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Quotes from the Houston Rockets forums- "avoid this jazz team at all cost, we just can't beat them"

It's not about old or young people. People in general are not watching the NBA as much as they used to. Ratings are lower than 20-25 years ago. If it's better than it's ever been, why are the ratings lower?

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Clearly once people saw the Jazz get robbed by "the push" they started losing interest.

Once justice is restored when the Jazz win a championship ratings will exceed your wildest dreams.

But really, I kind of think it corresponds with more games being broadcast on cable so fewer people can follow the drama leading up to the finals.
 
I would say **** no it's not better than it's ever been. And it's because of the officiating and the way the players exploit it that it's not. A lot of NBA games are terrible. Watching guys like Boogie and Harden play is painful, for different reasons. What Harden does to draw fouls is not a skill, it's an exploit. An exploit that he is so used to fooling the ref into calling he openly complained through an entire timeout about it. Which was smart because they never failed to call it (even when it was not a foul) for the rest of the night.

So because you dislike watching 2 players the NBA is clearly worse than ever?
 
the NBA is so much better than it has ever been. Half of the players in the 90's wouldn't even be able to make NBA rosters now. The talent level is higher across the board and the game is more fun to watch.
 
I would say **** no it's not better than it's ever been. And it's because of the officiating and the way the players exploit it that it's not. A lot of NBA games are terrible. Watching guys like Boogie and Harden play is painful, for different reasons. What Harden does to draw fouls is not a skill, it's an exploit. An exploit that he is so used to fooling the ref into calling he openly complained through an entire timeout about it. Which was smart because they never failed to call it (even when it was not a foul) for the rest of the night.

OK but whose fault is it though? If the defenders are gonna keep fouling him then the referees are gonna keep calling it. They can't call it a foul if the defenders don't touch him.


If you're a defender, and you think Harden is exploiting the system, and there's no way he's gonna be able to make that layup or hit that shot - then the smart thing to do would be not to foul him.


The problem is once you don't foul him, Harden more often than not makes the shot.
 
I honestly don't know why you're even limiting your analysis to Canada and the US though?

Because I made a claim that I think the NBA as a product has gotten worse. Cy said it wasn't so. I said that I think it is, hence the drop in its popularity. Then all of you argued with me for 5 pages than it's not true and the NBA is awesome, and all the kids love it, and everyone is secretly watching it through illegal Russian streams and I'm an old idiot(I'm 33, btw). Then you finally kinda admitted that maybe people aren't as crazy about the NBA as they were 20 years ago, and then immediately moved the proverbial goalposts by saying that it doesn't matter and I'm still wrong on the more global scale, even though I readily admitted NBA's global popularity pages ago and said I was focusing on US and Canada for a reason.

Reason being that it is, after all, a North American league. The other reason being that as we saw, there has been a significant statistical drop in interesting in the NBA. Relatively so, of course, as the population of this continent has grown and the NBA has added another team since the late 90s. Total numbers reflect that.

So my original point was the the NBA is less popular and that I thought that it might have to do with the league's blatant attempts to create the new Jordan(based on the assumption that the meteoric rise in the popularity of the NBA in the 1990s was solely because of Jordan). No one professed to have a different answer to this question of why the popularity has dropped. It's not because internet pushed people away from sports, as NFL demonstrates. Soccer and hockey has also shown steady, if unspectacular growth. Isn't this an issue that the NBA should address?
 
OK but whose fault is it though? If the defenders are gonna keep fouling him then the referees are gonna keep calling it. They can't call it a foul if the defenders don't touch him.


If you're a defender, and you think Harden is exploiting the system, and there's no way he's gonna be able to make that layup or hit that shot - then the smart thing to do would be not to foul him.


The problem is once you don't foul him, Harden more often than not makes the shot.

Yeah, it sucks, but don't reach. There were a couple of times were Hood would reach for no reason and it was clear Harden was just baiting him into it. I dont like watching it, but it's surprising to me it irritates people that much that they dont like basketball because of it. I still like watching James Harden most of the time because of how skilled he is in PNR and his great vision.
 
Because I made a claim that I think the NBA as a product has gotten worse. Cy said it wasn't so. I said that I think it is, hence the drop in its popularity. Then all of you argued with me for 5 pages than it's not true and the NBA is awesome, and all the kids love it, and everyone is secretly watching it through illegal Russian streams and I'm an old idiot(I'm 33, btw). Then you finally kinda admitted that maybe people aren't as crazy about the NBA as they were 20 years ago, and then immediately moved the proverbial goalposts by saying that it doesn't matter and I'm still wrong on the more global scale, even though I readily admitted NBA's global popularity pages ago and said I was focusing on US and Canada for a reason.

