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Does the NBA have a problem?

str8line

str8line

Well-Known Member
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2019 Award Winner

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“Cause they making too much money now” - Shaquille O’Neal on why modern-day stars...​


"The reason why I showed the guys before me respect is because the way they played, the reason why I’m making so much money. I always wanted to play hard, always wanted to represent the game the way they did. I wanted them to be proud of me," Shaq added. "These youngsters don’t do that."
 
Some might call this sour grapes by Shaq, but I think he has a point. I was thinking yesterday about Indiana dropping over 150 points. It seems like a lot of teams have been putting up All-Star game like numbers. Then I saw this article about Shaq and it hit home. Do modern NBA players leave it all on the floor like the players of the past or are they too fat and happy?
 
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str8line said:
Some might call this sour grapes by Shaq, but I think he has a point. I was thinking yesterday about Indiana dropping over 150 points. It seems like a lot of teams have been putting up All-Star game like numbers. Then I saw this article about Shaq and it hit home. Do modern NBA players leave it all on the floor like the players of the past or are they too fat and happy?
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This is just some back in my day BS. Shaq was lucky he didn't play in the internet era as he'd get roasted for playing his way into shape and getting surgery after the offseason because "he got hurt on company time so he will get surgery on company time".
 
I don't understand why people keep insisting that NBA teams and players treat every regular season game like it's a playoff game 7. There's no incentive and no benefit and most importantly, no logic to it. It's the nature of the beast.

There are 1,230 games in the NBA regular season, and right now, their sole purpose is to eliminate 10 out of 30 teams. Ten out of thirty! And you have to factor in that in any given year, at least half of those ten teams have purposely eliminated themselves by New Year's. Their season goal is to get as good a draft pick as possible.

It's not the players' fault the NBA sets up its season in such a way that 7 months are largely meaningless and then one month counts for everything.
 
"The qualities that propelled him to greatness", why have today's players not reached out for that keen advice? I think it in this case it has more to do with the fact that those qualities have everything to do with being a 7'1" 325 pound behemoth that could tear down backboards like they were nothing. Not a lot of players fitting that description nowadays and those that may be might be a little intimidated. And free throw shooting? Never mind.

Another thing is that the game has changed so much. Pretty sure that Shaq would get a lot more charging violations in today's game, so I'm not quite sure how his game might translate.

Nobody makes much more than Giannis, Steph and Lebron and those guys manage to stay hungry and motivated every single year. A bigger issue is that Superstars have gotten bigger than their organizations and have forced trades, load management and other concessions. I feel pretty confident that Adam Silver is taking steps to curb player abuses though.
 
JimLes said:
I don't understand why people keep insisting that NBA teams and players treat every regular season game like it's a playoff game 7. There's no incentive and no benefit and most importantly, no logic to it. It's the nature of the beast.

There are 1,230 games in the NBA regular season, and right now, their sole purpose is to eliminate 10 out of 30 teams. Ten out of thirty! And you have to factor in that in any given year, at least half of those ten teams have purposely eliminated themselves by New Year's. Their season goal is to get as good a draft pick as possible.

It's not the players' fault the NBA sets up its season in such a way that 7 months are largely meaningless and then one month counts for everything.
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Isn't playoff seeding an incentive? Pride? Habits?
 
Some recent scores:

155-104
141-139
152-111
143-120
138-133
133-124
134-116
 
Handlogten's Heros said:
This is just some back in my day BS. Shaq was lucky he didn't play in the internet era as he'd get roasted for playing his way into shape and getting surgery after the offseason because "he got hurt on company time so he will get surgery on company time".
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Yeah, Shaq is probably one of the worst people to call out players. What if Michael Jordan said the same thing? How would Kobe feel about today's NBA?
 
Shaq is like if there was a Chess world champion out there who had a special ability where he could play with three Queens whereas everybody else only had one.

Like, still very impressive what he was able to do, but it's hard to listen to him try to criticize players when he very clearly does not understand what it's like playing basketball without the ridiculous physical advantages he had.
 
JimLes said:
I don't understand why people keep insisting that NBA teams and players treat every regular season game like it's a playoff game 7. There's no incentive and no benefit and most importantly, no logic to it. It's the nature of the beast.

There are 1,230 games in the NBA regular season, and right now, their sole purpose is to eliminate 10 out of 30 teams. Ten out of thirty! And you have to factor in that in any given year, at least half of those ten teams have purposely eliminated themselves by New Year's. Their season goal is to get as good a draft pick as possible.

It's not the players' fault the NBA sets up its season in such a way that 7 months are largely meaningless and then one month counts for everything.
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Sure, but 40 years ago 943 games were played which the sole purpose was to eliminate just SEVEN teams out of 23, so I don't think that works as an argument comparatively.
 
Darkwing Duck said:
Sure, but 40 years ago 943 games were played which the sole purpose was to eliminate just SEVEN teams out of 23, so I don't think that works as an argument comparatively.
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It's like how cartoon characters can walk on air until they becomes aware of it. At some point(I would argue hard for Feb 27 2016 being a watershed date), NBA players and coaches realized that they don't hand out trophies for having the most regular season wins. It's been that way all along, but you have to realize it before you can no longer walk on air. Same thing with the 3-point line. It's existed for 45 years and 3 points has always been worth more than 2 points, but it took decades for someone to actually acknowledge that.
 
Maybe the game would become more interesting if they made a basket worth 3 points and shots from behind the 4pt line worth 4 points. Think of all the cool hand waving players could do with four fingers.
 
