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The Non-Jazz NBA Thread in the Jazz Section

infection said:
To make a rule, they’ll have to define “star” and I’m really interested to see how that’s done.
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I think they did… it’s like all star or all nba in the last couple years… the rule is dumb… they can simply just say a star has lower back soreness or some ****.
 
Rule won't be effective as they will simply make up injuries as stated above....but at least the NBA is trying. Ultimately, this won't be "fixed" until players have more incentive to play basketball than to sit. This isn't just on the players by the way, the teams want them to sit too. The NBA regular season is just too meaningless for these players and teams to give full effort.

I just don't think the players/team have it in them anymore to play for the sake of playing. Everyone is on that LeBron scale where it's championship or bust, and when it's championship or bust the regular season hardly means anything.
 
I'm not so sure this is what they should fix, even. Teams should be allowed to rest their players, the problem is a waaaay too long regular season.
 
When Stockton was aging, Sloan just played him fewer minutes every game. Coaches could be load-balancing that way.
 
One Brow said:
When Stockton was aging, Sloan just played him fewer minutes every game. Coaches could be load-balancing that way.
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Unless they built it into the rule, they could simply play them for 2 minutes to start the game then sit them the rest. The only way that would be vetoed by the players is if they were worried about their per game averages. But it would be a simple way to bypass this.
 
I'm not sure this is a player thing. I think its a team thing. I think most of the players want to play. Orgs are the ones that load manage and sit players down once tank season comes.

Rather than fines - these mfers don't care about parking tickets - just reward winning more. Let the higher seed select their playoff opponent rather than random seeding would be a super easy and effective start. Finds ways to reward players for playing... maybe weight all-nba and other awards by taking the votes and using a games played element on top of it. Give the orgs more reason to want to win and give the players a reason to want to play in as many games as possible.

Or work on your fine system...
 
Handlogten's Heros said:
I'm not sure this is a player thing. I think its a team thing. I think most of the players want to play. Orgs are the ones that load manage and sit players down once tank season comes.

Rather than fines - these mfers don't care about parking tickets - just reward winning more. Let the higher seed select their playoff opponent rather than random seeding would be a super easy and effective start. Finds ways to reward players for playing... maybe weight all-nba and other awards by taking the votes and using a games played element on top of it. Give the orgs more reason to want to win and give the players a reason to want to play in as many games as possible.

Or work on your fine system...
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If the highest seed got to pick their opponent, and the brackets weren’t pre-determined, meaning that once the first round is done, the remaining matchups are again decided by ranking, this would add a lot more interest and competition into the regular season and also add a lot of drama that could build storylines and dominate media for weeks when teams are having to tip their hands about what they think about others. It would then add a lot of drama and chips on shoulders to each series of the first round and at least one series per conference in the second round. This would be a huge money maker.
 
hgb said:
I'm not so sure this is what they should fix, even. Teams should be allowed to rest their players, the problem is a waaaay too long regular season.
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For some reason the NBA is so dead set on this. They’ve got to shorten it. The games just aren’t consequential enough for them to care. I know people love tradition, but I’m all for changing things up. Love the idea of making seeding matter more by giving higher seeds more of advantage.

I think the NBA is terribly anticlimactic because we have this long as 82 game season, which in effect is a preseason, and all the narratives are all championship or bust related. You can’t even enjoy teams or players unless it’s in the context of the championship. There’s only one winner every year, but even then the champion may not even be the biggest story. The biggest stories are the “losers”.

It’s definitely not an easy problem to solve, but the NBA needs to find a way to get basketball as the main selling point. The night to night competition just isn’t there. Almost every game is more or less filler and inconsequential. Having the star players suit up is one thing, but the NBA will continue to have problems until it actually matters for teams to win these games. If you make the games matter more, the stars will play more. A star playing in a mostly meaningless game is….better but still mostly meaningless.

When you watch the NFL or European Football….every game feels like life or death. It’s amazing theater.
 
