix for the problem either (I think falco's note of a contract not counting entirely against the cap could be something maybe), but think it definitely exists and can reward large market franchises who are run relatively poorly and punish smaller ones. And (saying this to someone w/ a Lakers logo is making it harder) but to be blunt seeing the Lakers making a ton of incompetent moves only to fall ass backward into Lebron and Anthony Davis for a title after watching a team I'm a fan of make mostly competent moves only to fall just shy is infuriating as a fan.


As well I don't think that looking at it the way fpliii is is really "siding with billionaires" how people seem to be taking it, its simply acknowledging that as a league there's a gap there and it needs to be worked on. If the purpose of the league is to secure revenue and adding teams/cities is a key way to do so (TV contracts from local markets certainly are) there should be some way to try to make these markets more sustainable and beneficial to the league. Having a 10 team NBA of 2 teams in LA/Philly/Boston/Chicago/etc isn't really beneficial to anyone, and continued efforts to expand the NBA would only make it harder.

I'd also like to note here that a lot of the pushback toward players in these instances to me isn't really pushback on players themselves, its on how they've handled a situation and how a team has handled it. To use a few examples as a Thunder fan:

Durant left OKC on not so good terms. Now I don't think this means free agency needs to be stopped, but yeah I'll admit I'm certainly not a fan of how it was handled in that situation.

Paul George left Indiana on very shaky ground. Any Pacers fan who has some negativity there I get. At the same time seeing how his departure from OKC was handled I have zero ill will and remain cheering for him to do well.

Lebron exercised his free agency multiple times now. He got the most backlash for going to Miami. He became beloved on his return to Cleveland by many.

Anthony Davis and Harden are more who took how they left their first franchise and made it more about how it was done than that it was done. Same for Melo in Denver or Dwight in Orlando. I understand people not feeling good about how that was handled and don't see how that's interpreted by some as people wanting to stop players from moving entirely.

Good thoughts, and yeah, it irritates me as well seeing incompetence get rewarded. I remember when LeBron left Cleveland (the first time), I was specifically cheering for him to not go to the Knicks. Stay on the Cavs? Cool. Go to smarter teams like Miami or Chicago (ha! hindsight)? Makes sense. Go to the Knicks? They don't deserve!

The same logic applies to the Lakers when they later got LeBron. The are things the Lakers have going for them beyond the big market, but a front office worth believing in? Nah. If the Decision was LeBron sending a signal that they wanted smarter management, coming to LA was him signaling he and his people would be the real management and that they'd prefer to run their operation draped in a stronger brand.

The part of me that cares about these things and is bothered by them is still there, and quite honestly it's led me to snap at some Laker fans from time to time, but there's another part of me that just accepts that this is now part of the landscape, and there will be no going back to just the way it was before.

In fact, I think it might still get considerably worse.

Have you been following what happened with Noami Osaka and Roland Garros (tennis French Open)?

Forgetting about how you feel about Osaka not wanting to do something that athletes have always been expected to do, who got hurt by Osaka withdrawing from the tournament? Not her. She actually got more media attention that she'd gotten in winning her last two Grand Slams and much of it was sympathetic. She only seems to be getting more marketable. The tournament on the other hand became an afterthought.

Now that so many media barriers have been broken down, the biggest stars essentially can generate attention for whatever they want at will without any middle man. So what happens next?

[bondom34]

I think to some extent they're doing more now. Saying that, the big shift in the NBA was opening of free agency I believe. And to be clear, I'm not against free agency at all (heck I was a trade board mod and the transaction/trade stuff is really fun and interesting to me in terms of team building), but it's a bit different in the NBA than in other sports. I'm not really entirely sure why it's this way, but in the NFL there's nothing really abnormal about the Packers or Bears getting a free agent despite being not traditionally large markets and being cold weather. In the NBA it's unheard of.

I'm not entirely sure a fix for the problem either (I think falco's note of a contract not counting entirely against the cap could be something maybe), but think it definitely exists and can reward large market franchises who are run relatively poorly and punish smaller ones. And (saying this to someone w/ a Lakers logo is making it harder) but to be blunt seeing the Lakers making a ton of incompetent moves only to fall ass backward into Lebron and Anthony Davis for a title after watching a team I'm a fan of make mostly competent moves only to fall just shy is infuriating as a fan.


As well I don't think that looking at it the way fpliii is is really "siding with billionaires" how people seem to be taking it, its simply acknowledging that as a league there's a gap there and it needs to be worked on. If the purpose of the league is to secure revenue and adding teams/cities is a key way to do so (TV contracts from local markets certainly are) there should be some way to try to make these markets more sustainable and beneficial to the league. Having a 10 team NBA of 2 teams in LA/Philly/Boston/Chicago/etc isn't really beneficial to anyone, and continued efforts to expand the NBA would only make it harder.

I'd also like to note here that a lot of the pushback toward players in these instances to me isn't really pushback on players themselves, its on how they've handled a situation and how a team has handled it. To use a few examples as a Thunder fan:

Durant left OKC on not so good terms. Now I don't think this means free agency needs to be stopped, but yeah I'll admit I'm certainly not a fan of how it was handled in that situation.

Paul George left Indiana on very shaky ground. Any Pacers fan who has some negativity there I get. At the same time seeing how his departure from OKC was handled I have zero ill will and remain cheering for him to do well.

Lebron exercised his free agency multiple times now. He got the most backlash for going to Miami. He became beloved on his return to Cleveland by many.

