How come none of the young stars have grabbed the torch from the older guys?

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Re: How come none of the young stars have grabbed the torch from the older guys? 

Post#41 » by Alatan » Fri Jan 24, 2025 2:23 pm

If the media needs players to be badboy standup comedians with hollywood looks to be marketable then they failed at their jobs misserably. The whole point of marketing is to promote something that might not be noticed otherwise.
For example: Giannis is the good old rags to riches story with an attractive looking, attractive playing guy that has an interesting nickname. My senile neibghour could market him to the general public.
Jokic is an ex fat kid from a wartorn country that managed to will himself to greatness in a field that nobody would expect hin to dominate thanks to his incredible feel for the game and elite hand-eye coordination. There are tons of introverted, fat kids in the US that he could become a rolemodel if marketed correctly.
Its obvious that the media doesnt want to market them for some reason. But the lack of "marketability" is not one of them.
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Re: How come none of the young stars have grabbed the torch from the older guys? 

Post#42 » by knicksNOTslick » Fri Jan 24, 2025 2:26 pm

This is the media's fault for forcefeeding the old players instead of promoting the new ones. As well as the best players being foreigners. Ja and Zion were supposed to take the mantle but issues. Same for Edwards but their team regressed.

Someone is gonna take it but it has to be organic and not a manufactured event. Like when Steph Curry started hitting logo 3s which energized the league. Or in a smaller scale, a Linsanity type of hype, had Jeremy Lin actually became a star and not.
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Re: How come none of the young stars have grabbed the torch from the older guys? 

Post#43 » by knicksNOTslick » Fri Jan 24, 2025 2:30 pm

Ryoga Hibiki wrote:I assume you are talking about US players.
None of them is good enough and there are too many international guys better than them, keeping such torch out of reach.
The only great American player today would have been Embiid, but injuries derailed his career, likely.

Embiid's not likable though.

Plus, centers are harder to market because the general fans can't relate. Shaq became a household name because he had the personality.
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Re: How come none of the young stars have grabbed the torch from the older guys? 

Post#44 » by bstein14 » Fri Jan 24, 2025 2:32 pm

I was kind of surprised that Wemby wasn't big enough to break through the frontcourt trio of Jokic, LeBron & KD. I remember the Grant Hill hype machine early on he was leading the league in all-star votes it feels like Wemby, being such an "alien", should be getting more votes than he got but the long term superstardom of LeBron and KD was just too much.
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Re: How come none of the young stars have grabbed the torch from the older guys? 

Post#45 » by Calvin Klein » Fri Jan 24, 2025 2:32 pm

We're currently watching of the all time greats doing incredible stuff....wtf are you talking about?
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Re: How come none of the young stars have grabbed the torch from the older guys? 

Post#46 » by HotelVitale » Fri Jan 24, 2025 2:51 pm

shi-woo wrote:
EmpireFalls wrote:No clue how you can watch a guy like Giannis or Jokic play basketball and think they aren’t trying to grab it ALL. Those dudes are hungry, and they’re title winners; and at this point they’re straight up better than the old guys.


This.

People, especially the media, just don't care about this new era of stars. People are still just basking in the glory of the superteam era of LeBron v Steph. People really can't let it go, yall aren't even waiting the mandatory 10 years to sound like Boomers telling me how much better guys like Bird and Magic are to everyone else.

The old era had the torch snatched from their claws half a decade ago, where have you been? A fake Micky mouse finals and crazy run from Steph and Wiggins in 22 might have confused people but the new era started in 2019.


Eh, 'people' and the 'media' will follow whatever gets the most attention and starts the most arguments, and we don't have any key rivalries that have sparked that yet. The Steph-Lebron thing was obviously a major classic rivalry and every person who came near basketball knew about it and for good reason. Lebron obviously had a long claim to ATG status and showed up in big games etc, and Steph was also established enough as a truly special player, and their teams dominated the NBA for like 5 years after they were both at that level.

Since then we haven't had anything remotely close to those type rivalries or domination. We've had Jokic being consistently amazing on kinda shaky teams, Luka being an insane workshorse on shaky teams, Giannis struggling to stay healthy at the right time, and guys like Tatum and SGA being impressive at times but also sinking into background and going as far as their teammates let them. The truly top guys aren't battling much in good series--we got a pretty pathetic Luka-Tatum last year (in which Tatum didn't have to show up), a Curry-Tatum that didn't go well for Tatum, a nice Giannis-Suns series but without KD and after which Giannis was out for years.