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infection said:
If the highest seed got to pick their opponent, and the brackets weren’t pre-determined, meaning that once the first round is done, the remaining matchups are again decided by ranking, this would add a lot more interest and competition into the regular season and also add a lot of drama that could build storylines and dominate media for weeks when teams are having to tip their hands about what they think about others. It would then add a lot of drama and chips on shoulders to each series of the first round and at least one series per conference in the second round. This would be a huge money maker.
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It’s so obviously one easy way to make things just a little better. Just do the obvious stuff instead of elaborate fine systems… feels like the lawyers are controlling the competition committee.
 
KqWIN said:
For some reason the NBA is so dead set on this. They’ve got to shorten it. The games just aren’t consequential enough for them to care. I know people love tradition, but I’m all for changing things up. Love the idea of making seeding matter more by giving higher seeds more of advantage.

I think the NBA is terribly anticlimactic because we have this long as 82 game season, which in effect is a preseason, and all the narratives are all championship or bust related. You can’t even enjoy teams or players unless it’s in the context of the championship. There’s only one winner every year, but even then the champion may not even be the biggest story. The biggest stories are the “losers”.

It’s definitely not an easy problem to solve, but the NBA needs to find a way to get basketball as the main selling point. The night to night competition just isn’t there. Almost every game is more or less filler and inconsequential. Having the star players suit up is one thing, but the NBA will continue to have problems until it actually matters for teams to win these games. If you make the games matter more, the stars will play more. A star playing in a mostly meaningless game is….better but still mostly meaningless.

When you watch the NFL or European Football….every game feels like life or death. It’s amazing theater.
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Some sports are just going to be different. Unless the teams and players are willing to take a decent revenue cut in the short term then shortening the season is out. Some sports are low volume high stakes regular seasons and others are high volume low stakes. Imagine football trying to go to 32 games to get more revenue… wouldn’t work. Just need to accept that they are different and deal with it inside the sports constraints. Cutting the schedule down to 60 games will still make for some meaningless basketball games.

I think the league is kinda focused on the wrong things at times. The in season tournament should help with competition. Resting players is fine as long as it’s not in national tv stages.

I think they should make the easy changes… seed playoffs 1-16 regardless of conference and let the teams with better records pick their opponent. Creates a lot more potential competition and post season benefit. Easy past.

Second… tackle the officiating issue. The foul baiting flopping and complaining just takes away so much and gives the league an wwe feel and not in a good way. Can’t get rid of it all but eliminate the Harden/Young/CP ********. If you are trying to trick the refs you get a rep. It’s just weird in the postseason that those fouls go away… why not make them go away in the regular season.
 
Also maybe work with your broadcasters to not have every analyst just bad moth the game and the officiating all night. I liked Jeff Van Gundy but his whining was bad for the game. Chuck and the TNT guys are great but maybe like 50% less “back in my day we weren’t so effing soft” stuff.
 
infection said:
If the highest seed got to pick their opponent, and the brackets weren’t pre-determined, meaning that once the first round is done, the remaining matchups are again decided by ranking, this would add a lot more interest and competition into the regular season and also add a lot of drama that could build storylines and dominate media for weeks when teams are having to tip their hands about what they think about others. It would then add a lot of drama and chips on shoulders to each series of the first round and at least one series per conference in the second round. This would be a huge money maker.
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Yep. It would be awesome.
 
SoberasHotRod said:
In my opinion changing the criteria for minimum numbers of games played for NBA awards was enough.
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Yeah this extra fine stuff seems to be pure fluff... pandering to their broadcast partners more than anything. The designations are so dumb imo... the biggest draw this year will be Wemby... he doesn't fit the star criteria and we all know how Pop roles.

If you want Steph or Lebron to play in a nationally televised game make sure it isn't on a back to back. If a team sits stars have the ability to flex that market out of national broadcasts and pivot. Other teams will gladly take the exposure... exposure = dollars. Give TNT the ability to pick between two games instead of only scheduling one game that night and forcing us to watch the Zionless Pelicans.