Anthony Davis and Harden are more who took how they left their first franchise and made it more about how it was done than that it was done. Same for Melo in Denver or Dwight in Orlando. I understand people not feeling good about how that was handled and don't see how that's interpreted by some as people wanting to stop players from moving entirely.

Good thoughts, and yeah, it irritates me as well seeing incompetence get rewarded. I remember when LeBron left Cleveland (the first time), I was specifically cheering for him to not go to the Knicks. Stay on the Cavs? Cool. Go to smarter teams like Miami or Chicago (ha! hindsight)? Makes sense. Go to the Knicks? They don't deserve!

The same logic applies to the Lakers when they later got LeBron. The are things the Lakers have going for them beyond the big market, but a front office worth believing in? Nah. If the Decision was LeBron sending a signal that they wanted smarter management, coming to LA was him signaling he and his people would be the real management and that they'd prefer to run their operation draped in a stronger brand.

The part of me that cares about these things and is bothered by them is still there, and quite honestly it's led me to snap at some Laker fans from time to time, but there's another part of me that just accepts that this is now part of the landscape, and there will be no going back to just the way it was before.

In fact, I think it might still get considerably worse.

Have you been following what happened with Noami Osaka and Roland Garros (tennis French Open)?

Forgetting about how you feel about Osaka not wanting to do something that athletes have always been expected to do, who got hurt by Osaka withdrawing from the tournament? Not her. She actually got more media attention that she'd gotten in winning her last two Grand Slams and much of it was sympathetic. She only seems to be getting more marketable. The tournament on the other hand became an afterthought.

Now that so many media barriers have been broken down, the biggest stars essentially can generate attention for whatever they want at will without any middle man. So what happens next?

I did see this wrt Osaka dealing with anxiety issues if I recall (I don't follow tennis much so I may be off on this but that was my understanding). And frankly, I'm fine with an athlete feeling that way and her stepping away, and yep it hurt the tournament with bad press too assuming this is what you were speaking to. I'm never really certain how much good info comes from press conferences tbh.

Edit: Though am confused as to if this is similar at other tournaments, I'm not familiar enough with tennis. Someone who's got anxiety issues with these things I'd think should be able to avoid them somehow, or at least do them when they're up to it if they are and decide so. Not sure if that's feasible to ask an individual but seems to be more workable and friendly toward someone sensitive to anxiety in such situations.

And I find this generally interesting in the NBA too, because it oftentimes goes back to how a person views a player beforehand in an interview. I was a big fan of Marshawn Lynch's "I'm just here so I don't get fined", and it made him more marketable too. Heck everyone knows "both teams played hard" as a classic and it's a fantastic line.

As well agree with it probably getting worse in terms of player movement. I think something has been breached where players went from wanting to team up with a friend or two and creating a stronger team to a point where we're getting it being a friend to 2, and 2 to 3, etc. And it doesn't always make sense or work, but its happening. Just looking at Brooklyn, who I'd still favor to win a title, saving money to sign Deandre Jordan to a bunch of money, it helps having friends who are good at basketball too.

[Doctor MJ]

I think to some extent they're doing more now. Saying that, the big shift in the NBA was opening of free agency I believe. And to be clear, I'm not against free agency at all (heck I was a trade board mod and the transaction/trade stuff is really fun and interesting to me in terms of team building), but it's a bit different in the NBA than in other sports. I'm not really entirely sure why it's this way, but in the NFL there's nothing really abnormal about the Packers or Bears getting a free agent despite being not traditionally large markets and being cold weather. In the NBA it's unheard of.

I'm not entirely sure a fix for the problem either (I think falco's note of a contract not counting entirely against the cap could be something maybe), but think it definitely exists and can reward large market franchises who are run relatively poorly and punish smaller ones. And (saying this to someone w/ a Lakers logo is making it harder) but to be blunt seeing the Lakers making a ton of incompetent moves only to fall ass backward into Lebron and Anthony Davis for a title after watching a team I'm a fan of make mostly competent moves only to fall just shy is infuriating as a fan.


As well I don't think that looking at it the way fpliii is is really "siding with billionaires" how people seem to be taking it, its simply acknowledging that as a league there's a gap there and it needs to be worked on. If the purpose of the league is to secure revenue and adding teams/cities is a key way to do so (TV contracts from local markets certainly are) there should be some way to try to make these markets more sustainable and beneficial to the league. Having a 10 team NBA of 2 teams in LA/Philly/Boston/Chicago/etc isn't really beneficial to anyone, and continued efforts to expand the NBA would only make it harder.

I'd also like to note here that a lot of the pushback toward players in these instances to me isn't really pushback on players themselves, its on how they've handled a situation and how a team has handled it. To use a few examples as a Thunder fan:

Durant left OKC on not so good terms. Now I don't think this means free agency needs to be stopped, but yeah I'll admit I'm certainly not a fan of how it was handled in that situation.

Paul George left Indiana on very shaky ground. Any Pacers fan who has some negativity there I get. At the same time seeing how his departure from OKC was handled I have zero ill will and remain cheering for him to do well.

Lebron exercised his free agency multiple times now. He got the most backlash for going to Miami. He became beloved on his return to Cleveland by many.

Anthony Davis and Harden are more who took how they left their first franchise and made it more about how it was done than that it was done. Same for Melo in Denver or Dwight in Orlando. I understand people not feeling good about how that was handled and don't see how that's interpreted by some as people wanting to stop players from moving entirely.

