State Of The Game: Is Shaq Right?

[Bassman]

Despite a promising increase in viewership on opening night, the NBA has seen a significant ratings slump this season. Both ESPN and TNT reported substantial drops compared to the previous year, with added competition from major events like the World Series impacting numbers. While league officials search for answers, Shaquille O'Neal believes he already knows why fans are tuning out: the league's overemphasis on three-point shooting. On his show, The Big Podcast, Shaq explained his theory. “Everybody’s running the same plays with the damn top-of-the-key dribble handoff. I think everybody’s looking at the same thing, and Steph Curry and those guys messed it up,” he said. According to Shaq, teams are replicating Golden State’s three-point-heavy approach, creating a predictable style of play across the league. He believes this redundancy has led to fans losing interest.

Is Shaq right? I find myself watching these games, seeing highlight compilations, and it is nearly all 3’s all the time. From Melo’s wild circus shots to deep 3’s from all over. Where is the inside game? Does this level of incredible shooting excellence get boring to you as a fan? To me it’s all basketball, and I’m amazed at the skill level. But I can see casual fans finding it stale. And I do miss having bigs setting the tone and battling down in the paint. Or maybe I just miss it a lot more since we have none. What do you think?

[JDR720]

I think it's partly that chucking 3's isn't very entertaining unless you're making a bunch of them.

But I think it's mostly down to not having as many marketable (or American) stars.

Jokic, Giannis, SGA, Luka, Wemby etc. aren't as "star like" as LeBron, KD, Harden, Steph etc. were.

And all those guys being in small markets (besides Luka) and not being all about branding hurt too. Like, Jokic would rather pet a horse than do shoe commercials.

[KembaWalker]

yes, the math is broken. this team should not be a decent game tonight away from being better in ORTG to the 2008 Celtics and 2014 Spurs. That was peak 3 level hoops. players aren't getting better at basketball, they're abusing the poor scoring system of the sport

[EmpireFalls]

If they put LaMelo on national TV we’d get ratings not seen since Jordan

[MasterIchiro]

I don't want to get too nitpicky. The teams built to win championships today still play some super entertaining, beautiful basketball. I watched the Celtics nearly every game through their rampage.

The Warriors created a dynasty from distance. Super fun teams. Watched most of their Finals games.

The problem now is dinky guards used to chuck because they couldn't get to the rim through contact. Now the bigs, forwards and wings behave like dinky guards and have learned to shoot and spread the floor.

More teams need someone like Anthony Edwards attacking the rim with athleticism, strength and skill.

No reason to punish shooters for learning a new skill. Even when Shaq played and when Barkley played they didn't need to space like Wemby or Embiid or Holmgren to give their team a competitive advantage.

Those guys shattered glass.

[Ghostman50]

The three point shooting is what it is. It's all part of the game and I feel like viewership has taken the biggest hit because of the refereeing.

The officiating has been so bad for so long. To watch the first and second Celtics game, have a chance in crunch time, and have it decided by the zebras sucks the life out of any Fandom that is aware of just how bad the calls are.

Imagine being a casual trying to get into the sport just to see the inconsistencies from call to call. Why bother watching ifi know I'm playing a big market team that it is really 8v5.

[fatlever]

Kind of ironic that Shaq is pointing in fingers at what is potentially hurting viewership around the league. ESPN and tnt, specifically Shaq, Barkley and Kenny Smith have been telling viewers for over a decade that the regular season is useless, half the teams in the league are trash, they joke about not knowing anything or ever watching some of these teams. And then they sit here and wonder why people arent interested in November. I agree a lot with the article that Brian windhorst wrote recently on this subject.

It's probably not the only reason ratings are down but it certainly is a reason. Only sport where the major announcers of the sport routinely make fun of the product. Belittle half the teams in the league and make jokes about why on Earth anyone would ever watch those teams or the players on those teams. And when they do speak about the players on those teams it's only to say that they should force their way to a bigger market.

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[yosemiteben]

Agree with fatlever. Saw someone on twitter not too long ago saying the main reason for NBA viewership issues is those covering the NBA don't actually care that much about it and don't make it exciting. Similar to Windhorst when he said this:

“NBA media right now, we’re not in a great place,” Windhorst said. “Because I think we’re devaluing things … that help build the league up. Like one of the things [is] storytelling. Everything is too short right now. People are too focused on tweets, too focused on guys getting crossed-over, guys getting dunked on, guys getting embarrassed, social media posts. Not as much on storytelling, learning about players and learning their backgrounds, what I call chronicling the season.”

...

“ESPN responds to what the audience says it wants because we can analyze the data so much better now. And so if the audience says it wants debate about who the Lakers should be running their offense through or whether LeBron should play back-to-backs or whatever, all of the stuff is a debate,” the former Cleveland Plain Dealer reporter said. “That is what it’s become … but there isn’t a story where they tell a story about Dalton Knecht or Jarred Vanderbilt. They don’t tell that story, and [it’s] because the data says the clicks go on two people debating about whether the Lakers should trade Anthony Davis or something.

https://awfulannouncing.com/espn/brian-windhorst-media-not-great-place.html

That resonates with me.

[fatlever]

never ever see that on football or soccer. i dont watch baseball or hockey, but i cant imagine they let main talking heads trash the product on their biggest stage for over a decade.

[JDR720]

I think that plays into what I said, about marketable stars, the NBA media covers LeBron 24/7 because they don't want to talk about the other stars.

Whenever LeBron retires, the NBA media is going to crash.

[KembaWalker]

I think that plays into what I said, about marketable stars, the NBA media covers LeBron 24/7 because they don't want to talk about the other stars.