I think part of the reason for some of the big scores is that clean defending has been made really hard these days.

Like for instance I personally feel like situations that used to be 50/50 for charge vs blocking fouls are like 80% blocking fouls these days. Refs rarely make charge calls unless its completely blatant bulldozing. Small touch fouls are called much more frequently to rectify missed shots and give and-1s.

Also I remember the "Reggie Miller rule" that if you extend your leg during a jumpshot and hit a defender you can get called for an offensive foul. That was the point of emphasis at one point in time. Well now we are back to calling either defensive fouls or no fouls at all when players do that (and its getting more common again thanks to KD et al).

It all results in defenders playing much more passive, off-the-skin and stagnant, which gives more space and time to the plethora of talented offensive players in NBA.
 
HermanG said:
I think part of the reason for some of the big scores is that clean defending has been made really hard these days.

Like for instance I personally feel like situations that used to be 50/50 for charge vs blocking fouls are like 80% blocking fouls these days. Refs rarely make charge calls unless its completely blatant bulldozing. Small touch fouls are called much more frequently to rectify missed shots and give and-1s.

Also I remember the "Reggie Miller rule" that if you extend your leg during a jumpshot and hit a defender you can get called for an offensive foul. That was the point of emphasis at one point in time. Well now we are back to calling either defensive fouls or no fouls at all when players do that (and its getting more common again thanks to KD et al).

It all results in defenders playing much more passive, off-the-skin and stagnant, which gives more space and time to the plethora of talented offensive players in NBA.
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This. For me at least, it makes the game less interesting. For the same reason the all star game has become a huge joke. There isn't any pride in it, no challenging themselves to compete and battle on both ends of the court to win. It's just run down the court and shoot the ball. Whoever makes the most wins. Here, we'll even force the other team to just get out of the way with stupid rules. Excellent defense takes as much or more skill and training than scoring but it's been so badly neutered that we get a Marcus Smart winning dpoy. Granted he was a decent defender in today's NBA, but he was no Gary Payton. I'm not impressed by the high scoring games and all the 40+ and 50+ individual performances when you know it's because defense has just become a novelty, not a core part of the game any more. Kind of sad really. But it is reflective of the times, when we all have a constant-stimulation machine in the palms of our hands, if we aren't seeing something exciting every 3.8 seconds we lose interest and move on. We need constant scoring or we wouldn't know what to cheer for and wouldn't get that all-important dopamine hit. The NBA is rapidly becoming the tiktok of sports leagues.
 
LogGrad98 said:
This. For me at least, it makes the game less interesting. For the same reason the all star game has become a huge joke. There isn't any pride in it, no challenging themselves to compete and battle on both ends of the court to win. It's just run down the court and shoot the ball. Whoever makes the most wins. Here, we'll even force the other team to just get out of the way with stupid rules. Excellent defense takes as much or more skill and training than scoring but it's been so badly neutered that we get a Marcus Smart winning dpoy. Granted he was a decent defender in today's NBA, but he was no Gary Payton. I'm not impressed by the high scoring games and all the 40+ and 50+ individual performances when you know it's because defense has just become a novelty, not a core part of the game any more. Kind of sad really. But it is reflective of the times, when we all have a constant-stimulation machine in the palms of our hands, if we aren't seeing something exciting every 3.8 seconds we lose interest and move on. We need constant scoring or we wouldn't know what to cheer for and wouldn't get that all-important dopamine hit. The NBA is rapidly becoming the tiktok of sports leagues.
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Great post dude.
 
it's almost as if guys can't wait to retire so they can bad mouth the current league and talk about how soft players are. dudes from the 50s said that about dudes in the 70s. dudes from the 80s said it about dudes from the 00s. now we have dumbasses from the 00s saying it about the 20s. tale as old as time and they are all dumbasses. the league is better than it has even been.
 
LogGrad98 said:
This. For me at least, it makes the game less interesting. For the same reason the all star game has become a huge joke. There isn't any pride in it, no challenging themselves to compete and battle on both ends of the court to win. It's just run down the court and shoot the ball. Whoever makes the most wins. Here, we'll even force the other team to just get out of the way with stupid rules. Excellent defense takes as much or more skill and training than scoring but it's been so badly neutered that we get a Marcus Smart winning dpoy. Granted he was a decent defender in today's NBA, but he was no Gary Payton. I'm not impressed by the high scoring games and all the 40+ and 50+ individual performances when you know it's because defense has just become a novelty, not a core part of the game any more. Kind of sad really. But it is reflective of the times, when we all have a constant-stimulation machine in the palms of our hands, if we aren't seeing something exciting every 3.8 seconds we lose interest and move on. We need constant scoring or we wouldn't know what to cheer for and wouldn't get that all-important dopamine hit. The NBA is rapidly becoming the tiktok of sports leagues.
Click to expand...
this entire post is ********. defense in the nba is better and more advanced than it has even been. there is more emphasis, more scouting, more preparation on that side of the ball than there has ever been. the games are high scoring because the offense is so ridiculously advanced - everybody can handle, everybody can pass and everybody can shoot. you may not like the high scoring basketball where offense dominates and that's fair - we all have our unique tastes - but it isn't a result of poor defense or that defense is a "novelty" or not "a core part of the game". that sounds nice, you will get several thumbs up, it's narrative that people who don't understand the game like to trumpet, but it's patently false.
 
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