Good thoughts, and yeah, it irritates me as well seeing incompetence get rewarded. I remember when LeBron left Cleveland (the first time), I was specifically cheering for him to not go to the Knicks. Stay on the Cavs? Cool. Go to smarter teams like Miami or Chicago (ha! hindsight)? Makes sense. Go to the Knicks? They don't deserve!

The same logic applies to the Lakers when they later got LeBron. The are things the Lakers have going for them beyond the big market, but a front office worth believing in? Nah. If the Decision was LeBron sending a signal that they wanted smarter management, coming to LA was him signaling he and his people would be the real management and that they'd prefer to run their operation draped in a stronger brand.

The part of me that cares about these things and is bothered by them is still there, and quite honestly it's led me to snap at some Laker fans from time to time, but there's another part of me that just accepts that this is now part of the landscape, and there will be no going back to just the way it was before.

In fact, I think it might still get considerably worse.

Have you been following what happened with Noami Osaka and Roland Garros (tennis French Open)?

Forgetting about how you feel about Osaka not wanting to do something that athletes have always been expected to do, who got hurt by Osaka withdrawing from the tournament? Not her. She actually got more media attention that she'd gotten in winning her last two Grand Slams and much of it was sympathetic. She only seems to be getting more marketable. The tournament on the other hand became an afterthought.

Now that so many media barriers have been broken down, the biggest stars essentially can generate attention for whatever they want at will without any middle man. So what happens next?

I did see this wrt Osaka dealing with anxiety issues if I recall (I don't follow tennis much so I may be off on this but that was my understanding). And frankly, I'm fine with an athlete feeling that way and her stepping away, and yep it hurt the tournament with bad press too assuming this is what you were speaking to. I'm never really certain how much good info comes from press conferences tbh.

Edit: Though am confused as to if this is similar at other tournaments, I'm not familiar enough with tennis. Someone who's got anxiety issues with these things I'd think should be able to avoid them somehow, or at least do them when they're up to it if they are and decide so. Not sure if that's feasible to ask an individual but seems to be more workable and friendly toward someone sensitive to anxiety in such situations.

And I find this generally interesting in the NBA too, because it oftentimes goes back to how a person views a player beforehand in an interview. I was a big fan of Marshawn Lynch's "I'm just here so I don't get fined", and it made him more marketable too. Heck everyone knows "both teams played hard" as a classic and it's a fantastic line.

As well agree with it probably getting worse in terms of player movement. I think something has been breached where players went from wanting to team up with a friend or two and creating a stronger team to a point where we're getting it being a friend to 2, and 2 to 3, etc. And it doesn't always make sense or work, but its happening. Just looking at Brooklyn, who I'd still favor to win a title, saving money to sign Deandre Jordan to a bunch of money, it helps having friends who are good at basketball too.

Where the tournament really messed up is that when Osaka said "I can't do this right now, I'll take the fine", they responded by not saying "That's what the fine is there for, you do you and let's keep talking" but rather "Hmm, if that's not motivating you, how 'bout we threaten to DQ you?!" to which she said "Okay, see you later." Whoever made the decision to threaten Osaka like that should be answering questions to those they are beholden to, because they screwed it up badly.

But here's what I'll also say:

I like Osaka. I find her endearing and I completely believe her about her anxiety. I also think it's worth questioning whether pressroom stuff still makes sense. At one point it was what needed to happen, but maybe it doesn't any more given that there are other ways for athletes to publicize the event.

However, if you read her statements, some of the stuff she says is childish. She actually complains about having the same question asked more than once. I mean, you play in a different city - in a different country! - yeah, you're going to get different journalists who didn't hear or read about your previous answer.

I don't want to damn Osaka just because not all of what she was asking for was reasonable, but I think it's important to understand that her feelings are important because she's good at playing a popular spectator sport, not because she has vastly more insight into the infrastructure around her than everyone else. Some of what she's complaining about, previous generations didn't complain about because they were less coddled and more savvy.

But whether reasonable or not reasonable, they need her more than she needs them, so they need to stop the snooty power struggle they cannot expect to win.

[bondom34]

Good thoughts, and yeah, it irritates me as well seeing incompetence get rewarded. I remember when LeBron left Cleveland (the first time), I was specifically cheering for him to not go to the Knicks. Stay on the Cavs? Cool. Go to smarter teams like Miami or Chicago (ha! hindsight)? Makes sense. Go to the Knicks? They don't deserve!

The same logic applies to the Lakers when they later got LeBron. The are things the Lakers have going for them beyond the big market, but a front office worth believing in? Nah. If the Decision was LeBron sending a signal that they wanted smarter management, coming to LA was him signaling he and his people would be the real management and that they'd prefer to run their operation draped in a stronger brand.

The part of me that cares about these things and is bothered by them is still there, and quite honestly it's led me to snap at some Laker fans from time to time, but there's another part of me that just accepts that this is now part of the landscape, and there will be no going back to just the way it was before.

In fact, I think it might still get considerably worse.

Have you been following what happened with Noami Osaka and Roland Garros (tennis French Open)?

Forgetting about how you feel about Osaka not wanting to do something that athletes have always been expected to do, who got hurt by Osaka withdrawing from the tournament? Not her. She actually got more media attention that she'd gotten in winning her last two Grand Slams and much of it was sympathetic. She only seems to be getting more marketable. The tournament on the other hand became an afterthought.

Now that so many media barriers have been broken down, the biggest stars essentially can generate attention for whatever they want at will without any middle man. So what happens next?

