Would a Celtics vs Lakers Final bring the fans back?

[CeltsfanSinceBirth]

You shouldn't care about ratings unless you work for the NBA or a TV station.

[PhilBlackson]

No.

Casuals that build up ratings don't care about history, they care about names.

If KD (and Kyrie) were healthy enough to play in the Finals against LeBron, that would get ratings.

[Karate Diop]

No. The Celtics lack national appeal and are not even the most talked about NBA team in Boston.

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[K For Three]

No. The Celtics lack national appeal and are not even the most talked about NBA team in Boston.

Sent from my SM-G960U1 using RealGM mobile app

I guess to be fair if Tom Brady was an NBA team then yes he is the most talked about team in Boston lately.

[Lucky 24]

Nah pass. Cleveland and GS - two joke franchises for decades drew record ratings when they were top teams. It has everything to do with star power and storylines. Same reason why people clamoured to see OKC and GSW go at it in the conference finals with OKC being a tiny market with no history or fame.

Having so many stars in the west has definitely impacted the early timeslot games. No one is staying up to watch laker games that finish past midnight.

[louisorr]

Might add Dallas to this conversation. Luka could carry a national interest and get casuals tuning in. Especially against Milwaukee

[jlokine]

pretty sure rockets firing morey would bring the fans back... (after the corona issue in china is over)

[dc]

Might add Dallas to this conversation. Luka could carry a national interest and get casuals tuning in. Especially against Milwaukee

Luke being a white guy helps, but it's kind of cancelled out by not being American. Giannis isn't American and has a long, hard to pronounce/spell last name.

And both those teams are playing in towns that are basically run by the football team. The NBA is a distant 2nd in both those towns.

[ajones9219]

Except boston wouldn't lose in 4 or 5 lol

Nobody in Celtics land is saying the Celtics would win, we are underdogs in the east too. But Prok must have forgotten the Celtics blew out the Lakers on MLK day in Boston with their full lineup in tact. Ironically a few days later the Nets with Kyrie got beaten down pretty good by the Lakers in Brooklyn.

regular season = irrelevant

Unless of course the nets were actually any good in the regular season. Then it would be the most important. Also Kyrie = irrelevant

[ElodyTamTam]

Celtics vs Lakers? Again? Yawn.

[SichtingLives]

Any of Lakers/Clippers/Nuggs/Bucks/Raptors/Celtics should make for a perfectly fine "storyline". And **** ratings. When I catch a residual check for my decades of fandom I'll start shedding tears over rich mens money.

[Anticon]

The ratings suck nationally and are actually good in local markets where teams are trying to win.

Reason for that is simple... you show gstate, the pelicans without zion and some Kawhi load management on over half of your national broadcasts... what do you expect?

Use some common sense by flexing these games and then show me the ratings...

Almost half the teams in the league are irrelevant from a playoff standpoint...and then add injuries, load management, and markets without much national pull. Doesn't leave many marquee matchups to put together.

Combined with setting nationally televised games before the season starts...

The league really needs to figure out how to create and profile must see matchups during the regular season. They're about as bad at doing that as you can imagine.

[Lucky 24]

Also the networks did a big mistake of scheduling so many Golden state games. Once they lost Steph, no one wants to watch the warriors anymore. I dont know anyone who watched Lakers vs Warriors this past Saturday because we all know it would likely be a blowout and boring to watch.

The last few years the league did a better job of ensuring prime TV spots had big matchups especially when Lebron was in the east. Also when the Lakers play against the Clippers or other top west matchups, its simply too late for the populous east coast to watch.

Unfortunately the East teams don't have a true star that most NBA fans have a strong affinity with. Brooklyn was supposed to be that team but they are all injured. Even Giannis has a difficult name and he is foreign which brings him down a notch from an american marketing standpoint compared to homegrown names such as Lebron, Steph, Kawhi, Durant.

[Tor_Raps]

The ratings suck nationally and are actually good in local markets where teams are trying to win.

Reason for that is simple... you show gstate, the pelicans without zion and some Kawhi load management on over half of your national broadcasts... what do you expect?

Use some common sense by flexing these games and then show me the ratings...

Almost half the teams in the league are irrelevant from a playoff standpoint...and then add injuries, load management, and markets without much national pull. Doesn't leave many marquee matchups to put together.

Combined with setting nationally televised games before the season starts...

The league really needs to figure out how to create and profile must see matchups during the regular season. They're about as bad at doing that as you can imagine.

Don't agree with the "not many marquee matchups left" because ratings were just fine last year. The NBA is all about the player and much less about the team so when major injuries happen, just common sense that ratings will suffer.

Not being able to flex national TV games when you're paying billions of dollars seems very stupid lol. The NBA/Broadcast company's have had ample time to revise their schedule because of the Curry/Zion injuries. How can you not have a process set in place to do that? Load management is much harder to plan for but that should only be a handful of games that are affected.

[Air Apparent]

i dont think kids these days even value the celtics lakers rivalry the same way

[Prokorov]

Nobody in Celtics land is saying the Celtics would win, we are underdogs in the east too. But Prok must have forgotten the Celtics blew out the Lakers on MLK day in Boston with their full lineup in tact. Ironically a few days later the Nets with Kyrie got beaten down pretty good by the Lakers in Brooklyn.

regular season = irrelevant

Unless of course the nets were actually any good in the regular season. Then it would be the most important. Also Kyrie = irrelevant

regular season head to head has always been irrelevant. whether its the nets or anyone else. even moreso today where most teams are live or die by the three.

If kyrie was irrelevant he wouldnt have a million threads on the GB, been top 5 in fan voting for the ASG despite barely playing, drastically increased nets attendance, have an enormous twitter/IG following, and be talked above by players, reporters, fans, etc.