I don't think it's a bad thing--I didn't find the Lebron-Steph era that interesting--but it is pretty evident that the best players now aren't necessarily on great teams and aren't meeting each other in riveting head-to-head battles all that much. So we end up with guys like Tatum or Booker having team success despite clearly not being the best guys, or else the best guys like Jokic or Giannis making their best runs against weaker competition.
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Re: How come none of the young stars have grabbed the torch from the older guys? 

Post#47 » by Special_Puppy » Fri Jan 24, 2025 2:55 pm

Optms wrote:
YogurtProducer wrote:SGA leads the league in PPG.

Jokic is a multi time MVP

Doncic/Brunson/Tatum all lead good teams

What else do you want? For Maxey to say Curry is a bitch


You don't need to call anyone names to be the face of the league. IE Stephen Curry.

Issue is all those guys you mentioned have bland AF personalities / Foreigners. And yes, being American matters when it comes to marketability within the US. Like I've said before, if the only reason you're in the country is because an NBA team drafted you, casuals won't care about you. Take Jokic for example, he can't leave the country fast enough when the season ends. People notice things like that.


I don't think SGA being from Canada hurts him very much. I think him being in a very small market, having a fairly reserved personality, not being hyper athletic, and being hidden away on a tanking team until recently is what has been hurting him.
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Re: How come none of the young stars have grabbed the torch from the older guys? 

Post#48 » by Ryoga Hibiki » Fri Jan 24, 2025 2:57 pm

knicksNOTslick wrote:
Ryoga Hibiki wrote:I assume you are talking about US players.
None of them is good enough and there are too many international guys better than them, keeping such torch out of reach.
The only great American player today would have been Embiid, but injuries derailed his career, likely.

Embiid's not likable though.

Plus, centers are harder to market because the general fans can't relate. Shaq became a household name because he had the personality.

the difference is that Shaq was in LA and won in LA.
he has the same kind of narcissistic personality Embiid has
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Re: How come none of the young stars have grabbed the torch from the older guys? 

Post#49 » by Special_Puppy » Fri Jan 24, 2025 3:09 pm

Basically comes down to the fact that the guy who's won 3 out of last 4 MVPs being not marketable at all.
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Re: How come none of the young stars have grabbed the torch from the older guys? 

Post#50 » by Special_Puppy » Fri Jan 24, 2025 3:10 pm

Ryoga Hibiki wrote:
knicksNOTslick wrote:
Ryoga Hibiki wrote:I assume you are talking about US players.
None of them is good enough and there are too many international guys better than them, keeping such torch out of reach.
The only great American player today would have been Embiid, but injuries derailed his career, likely.

Embiid's not likable though.

Plus, centers are harder to market because the general fans can't relate. Shaq became a household name because he had the personality.

the difference is that Shaq was in LA and won in LA.
he has the same kind of narcissistic personality Embiid has


Shaq was quite charismatic and charming even if his personality meant he wasn't a very good teammate
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Re: How come none of the young stars have grabbed the torch from the older guys? 

Post#51 » by dhsilv2 » Fri Jan 24, 2025 3:43 pm

Special_Puppy wrote:Basically comes down to the fact that the guy who's won 3 out of last 4 MVPs being not marketable at all.


He's extremely marketable...he also doesn't want any part in it. But dude...everyone loves the guy.
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Re: How come none of the young stars have grabbed the torch from the older guys? 

Post#52 » by cupcakesnake » Fri Jan 24, 2025 3:46 pm

The best players in the league are all in their prime. Jokic and Giannis are 30, Shai and Tatum are 26. Then of course you have "young star" Wemby at 21, already an MVP candidate. They've taken "the torch" if we're talking about being the dominant players in the league. I mean... Jokic has humiliated Lebron in back-to-back playoffs. What more can you do than that?

I assume OP is talking about the media fixation on Lebron and Curry. Those guys are still relevant players but no longer MVP candidates and not currently playing on contenders. ESPN and similar outlets are always going to fixate forever on the bankable commodity. They talked about Kobe non-stop during his twilight. They still wont shut up about MJ. They'll be posting articles about Lebron's discarded q-tips and Curry's sock smell long after he retires.
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Re: How come none of the young stars have grabbed the torch from the older guys? 

Post#53 » by Chanel Bomber » Fri Jan 24, 2025 3:49 pm

The NBA has 3 of the NBA's best ever players in their prime in Jokic, SGA and Giannis.

The problem with it is they're not American, so they're of no use to the propaganda machine.
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Re: How come none of the young stars have grabbed the torch from the older guys? 

Post#54 » by NZB2323 » Fri Jan 24, 2025 4:25 pm

Optms wrote:
YogurtProducer wrote:SGA leads the league in PPG.

Jokic is a multi time MVP

Doncic/Brunson/Tatum all lead good teams

What else do you want? For Maxey to say Curry is a bitch


You don't need to call anyone names to be the face of the league. IE Stephen Curry.