I did see this wrt Osaka dealing with anxiety issues if I recall (I don't follow tennis much so I may be off on this but that was my understanding). And frankly, I'm fine with an athlete feeling that way and her stepping away, and yep it hurt the tournament with bad press too assuming this is what you were speaking to. I'm never really certain how much good info comes from press conferences tbh.

Edit: Though am confused as to if this is similar at other tournaments, I'm not familiar enough with tennis. Someone who's got anxiety issues with these things I'd think should be able to avoid them somehow, or at least do them when they're up to it if they are and decide so. Not sure if that's feasible to ask an individual but seems to be more workable and friendly toward someone sensitive to anxiety in such situations.

And I find this generally interesting in the NBA too, because it oftentimes goes back to how a person views a player beforehand in an interview. I was a big fan of Marshawn Lynch's "I'm just here so I don't get fined", and it made him more marketable too. Heck everyone knows "both teams played hard" as a classic and it's a fantastic line.

As well agree with it probably getting worse in terms of player movement. I think something has been breached where players went from wanting to team up with a friend or two and creating a stronger team to a point where we're getting it being a friend to 2, and 2 to 3, etc. And it doesn't always make sense or work, but its happening. Just looking at Brooklyn, who I'd still favor to win a title, saving money to sign Deandre Jordan to a bunch of money, it helps having friends who are good at basketball too.

Where the tournament really messed up is that when Osaka said "I can't do this right now, I'll take the fine", they responded by not saying "That's what the fine is there for, you do you and let's keep talking" but rather "Hmm, if that's not motivating you, how 'bout we threaten to DQ you?!" to which she said "Okay, see you later." Whoever made the decision to threaten Osaka like that should be answering questions to those they are beholden to, because they screwed it up badly.

But here's what I'll also say:

I like Osaka. I find her endearing and I completely believe her about her anxiety. I also think it's worth questioning whether pressroom stuff still makes sense. At one point it was what needed to happen, but maybe it doesn't any more given that there are other ways for athletes to publicize the event.

However, if you read her statements, some of the stuff she says is childish. She actually complains about having the same question asked more than once. I mean, you play in a different city - in a different country! - yeah, you're going to get different journalists who didn't hear or read about your previous answer.

I don't want to damn Osaka just because not all of what she was asking for was reasonable, but I think it's important to understand that her feelings are important because she's good at playing a popular spectator sport, not because she has vastly more insight into the infrastructure around her than everyone else. Some of what she's complaining about, previous generations didn't complain about because they were less coddled and more savvy.

But whether reasonable or not reasonable, they need her more than she needs them, so they need to stop the snooty power struggle they cannot expect to win.

That's definitely not a good look for the tournament, wasn't entirely sure how the fine worked. I do sympathize with anyone dealing with anxiety in these settings and tend to feel that they're not overly necessary as well.

I also think this sort of empowerment toward athletes is a bit different than a lot of what's going on where people seem to be pointing at the NBA and look at any discussion of ways to possibly fix market issues as some way of putting severe restrictions on players. I think I said it in my first reply but by and large fans aren't fans of ownership, they're fans of teams, and a fanbase under a terribly owner/management often recognizes it. The concerns expressed aren't for those orgs but for the ones doing things the right way that just end up stuck because they aren't glamourous.

I absolutely love the Grizzlies and what they're doing for example, but is there any way I can really see them winning a title under the current rules barring some extreme results? Not really. And their fans likely know that. Following OKC I feel similar, I know they're never really going to win a title, and no matter what Sam Presti or any of the players they have do, it won't matter. Which as a fan kind of stinks because knowing the results won't ever be there before the start.

[MyUniBroDavis]

I think to some extent they're doing more now. Saying that, the big shift in the NBA was opening of free agency I believe. And to be clear, I'm not against free agency at all (heck I was a trade board mod and the transaction/trade stuff is really fun and interesting to me in terms of team building), but it's a bit different in the NBA than in other sports. I'm not really entirely sure why it's this way, but in the NFL there's nothing really abnormal about the Packers or Bears getting a free agent despite being not traditionally large markets and being cold weather. In the NBA it's unheard of.

I'm not entirely sure a fix for the problem either (I think falco's note of a contract not counting entirely against the cap could be something maybe), but think it definitely exists and can reward large market franchises who are run relatively poorly and punish smaller ones. And (saying this to someone w/ a Lakers logo is making it harder) but to be blunt seeing the Lakers making a ton of incompetent moves only to fall ass backward into Lebron and Anthony Davis for a title after watching a team I'm a fan of make mostly competent moves only to fall just shy is infuriating as a fan.


As well I don't think that looking at it the way fpliii is is really "siding with billionaires" how people seem to be taking it, its simply acknowledging that as a league there's a gap there and it needs to be worked on. If the purpose of the league is to secure revenue and adding teams/cities is a key way to do so (TV contracts from local markets certainly are) there should be some way to try to make these markets more sustainable and beneficial to the league. Having a 10 team NBA of 2 teams in LA/Philly/Boston/Chicago/etc isn't really beneficial to anyone, and continued efforts to expand the NBA would only make it harder.

I'd also like to note here that a lot of the pushback toward players in these instances to me isn't really pushback on players themselves, its on how they've handled a situation and how a team has handled it. To use a few examples as a Thunder fan:

Durant left OKC on not so good terms. Now I don't think this means free agency needs to be stopped, but yeah I'll admit I'm certainly not a fan of how it was handled in that situation.