Reason being that it is, after all, a North American league. The other reason being that as we saw, there has been a significant statistical drop in interesting in the NBA. Relatively so, of course, as the population of this continent has grown and the NBA has added another team since the late 90s. Total numbers reflect that.

So my original point was the the NBA is less popular and that I thought that it might have to do with the league's blatant attempts to create the new Jordan(based on the assumption that the meteoric rise in the popularity of the NBA in the 1990s was solely because of Jordan). No one professed to have a different answer to this question of why the popularity has dropped. It's not because internet pushed people away from sports, as NFL demonstrates. Soccer and hockey has also shown steady, if unspectacular growth. Isn't this an issue that the NBA should address?

Yeah and you only want to talk about America since everyone else is just a 3rd world country in your eyes. NBA is getting more popular.
 
OK but whose fault is it though? If the defenders are gonna keep fouling him then the referees are gonna keep calling it. They can't call it a foul if the defenders don't touch him.


If you're a defender, and you think Harden is exploiting the system, and there's no way he's gonna be able to make that layup or hit that shot - then the smart thing to do would be not to foul him.


The problem is once you don't foul him, Harden more often than not makes the shot.
So your solution is to just not guard him? Because if your within 3 feet of him he's going to jump into you and get the call.

I'd say the solution is to run him the **** over. You want to stop just to draw that foul? Well let him know that if he does your going to plow through him and it's going to hurt.

And FWIW he didn't even try to make a single one of those shots last night. And on a lot of those fouls last night he simply wasn't fouled and the ref called it anyway. Just because there is contact does not mean it is a foul, basketball is a contact sport, he shouldn't get those calls just from a little bump. Like I said before, if the ref is going to call it why bother trying not to foul him? Just run through him, great you fouled him that was going to happen anyway the way the ref was calling it.
 
So your solution is to just not guard him? Because if your within 3 feet of him he's going to jump into you and get the call.

I'd say the solution is to run him the **** over. You want to stop just to draw that foul? Well let him know that if he does your going to plow through him and it's going to hurt.

And FWIW he didn't even try to make a single one of those shots last night. And on a lot of those fouls last night he simply wasn't fouled and the ref called it anyway. Just because there is contact does not mean it is a foul, basketball is a contact sport, he shouldn't get those calls just from a little bump. Like I said before, if the ref is going to call it why bother trying not to foul him? Just run through him, great you fouled him that was going to happen anyway the way the ref was calling it.

No the solution is dont reach in. You have to guard him with your body, not your hands, which Hood was having a tough time focusing on. It's just a habit for players to reach in and you can't do that against Harden.
 
What does that have to do with anything? I'm in the NBA's target audience range.

Everything to do with it, especially since your thinking is "just foul him super hard then he will never want to draw a foul again", like that works, which it never does.
 
No the solution is dont reach in. You have to guard him with your body, not your hands, which Hood was having a tough time focusing on. It's just a habit for players to reach in and you can't do that against Harden.
Not all of those calls were from reaching in. Ingles followed him around a screen and Harden stopped jumped into him and got the call, that was not the only time that happened.
 
Everything to do with it, especially since your thinking is "just foul him super hard then he will never want to draw a foul again", like that works, which it never does.
What's the worst that happens? They were called for the fouls anyway, actually foul him then. Have you ever played against a physical player? It wears you down, if he's going to get the call anyway getting hit hard for it repeatedly does wear you down, at the very least.

What age are you? I'm guessing 18.
 
What's the worst that happens? They were called for the fouls anyway, actually foul him then. Have you ever played against a physical player? It wears you down, if he's going to get the call anyway getting hit hard for it repeatedly does wear you down, at the very least.

What age are you? I'm guessing 18.

No, it just makes it even easier to score. If someone is just going to be overly aggressive and try to foul you harder, that just means you are going to get even more fouls called because the refs are going to notice and crackdown even harder. It's a common misconception among people that you should foul harder to dissuade a player from driving/shooting. Maybe that works on bad players, but it doesnt work on great ones like Harden and you are foolish if you think so. This isn't the 80's.

Being a physical player doesnt equal committing unnecessary hard fouls. I guess if we were in the 80/90 that could exist with Oakley types, and they were so great for basketball, nothing better than watching fights and fouls that can end player's careers!
 
Man I miss the days when players took contested 18 footers as the main shot and fought each other! That was great basketball!
 
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