Issue is all those guys you mentioned have bland AF personalities / Foreigners. And yes, being American matters when it comes to marketability within the US. Like I've said before, if the only reason you're in the country is because an NBA team drafted you, casuals won't care about you. Take Jokic for example, he can't leave the country fast enough when the season ends. People notice things like that.


I think the bigger issue is the best players in the league are centers. Basketball is a weird sport. Historically centers have been the best players, but guards/wings have been more popular.

Lebron and Curry are more popular than Jokic and Giannis.

Kobe and Iverson were more popular than Duncan and Shaq.

Jordan was more popular than Hakeem or David Robinson.

Magic/Bird were more popular than Moses Malone.

Dr. J was more popular than Kareem.

Jerry West, Oscar Robertson, and Bob Cousy were more popular than Russell and Wilt.

GSP, Anderson Silva, and Conor McGregor are 3 of the most popular UFC athletes of all time, and they’re all foreigners.
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Re: How come none of the young stars have grabbed the torch from the older guys? 

Post#55 » by Perishable517 » Fri Jan 24, 2025 4:30 pm

YogurtProducer wrote:SGA leads the league in PPG.

Jokic is a multi time MVP

Doncic/Brunson/Tatum all lead good teams

What else do you want? For Maxey to say Curry is a bitch?
And Giannis. Leader in ASG votes, by a considerable amount and has been a top 3 player for some years now. He took that crown from LeBron.

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Re: How come none of the young stars have grabbed the torch from the older guys? 

Post#56 » by bisme37 » Fri Jan 24, 2025 5:02 pm

NBA just posted the merch sales from 1st half of the season. Steph and Bron remain extremely popular but there are a bunch of popular younger players ready to take to lead.

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Re: How come none of the young stars have grabbed the torch from the older guys? 

Post#57 » by Big J » Fri Jan 24, 2025 5:03 pm

dhsilv2 wrote:
Special_Puppy wrote:Basically comes down to the fact that the guy who's won 3 out of last 4 MVPs being not marketable at all.


He's extremely marketable...he also doesn't want any part in it. But dude...everyone loves the guy.


He’s marketable to nerds and sports junkies, but not the average person. He’s too reserved, and not really controversial. His brothers have made bigger headlines than he has and they don’t even play.
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Re: How come none of the young stars have grabbed the torch from the older guys? 

Post#58 » by Doctor MJ » Fri Jan 24, 2025 5:06 pm

Big J wrote:Back when Kobe was a youngin he was going right at MJ and straight up trying to steal the torch from him. It seems like only young star who seems like he actually wants to be a star in today's league is Ant, and he's not really bringing it on the court this year. All of the others are too passive and deferential to the older guard. It's why the league has to keep marketing the older dudes and hasn't figured out which young guy to market. Wemby might be our only hope to do it at some point.


I mean, when Kobe was going at Jordan, Jordan was in his mid-30s and Kobe couldn't actually carry his jock.

The last few years have literally been dominated by guys in their 20s.

So young guys are literally doing better at actual competitive basketball than they were in the '90s, if there's an issue, it's just an American issue now that the game is globalized with global talent.

Were we in an era with basically only Americans, we'd be viewing the Tatums of the world very differently than we are now.
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Re: How come none of the young stars have grabbed the torch from the older guys? 

Post#59 » by dhsilv2 » Fri Jan 24, 2025 5:07 pm

Big J wrote:
dhsilv2 wrote:
Special_Puppy wrote:Basically comes down to the fact that the guy who's won 3 out of last 4 MVPs being not marketable at all.


He's extremely marketable...he also doesn't want any part in it. But dude...everyone loves the guy.


He’s marketable to nerds and sports junkies, but not the average person. He’s too reserved, and not really controversial. His brothers have made bigger headlines than he has and they don’t even play.


Causal people love watching him play. They love that he's humble. You're massively out of touch. ESPN is just terrible at their jobs. Look at Curry...ESPN didn't market him, but kids just loved him so much they had to just accept it.
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Re: How come none of the young stars have grabbed the torch from the older guys? 

Post#60 » by Doctor MJ » Fri Jan 24, 2025 5:07 pm

Big J wrote:
dhsilv2 wrote:
Special_Puppy wrote:Basically comes down to the fact that the guy who's won 3 out of last 4 MVPs being not marketable at all.


He's extremely marketable...he also doesn't want any part in it. But dude...everyone loves the guy.


He’s marketable to nerds and sports junkies, but not the average person. He’s too reserved, and not really controversial. His brothers have made bigger headlines than he has and they don’t even play.


I mean, I'm sure he's extremely popular in Serbia.
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