Paul George left Indiana on very shaky ground. Any Pacers fan who has some negativity there I get. At the same time seeing how his departure from OKC was handled I have zero ill will and remain cheering for him to do well.

Lebron exercised his free agency multiple times now. He got the most backlash for going to Miami. He became beloved on his return to Cleveland by many.

Anthony Davis and Harden are more who took how they left their first franchise and made it more about how it was done than that it was done. Same for Melo in Denver or Dwight in Orlando. I understand people not feeling good about how that was handled and don't see how that's interpreted by some as people wanting to stop players from moving entirely.

Good thoughts, and yeah, it irritates me as well seeing incompetence get rewarded. I remember when LeBron left Cleveland (the first time), I was specifically cheering for him to not go to the Knicks. Stay on the Cavs? Cool. Go to smarter teams like Miami or Chicago (ha! hindsight)? Makes sense. Go to the Knicks? They don't deserve!

The same logic applies to the Lakers when they later got LeBron. The are things the Lakers have going for them beyond the big market, but a front office worth believing in? Nah. If the Decision was LeBron sending a signal that they wanted smarter management, coming to LA was him signaling he and his people would be the real management and that they'd prefer to run their operation draped in a stronger brand.

The part of me that cares about these things and is bothered by them is still there, and quite honestly it's led me to snap at some Laker fans from time to time, but there's another part of me that just accepts that this is now part of the landscape, and there will be no going back to just the way it was before.

In fact, I think it might still get considerably worse.

Have you been following what happened with Noami Osaka and Roland Garros (tennis French Open)?

Forgetting about how you feel about Osaka not wanting to do something that athletes have always been expected to do, who got hurt by Osaka withdrawing from the tournament? Not her. She actually got more media attention that she'd gotten in winning her last two Grand Slams and much of it was sympathetic. She only seems to be getting more marketable. The tournament on the other hand became an afterthought.

Now that so many media barriers have been broken down, the biggest stars essentially can generate attention for whatever they want at will without any middle man. So what happens next?

This isn’t related to the second half of what you posted, but on a side note on lakers management and klutzy and stuff I found out that apparently the klutch rich Paul stuff is pretty overblown, so apparently lebron coming in didn’t change the front office decisions the way you’d expect in certain ways

[kayess]

One other general note, I have probably become less sympathetic toward the players union and more pro-organization (not necessarily pro-ownership, though).

Woah, could you elaborate on this? I don't think either side is perfect, of course, but I'd tend to side with the camp whose labor isn't being exploited

[kayess]

On the subject: When I think about it, not a whole lot really. Where I was at 2016-2017 was that the Warriors were the GOAT team (duh), and a lot of the principles they epitomized - stacking shooting, great help D at rim without giving up too much on the perimeter, leveraging your shooting to get shots inside (or vice versa) etc., etc., just rings even more true today. Shooting has been valued more now (and is getting valued more year after year), but that's not really new tbh - as a LeBron fan, it's just easy to see how much better the entire team looks when there's shooting.

Aside from the players who had breakthrough seasons (Jokic, Embiid, Giannis et al) and who obviously merit a change in valuation, the player I probably value more now is Harden. I simply did not think his **** was sustainable, and clearly, I'm an idiot. He's just pushed his schtik to incredible heights, sadly didn't get the 2018 ring due to astronomical bad luck

[ceiling raiser]

One other general note, I have probably become less sympathetic toward the players union and more pro-organization (not necessarily pro-ownership, though).

Woah, could you elaborate on this? I don't think either side is perfect, of course, but I'd tend to side with the camp whose labor isn't being exploited

Just a matter of wanting there to be more protections for "small-market teams". We kind of went off on tangents the last couple of pages.

I guess basically I want to find ways to help teams in less-attractive metro areas maintain talent or get just compensation.

(It's not even a pro-ownership. Not to sound like too much of a socialist, but in an ideal world I think teams would be publicly owned. But that's a discussion for a different day.)

[kayess]

One other general note, I have probably become less sympathetic toward the players union and more pro-organization (not necessarily pro-ownership, though).

Woah, could you elaborate on this? I don't think either side is perfect, of course, but I'd tend to side with the camp whose labor isn't being exploited

Just a matter of wanting there to be more protections for "small-market teams". We kind of went off on tangents the last couple of pages.

I guess basically I want to find ways to help teams in less-attractive metro areas maintain talent or get just compensation.

(It's not even a pro-ownership. Not to sound like too much of a socialist, but in an ideal world I think teams would be publicly owned. But that's a discussion for a different day.)

Sorry, when I read your initial post I interpreted it to be pro-ownership. Pro-organization in that context is much, much more easily understandable as even organizations (in the context of trying to win championships) often get **** by owners too, in the name of profits

Lol I hate people having to apologize for "sounding too much like a socialist". It's okay to not think that privatization is necessarily the most optimal thing (because there's no such thing as free markets when rent-seeking capitalists abound).

This is such a difficult thing to balance tbh. I think a ton of players' perceptions are skewed by the 24/7 media whirlwind and feel a need to win now, etc., without taking the long view on their legacies and careers and thinking about what enables them to win the most in the long run, instead of just winning now. And this desire to do so forces teams into really bad situations where they have to punt the long term to keep a generational star instead of them leaving "for nothing". How do we empower players to escape incompetent, exploitative orgs without punishing the good orgs that are simply trying to do what's best long-run? It's really hard to say, but I think you can throw out the Kawhi/Zion situations (if the Uncle Dennis-ification of Zion is anywhere close to being true), because there's no way a competent system can account for genuinely malicious intent from players

[SkyHookFTW]

One other general note, I have probably become less sympathetic toward the players union and more pro-organization (not necessarily pro-ownership, though).