[ajones9219]

regular season = irrelevant

Unless of course the nets were actually any good in the regular season. Then it would be the most important. Also Kyrie = irrelevant

regular season head to head has always been irrelevant. whether its the nets or anyone else. even moreso today where most teams are live or die by the three.

If kyrie was irrelevant he wouldnt have a million threads on the GB, been top 5 in fan voting for the ASG despite barely playing, drastically increased nets attendance, have an enormous twitter/IG following, and be talked above by players, reporters, fans, etc.

you're right i should clarify. irrelevant on the court, specifically to his team''s success

[Prokorov]

Unless of course the nets were actually any good in the regular season. Then it would be the most important. Also Kyrie = irrelevant

regular season head to head has always been irrelevant. whether its the nets or anyone else. even moreso today where most teams are live or die by the three.

If kyrie was irrelevant he wouldnt have a million threads on the GB, been top 5 in fan voting for the ASG despite barely playing, drastically increased nets attendance, have an enormous twitter/IG following, and be talked above by players, reporters, fans, etc.

you're right i should clarify. irrelevant on the court, specifically to his team''s success

Of course he is relevant on the court. The idea teams are better without Kyrie is such repeated nonsense. in 6 of his 8 seasons coming into this year Kyrie's teams have had better records when he plays vs. when he doesn't. The 2 years the team was worse with him include the year he came back from surgery (they won the title that year and he was a big part of upsetting the warriors) and last year with Boston which is well noted.

We dont know how it will shake out this year. right now they are worse with him but its close (2 - 3 games better without him)

Early Cavs Days:

11-12: Cavs better record with Kyrie than without him
12-13: Cavs better record with Kyrie than without him
13-14: Cavs better record with Kyrie than without him

Lebron Era Cavs:
14-15: Cavs better record with Kyrie than without him
15-16: Cavs WORSE record with Kyrie than without him (Came back from knee injury)
16-17: Cavs better record with Kyrie than without him

Celtics Seasons:
17-18: celtics better record with Kyrie than without him
18-19: celtics WORSE record with Kyrie than without him

Nets Season:
19-20: To this point, WORSE record with Kyrie (.421 with .484 without him)

The idea that Kyrie is irrelevant on the court is simply idiotic. His teams have consistently been better with him on the floor and Lebrons only Cleveand title in 4 years came with Kyrie (25/5/3 on 48/44/88). He hit the biggest shot of that finals and in the 4 finals wins he was: +24, +20, +25, and +10.

So if you want to call Kyrie a weirdo, blame him for last year in boston, and in general hate on him fine. But lets drop this nonsense he is irrelvant or that his teams have been better without him. Dude is a difference maker and a ceiling raiser. I dont know what says that more than being a +35 in an NBA finals vs. a 73 win team, Dropping 90 points in the final 3 wins and hitting the biggest shot in cleveland history.

For reference, coming into this season The hornets were better with Kemba in 3 of the 5 seasons he missed time and so far this season the celitcs are better without him.

i guess Kemba is irrelevant on the court

[K For Three]

For the love of God do not instigate Prok into his Kyrie love affair rambling in a Celtics/Lakers scenario thread too. Spare us the pain. My fault for replying to him initially too.

Anyway back to ratings and Celtics/Lakers stuff.

Boooo Lakers Boooo. (but I do feel awful still over Kobe and his daughter)

[CeltsfanSinceBirth]

regular season head to head has always been irrelevant. whether its the nets or anyone else. even moreso today where most teams are live or die by the three.

If kyrie was irrelevant he wouldnt have a million threads on the GB, been top 5 in fan voting for the ASG despite barely playing, drastically increased nets attendance, have an enormous twitter/IG following, and be talked above by players, reporters, fans, etc.

you're right i should clarify. irrelevant on the court, specifically to his team''s success

Of course he is relevant on the court. The idea teams are better without Kyrie is such repeated nonsense. in 6 of his 8 seasons coming into this year Kyrie's teams have had better records when he plays vs. when he doesn't. The 2 years the team was worse with him include the year he came back from surgery (they won the title that year and he was a big part of upsetting the warriors) and last year with Boston which is well noted.

We dont know how it will shake out this year. right now they are worse with him but its close (2 - 3 games better without him)

Early Cavs Days:

11-12: Cavs better record with Kyrie than without him
12-13: Cavs better record with Kyrie than without him
13-14: Cavs better record with Kyrie than without him

Lebron Era Cavs:
14-15: Cavs better record with Kyrie than without him
15-16: Cavs WORSE record with Kyrie than without him (Came back from knee injury)
16-17: Cavs better record with Kyrie than without him

Celtics Seasons:
17-18: celtics better record with Kyrie than without him
18-19: celtics WORSE record with Kyrie than without him

Nets Season:
19-20: To this point, WORSE record with Kyrie (.421 with .484 without him)

The idea that Kyrie is irrelevant on the court is simply idiotic. His teams have consistently been better with him on the floor and Lebrons only Cleveand title in 4 years came with Kyrie (25/5/3 on 48/44/88). He hit the biggest shot of that finals and in the 4 finals wins he was: +24, +20, +25, and +10.

So if you want to call Kyrie a weirdo, blame him for last year in boston, and in general hate on him fine. But lets drop this nonsense he is irrelvant or that his teams have been better without him. Dude is a difference maker and a ceiling raiser. I dont know what says that more than being a +35 in an NBA finals vs. a 73 win team, Dropping 90 points in the final 3 wins and hitting the biggest shot in cleveland history.

For reference, coming into this season The hornets were better with Kemba in 3 of the 5 seasons he missed time and so far this season the celitcs are better without him.

i guess Kemba is irrelevant on the court

Boston Celtics - better with Kemba than they ever were with Kyrie.

Spoiler:

This is also relevant, btw.