This stuff just smells so much like lawyer dumbassery and we have way too much of that already.
 
Handlogten's Heros said:
Yeah this extra fine stuff seems to be pure fluff... pandering to their broadcast partners more than anything. The designations are so dumb imo... the biggest draw this year will be Wemby... he doesn't fit the star criteria and we all know how Pop roles.

If you want Steph or Lebron to play in a nationally televised game make sure it isn't on a back to back. If a team sits stars have the ability to flex that market out of national broadcasts and pivot. Other teams will gladly take the exposure... exposure = dollars. Give TNT the ability to pick between two games instead of only scheduling one game that night and forcing us to watch the Zionless Pelicans.

This stuff just smells so much like lawyer dumbassery and we have way too much of that already.
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Completely agree with everything here.
 
Handlogten's Heros said:
Some sports are just going to be different. Unless the teams and players are willing to take a decent revenue cut in the short term then shortening the season is out. Some sports are low volume high stakes regular seasons and others are high volume low stakes. Imagine football trying to go to 32 games to get more revenue… wouldn’t work. Just need to accept that they are different and deal with it inside the sports constraints. Cutting the schedule down to 60 games will still make for some meaningless basketball games.

I think the league is kinda focused on the wrong things at times. The in season tournament should help with competition. Resting players is fine as long as it’s not in national tv stages.

I think they should make the easy changes… seed playoffs 1-16 regardless of conference and let the teams with better records pick their opponent. Creates a lot more potential competition and post season benefit. Easy past.

Second… tackle the officiating issue. The foul baiting flopping and complaining just takes away so much and gives the league an wwe feel and not in a good way. Can’t get rid of it all but eliminate the Harden/Young/CP ********. If you are trying to trick the refs you get a rep. It’s just weird in the postseason that those fouls go away… why not make them go away in the regular season.
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IMO, there's no reason to believe that sweet spot for the NBA maximizing revenue is 82 games. I just can't imagine that the best way for the NBA to maximize revenue to is trot out a boring season. You can "force" the players to play during the national televised games, but I think the fundamental problem is that there is not enough incentive for them to play in the first place. When two great teams/players matchup, it doesn't fell like an event because we all know the real season is the playoffs. While the NBA is and will always be about stars, it needs a better narrative throughout the season. Will less games do that? IDK, but I know for damn sure more games wouldn't do that. I think less games would at least be a step in the right direction.

Some of this isn't just scheduling either, I do think the way the league is covered by the media makes a big difference. It is their job to create narratives and make things interesting. I think the first step would be to stop having commentators who have extreme contempt for the game and/or want to use the broadcast as their personal podcast. The only time they are invested in the game is when they are complaining about something. They are miserable and insufferable. Watching the games is trash, and then the biggest story on sportcenter is about if Kyrie thinks the world is flat or whatever other clickbaity material they can scrounge up. Anything and everything except for the sport of basketball. I think Gus Johnson can be a little extra, but damn he makes it seem like every game he works is a spectacle. It's such a contrast from listening to people complain the whole time and downplay anything that happens.

I'm hoping that once LeBron retires we can get rid of this extreme, "championship or bust" narrative. Of course that will always be the main story, but right now it is the only story and it's set up for failure because most teams will lose and the focus becomes on the teams that lose. LeBron is chasing Jordan, I get that. But do we really need to perpetually **** on guys like Dame, Derozan etc. because they aren't much in the context of the title? There were a few times I checked reddit this summer and I saw posts along the lines of "we should have slandered TMac more" or "we should have slandered VC more". Like what? So what if they didn't win a title and were never close to it. Those were two of my favorite players ever growing up but if they were playing in today's media circus they probably would be relentlessly **** on. Not everyone needs to stack themselves up against Jordan.
 
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