Woah, could you elaborate on this? I don't think either side is perfect, of course, but I'd tend to side with the camp whose labor isn't being exploited

Labor being exploited? Every player in professional sports is there because they want to be there. The rules are known to all. I have been in two NFL training camps. I never met anyone who didn't know what they were in for, including myself. Every player has the option to walk away if they believe they are not being treated fairly. Farm labor workers are exploited. They often have no other choice for employment, and the employers know this.

[kayess]

One other general note, I have probably become less sympathetic toward the players union and more pro-organization (not necessarily pro-ownership, though).

Woah, could you elaborate on this? I don't think either side is perfect, of course, but I'd tend to side with the camp whose labor isn't being exploited

Labor being exploited? Every player in professional sports is there because they want to be there. The rules are known to all. I have been in two NFL training camps. I never met anyone who didn't know what they were in for, including myself. Every player has the option to walk away if they believe they are not being treated fairly. Farm labor workers are exploited. They often have no other choice for employment, and the employers know this.

Well I'll have to apologize for my use of the word 'exploitation' then. I always thought exploitation of labor in economic parlance had no negative connotation despite the phrasing (simply used to mean "use" labor, or something), and it's only "bad" when capitalists extract the surplus value of that labor.

Onto your example: I think the NFL is probably actually the worst example of the phenomena you're describing, but otherwise if you described an NBA draft, I'd agree. Reason being that the NFL has done some extremely shady **** (esp. with regards to CTE studies and all that) that make the choice to enter into the draft not as informed as it could be. And while yes, they're free to walk away, anyone who's entering the NFL draft has actually made that choice a long time ago, playing football in HS, in college, etc., where the wear and tear simply is on a whole other level compared to other sports, making it much, much harder to transition out of (as opposed to a ton of guys who played D1 basketball/baseball, who can much more easily transition to other careers).

[FC93]

There was nothing wrong with your use of "exploitation." Players have their wages artificially depressed (rookie contracts, the draft, the salary cap) and they produce an enormous amount of money that they never see. That's basically Marx's idea of exploitation of labor to a tee.

[ceiling raiser]

This isn't really last 5 years, since it happened slightly before then, but I also went from being one of LeBron's biggest supporters to a huge detractor of his playstyle. I think the main reason is because of the rise of Steph Curry, whose style of play I really appreciate aesthetically.

How do you guys reconcile a player's impact with his playstyle? There is so much LeBron does that I don't like (ball dominance, inconsistent shooting - even though he has improved and most other wings from his era have the same issue), mixed effort on defense (post-2013 I am not a huge fan of his defense, however in the 2016 playoffs and for the most part in LA he has given effort again, and obviously he has a very high floor on that end), but he gets the job done.

Curry has terrific impact metrics as well, but not quite the same footprint as LeBron. He plays off-ball, is a tremendous shooter, gives effort on defense even if he is limited on that end. Also, availability and injury issues shape this discussion quite a bit.

Does anybody else struggle with a playstyle bias in evaluating players? It's not just the LeBron/Curry dichotomy, in general I really prefer guys who are versatile, portable, fluidly mobile, not ball dominant, etc.

[falcolombardi]

This isn't really last 5 years, since it happened slightly before then, but I also went from being one of LeBron's biggest supporters to a huge detractor of his playstyle. I think the main reason is because of the rise of Steph Curry, whose style of play I really appreciate aesthetically.

How do you guys reconcile a player's impact with his playstyle? There is so much LeBron does that I don't like (ball dominance, inconsistent shooting - even though he has improved and most other wings from his era have the same issue), mixed effort on defense (post-2013 I am not a huge fan of his defense, however in the 2016 playoffs and for the most part in LA he has given effort again, and obviously he has a very high floor on that end), but he gets the job done.

Curry has terrific impact metrics as well, but not quite the same footprint as LeBron. He plays off-ball, is a tremendous shooter, gives effort on defense even if he is limited on that end. Also, availability and injury issues shape this discussion quite a bit.

Does anybody else struggle with a playstyle bias in evaluating players? It's not just the LeBron/Curry dichotomy, in general I really prefer guys who are versatile, portable, fluidly mobile, not ball dominant, etc.

i think players who fit the "ceiling raising" archetype are overated in the assumption that they will be better in good teams or because people WANT these kind of players to be better than the "ballhoggish" ones for prínciple or aesthetics reasons
kinda like peopke who want to find ways to believe mid range and post basketball can be better that pace and space basketball.

magic and bird for a good example as magic fits the floor raiser and bird the ceiling raiser archetype, both played in comparably offensively talented teams in their peaks (imo peak McHale beats late 30's kareem offensively but worthy beats old Parish) where you would expect bird to shine mpre yet it was the less portable magic who reached higher fights

or 2017 cavs playing comparable post season offense that the perfectly portable, amd more talented overall warriors

or curry warriors motion offense being slowed down like it was in 2015 and 2016, 2018 even vs rockets. the less talented and "ugly iso" rockets were a bad luck shooting streak/bad reffing by Scott Foster night away of defeating the most talented team of the shot clock era that played more team basketball

if you want to believe basketball is a game where teams beat individuals and "correct" team play beats simplistic heliocentric offenses, these kind of thinghs hit at the faith of that

i think ben taylor for example overates portability amd kind of ignores/puts a favorable coat of paint on results that dont supports his reallt high opinions on curry/garnett/durant/bird vs the less portable magic/lebron or duncan

i honestly think the best way to win in this sport is with individual talent and great on ball players rather than team efforts, simplicity amd arguably ugly offense over beatiful and complex offenses but aesthetically speaking people want to believe is the other way around

[FC93]

This isn't really last 5 years, since it happened slightly before then, but I also went from being one of LeBron's biggest supporters to a huge detractor of his playstyle. I think the main reason is because of the rise of Steph Curry, whose style of play I really appreciate aesthetically.