Whenever LeBron retires, the NBA media is going to crash.

you'd have to imagine there is a succession plan in place to keep the machine turning but i cant for the life of me figure out who its gonna be. Tatum and Jokic are marketing nightmares. Ants simply not good enough this far into his career to be that guy. Giannis and Embiid have a handful of years left. Cooper Flagg doesn't seem transcendent or marketable to me but I have only watched clips. Theyll find and anoint someone I'm sure

[SWedd523]

I think that plays into what I said, about marketable stars, the NBA media covers LeBron 24/7 because they don't want to talk about the other stars.

Whenever LeBron retires, the NBA media is going to crash.

I don't consume sports media because sports media doesn't give a **** about anyone not from a big market (with rare exceptions), spends more time talking about LeBron's latest bowel movement than anything Hornets related, and incentivizes hyperbolic takes from blowhards like SAS/Perkins while getting rid of guys who actually do journalism like Lowe.

Same 6 teams take up every prime time slot, every team plays the same boring offense (spam 3s or foul bait), teams like Charlotte get repeatedly screwed by officiating in favor of big market teams, and there's no good storylines or rivalries.

Not to mention the price of League Pass or other streaming services just to get a **** product when you can get free pie as needed.

[Braggins]

No

[GiggitySmalls]

I think that plays into what I said, about marketable stars, the NBA media covers LeBron 24/7 because they don't want to talk about the other stars.

Whenever LeBron retires, the NBA media is going to crash.

100% spot on. This and Shaq being right combined.


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[Braggins]

Kind of ironic that Shaq is pointing in fingers at what is potentially hurting viewership around the league. ESPN and tnt, specifically Shaq, Barkley and Kenny Smith have been telling viewers for over a decade that the regular season is useless, half the teams in the league are trash, they joke about not knowing anything or ever watching some of these teams. And then they sit here and wonder why people arent interested in November. I agree a lot with the article that Brian windhorst wrote recently on this subject.

It's probably not the only reason ratings are down but it certainly is a reason. Only sport where the major announcers of the sport routinely make fun of the product. Belittle half the teams in the league and make jokes about why on Earth anyone would ever watch those teams or the players on those teams. And when they do speak about the players on those teams it's only to say that they should force their way to a bigger market.

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I started watching the NFL again a few years ago and it is shocking how much better the NFL media covers the sport. I was surprised by how much effort the mainstream coverage puts into helping the viewers have a better understanding of the game. The NFL media isn't perfect and still falls into many of the pitfalls that pretty much all modern media does, but its nothing like the slop that comes out of the NBA media.

[fatlever]

In addition to the constant bashing of the product by the highest paid members of the Marquee studio, you have a bunch of former players with antiquated opinions on players like Lamelo needing to go to a big market. Just in this past week we've seen Gilbert Arenas and Chandler Parsons make public comments about how Lamelo needs to go play for the Clippers. This is not the David Stern NBA where the NBA was seemingly set up to funnel everyone to La Boston Miami or Chicago. Right now we have superstars in a lot of traditionally lesser known markets, or smaller markets, many of which on very good teams. We have jokic in Denver. giannis and lillard in Milwaukee. You have sga in Oklahoma City, wemby In San Antonio, Donovan Mitchell in Cleveland, Fox and Sabonis in Sacramento, morant in Memphis, Haliburton in Indiana, anthony Edwards in Minneapolis, paolo in orlando...

It's only the former players from the 90s and 2000s that are constantly regurgitating the big market nonsense. That and of course the shameless hacks and the media just saying **** about the Lakers to get clicks. I mean how has forcing your way to these big markets and super teams worked out for players over the last decade? Other than Lebron it hasn't really worked for anyone else, I guess unless we count Durant being the ultimate ring chaser and joining the Seventy three win warriors for two rings.

I mean are these same outlets constantly talking about how all of these other superstars need to go play in California? Or is it just melo?

You just don't get this same narrative in the nfl. Never heard anyone saying that Patrick Mahomes needed to go play for the Cowboys.

It can't be like European soccer where Real Madrid Barcelona and whatever other rich clubs being propped up by oil money can buy up all of the great players year after year. It doesn't work that way with a legitimate salary cap.

Melo, Is a true franchise player who has his own franchise. Why does he need to go anywhere else, At least until it's proven that the franchise is completely incapable of building a winning product around him?

[Braggins]

The NBA ratings seem to fluctuate quite a bit for whatever reason and every time they go down for a bit we get to listen to a bunch of 90s/2000s players using it as an excuse to complain about 3pt shooting and collectively trash the current players. Its starting to get old imo.

[KembaWalker]

Melo, Is a true franchise player who has his own franchise. Why does he need to go anywhere else, At least until it's proven that the franchise is completely incapable of building a winning product around him?

[fatlever]

Hey look I don't have a ton of faith in this franchise to build a consistent winner, But we are hopefully out of the Dark Ages of the Michael Jordan mitch era... And of course our terrible record is largely in part too his inability to stay healthy the last two seasons. So I don't think we're there at the point yet where we can definitively say this franchise has failed to put a winning product around him. I think we're two years away from that. If we are still a terrible franchise with no clear path to becoming a high quality playoff team by the end of next season, then I think it's probably fair for him to start looking to jump to a franchise that offers him a better chance at consistent playoff basketball.

[SteveMorrison15]

The small market I don't understand. If the Hornets went on a 20 game win streak the media would eat it up and they'd be on National TV. Kids with no talent are famous by making videos in their bedrooms. You can be popular anywhere.