How do you guys reconcile a player's impact with his playstyle? There is so much LeBron does that I don't like (ball dominance, inconsistent shooting - even though he has improved and most other wings from his era have the same issue), mixed effort on defense (post-2013 I am not a huge fan of his defense, however in the 2016 playoffs and for the most part in LA he has given effort again, and obviously he has a very high floor on that end), but he gets the job done.

Curry has terrific impact metrics as well, but not quite the same footprint as LeBron. He plays off-ball, is a tremendous shooter, gives effort on defense even if he is limited on that end. Also, availability and injury issues shape this discussion quite a bit.

Does anybody else struggle with a playstyle bias in evaluating players? It's not just the LeBron/Curry dichotomy, in general I really prefer guys who are versatile, portable, fluidly mobile, not ball dominant, etc.

i think players who fit the "ceiling raising" archetype are overated in the assumption that they will be better in good teams or because people WANT these kind of players to be better than the "ballhoggish" ones for prínciple or aesthetics reasons
kinda like peopke who want to find ways to believe mid range and post basketball can be better that pace and space basketball.

magic and bird for a good example as magic fits the floor raiser and bird the ceiling raiser archetype, both played in comparably offensively talented teams in their peaks (imo peak McHale beats late 30's kareem offensively but worthy beats old Parish) where you would expect bird to shine mpre yet it was the less portable magic who reached higher fights

or 2017 cavs playing comparable post season offense that the perfectly portable, amd more talented overall warriors

or curry warriors motion offense being slowed down like it was in 2015 and 2016, 2018 even vs rockets. the less talented and "ugly iso" rockets were a bad luck shooting streak/bad reffing by Scott Foster night away of defeating the most talented team of the shot clock era that played more team basketball

if you want to believe basketball is a game where teams beat individuals and "correct" team play beats simplistic heliocentric offenses, these kind of thinghs hit at the faith of that

i think ben taylor for example overates portability amd kind of ignores/puts a favorable coat of paint on results that dont supports his reallt high opinions on curry/garnett/durant/bird vs the less portable magic/lebron or duncan

i honestly think the best way to win in this sport is with individual talent and great on ball players rather than team efforts, simplicity amd arguably ugly offense over beatiful and complex offenses but aesthetically speaking people want to believe is the other way around

Yep, I entirely, entirely agree with this. Portability is really important if you're doing an all-time fantasy draft and are making a team of ATGs, but in real-life, trying to win a championship in a given season, a team is very, very unlikely to have so much talent that Magic or LeBron's ball-dominance is a problem (side note: LeBron is/was a very good off-ball player too and I have no doubt that if he were actually on a team with Magic Johnson that he would become an even better one), because the number of guys who bleed value to a great extent by not having the ball *and* who you would want on your championship-level team as a ball-dominant guy are very small. Same thing for Duncan vs. KG. Yeah, KG's passing and jump-shooting makes him more portable than Duncan's isolation scoring tendency, but there aren't a lot of iso scorers who are ATG-caliber players who the Spurs ever even had the option of pairing with Duncan. In a league with a salary cap, you're going to get far, far more value for your limited money looking for "role players" and secondary guy (Manu, Parker) who you can maximize.

And I think that's the under-analyzed part of this. The NBA has a salary cap; sure it's a soft cap, but it's a cap. A floor-raiser with very good role-players is simply an easier team to build (and to coach!!! Let's not forget that!) to contender-level with the financial constraints of the system than the right combination of highly portable dudes. I think it's telling that some exceptions (2010s Spurs, Dirk-era Mavs) are exceptions *only because the superstars decided to take pay-cuts and play for less than their value*.

The bottom line is that at any given moment ball-dominant, superstar-caliber players are so scarce that you really don't need to worry about that allegedly nightmarish situation of having two of them, and often times their skills could still complement each others in ways "heliocentric" might elide. If LeBron and Harden were teammates, I don't think that'd be a nightmare: one of them leads the second unit, and you have some possessions where LeBron is playing off-ball at a good level and other possessions where Harden is spacing the floor while LeBron runs the offense. Is this a bad thing? Was Chris Paul a "poor fit" for the Rockets?

[falcolombardi]

This isn't really last 5 years, since it happened slightly before then, but I also went from being one of LeBron's biggest supporters to a huge detractor of his playstyle. I think the main reason is because of the rise of Steph Curry, whose style of play I really appreciate aesthetically.

How do you guys reconcile a player's impact with his playstyle? There is so much LeBron does that I don't like (ball dominance, inconsistent shooting - even though he has improved and most other wings from his era have the same issue), mixed effort on defense (post-2013 I am not a huge fan of his defense, however in the 2016 playoffs and for the most part in LA he has given effort again, and obviously he has a very high floor on that end), but he gets the job done.

Curry has terrific impact metrics as well, but not quite the same footprint as LeBron. He plays off-ball, is a tremendous shooter, gives effort on defense even if he is limited on that end. Also, availability and injury issues shape this discussion quite a bit.

Does anybody else struggle with a playstyle bias in evaluating players? It's not just the LeBron/Curry dichotomy, in general I really prefer guys who are versatile, portable, fluidly mobile, not ball dominant, etc.

i think players who fit the "ceiling raising" archetype are overated in the assumption that they will be better in good teams or because people WANT these kind of players to be better than the "ballhoggish" ones for prínciple or aesthetics reasons
kinda like peopke who want to find ways to believe mid range and post basketball can be better that pace and space basketball.

magic and bird for a good example as magic fits the floor raiser and bird the ceiling raiser archetype, both played in comparably offensively talented teams in their peaks (imo peak McHale beats late 30's kareem offensively but worthy beats old Parish) where you would expect bird to shine mpre yet it was the less portable magic who reached higher fights

or 2017 cavs playing comparable post season offense that the perfectly portable, amd more talented overall warriors

or curry warriors motion offense being slowed down like it was in 2015 and 2016, 2018 even vs rockets. the less talented and "ugly iso" rockets were a bad luck shooting streak/bad reffing by Scott Foster night away of defeating the most talented team of the shot clock era that played more team basketball

if you want to believe basketball is a game where teams beat individuals and "correct" team play beats simplistic heliocentric offenses, these kind of thinghs hit at the faith of that

i think ben taylor for example overates portability amd kind of ignores/puts a favorable coat of paint on results that dont supports his reallt high opinions on curry/garnett/durant/bird vs the less portable magic/lebron or duncan

i honestly think the best way to win in this sport is with individual talent and great on ball players rather than team efforts, simplicity amd arguably ugly offense over beatiful and complex offenses but aesthetically speaking people want to believe is the other way around

Yep, I entirely, entirely agree with this. Portability is really important if you're doing an all-time fantasy draft and are making a team of ATGs, but in real-life, trying to win a championship in a given season, a team is very, very unlikely to have so much talent that Magic or LeBron's ball-dominance is a problem (side note: LeBron is/was a very good off-ball player too and I have no doubt that if he were actually on a team with Magic Johnson that he would become an even better one), because the number of guys who bleed value to a great extent by not having the ball *and* who you would want on your championship-level team as a ball-dominant guy are very small. Same thing for Duncan vs. KG. Yeah, KG's passing and jump-shooting makes him more portable than Duncan's isolation scoring tendency, but there aren't a lot of iso scorers who are ATG-caliber players who the Spurs ever even had the option of pairing with Duncan. In a league with a salary cap, you're going to get far, far more value for your limited money looking for "role players" and secondary guy (Manu, Parker) who you can maximize.

And I think that's the under-analyzed part of this. The NBA has a salary cap; sure it's a soft cap, but it's a cap. A floor-raiser with very good role-players is simply an easier team to build (and to coach!!! Let's not forget that!) to contender-level with the financial constraints of the system than the right combination of highly portable dudes. I think it's telling that some exceptions (2010s Spurs, Dirk-era Mavs) are exceptions *only because the superstars decided to take pay-cuts and play for less than their value*.

The bottom line is that at any given moment ball-dominant, superstar-caliber players are so scarce that you really don't need to worry about that allegedly nightmarish situation of having two of them, and often times their skills could still complement each others in ways "heliocentric" might elide. If LeBron and Harden were teammates, I don't think that'd be a nightmare: one of them leads the second unit, and you have some possessions where LeBron is playing off-ball at a good level and other possessions where Harden is spacing the floor while LeBron runs the offense. Is this a bad thing? Was Chris Paul a "poor fit" for the Rockets?

thanks for saying what i mean with much better redaction than mine

i would add that portability is extremely important for the guys who are not primary ball handlers. on ball skills decrese in value as you go down the pecking order

i want to have my best player on ball as much as i want the rest of my team to be good without it

at any given point only 1 of 10 guys can have the ball, so i want whoever is not a star to contribuye as much as possible without it,

but i also want my best player with the ball, to have it as much as possible

and2 as you say, if you have a team where you have to worry about lebron usage then your team is so stacked that fit barely matters anyway

[Texas Chuck]

Does anybody else struggle with a playstyle bias in evaluating players? It's not just the LeBron/Curry dichotomy, in general I really prefer guys who are versatile, portable, fluidly mobile, not ball dominant, etc.

I mean I have bias, but I really don't care how a player has impact as long as they have it. We've simply seen too many great players having massive impact in completely different ways. Draymond Green and Dirk are both amazing PF's. Nash and Kidd amazing PG's.

Duncan and Lebron amazing cornerstone players. Same with Russell and Magic.

I honestly think one of this board's biggest blind spots is their preferred style of play or arbitrary rules based on position in what has become more and more a positionless league particularly with all of the PNR and switching that occurs on almost every possession in the league.

And you get some really silly narratives in an attempt to dismiss why a guy who does it "wrong" isn't really having the impact he's having or trying to spin a narrative explaining why a guy who isn't having a ton of impact but has the "correct" traits is really much better than the results over big samples are telling us.

Do you drive winning? Great, don't really care how you do it. Do you not? Sorry then I don't carry about your TS% or 3PG volume and accuracy. That stuff is role player stuff more than star stuff anyway.