The problem with this is the most exciting series in the NBA are often the ones where a 7 or 8 seed brings it to the overwhelming favorite. I Think this has happened enough times to keep 16 teams in the playoffs. There have been enough scares in those matchups and the upsets are always incredibly memorable.
There are a few things that would contribute to that: 1. The NFL and football is way more popular than the NBA. 2. 16 games a season. Every regular season game is over 5 times more important in the NFL than in the NBA. 3. The NFL or football, by nature, is more team-oriented while the NBA is more about the individual. 4. Football TV experience is better somehow? This is subjective obviously.
Count me on the list for wanting shorter playoff series. I think it's ridiculous that NBA Champions can get blown out en route in the playoffs. Teams like the Kobe-Pau Laker champions wouldn't even bother to bring it every game. Look at college football, EVERY game counts. You can't f around and still get rewarded.
I want them to cross the playoff brackets thus, to knock out the weak teams early: 1West 8 East 2West 7East 3West 6East 4West 5East and so on. Lately, probably a lot of east teams would be knocked out in the first round and you'd have all the strongest teams in the second round.
I don't understand how any team that's won a NBA championship did not earn it... In college football I don't understand how a team could lose only one game or no games at all and never get a shot at winning a championship.
College football is flawed. One fluke game can decide a championship? 7 game series basically means the better team wins.
I dunno how you can argue that. I think fantasy is a huge part in getting people interested into football and then the interest stays because you're used to rooting for all of these players. The NFL really is 3.5 hours for about 40 minutes of action which even makes the NBA look good.
Well, this thread certainly went away from what intended. I wished to know if you'd like the NBA to be less predictable. This isn't about the concept of superstars dominating the league. You know how the NCAA tournament is full of upsets and #1 seeds losing in Ro16 and such. This despite college basketball to be worse than pros in terms of talent disparity. The reason is simply due to Best-of-1s. And the game is 40 minutes long with 35 second clocks. In any game a team can get hot, 3s can fall, and you have an upset. It's not inherent in basketball that the better team should always win. But it's built into the NBA rules that encourage favorites. I don't know a lot about soccer, but from what my friend told me, the disparity in competition basically comes disparity in how much money they're spending. To me that doesn't mean soccer is unpredictable. Just as college football doesn't imply American football to be unpredictable. But rather the big schools always recruit the best players. And I believe in soccer competitions that are playoff-based, upsets do happen quite often. Maybe you can clear this up for me. Because I do find the European football leagues to be quite fascinating. Watched a few games with two friends, one Sunderland fan the other Dortmund fan. Really enjoyed them. Unfortunately I would never watch alone because I need rooting interest for it to be fun.
No no no. You're thinking about the more powerful West. 1-8 in the East does not match 1-8 in the West. Heck, oftentimes 9-10 in the West is better than 6-8 in the East.
There have been some exciting 7-8 seeds in the East too. Usually the young superstars represent these teams. Not sure you'd want to take those teams out of the playoffs.
I don't know about other sports lovers out there, but personally I like how the NBA is "predictable", having best of 7s every round means the last team standing is the actual legit champion. NCAA and NFL champs oth, it may be more exciting due to the unpredictability but those champs seem to depend a lot more on luck than actual skill. If you played March Madness or the NFL playoffs again you will probably have a different champion, not so with the NBA.
For me, it's definitely no. I end up watching hundreds of NBA and NCAA basketball games a year as part of my job, and as such follow both leagues, but I greatly prefer the NBA. There are usually enough unexpected occurrences during the course of a given NBA season that the ultimate outcome of the championship is really just a small part of the entertainment value I get out of the NBA. Even more unpredictability, especially in terms of individual game outcomes doesn't really up the dramatic tension for me. In fact, I enjoy the way the NBA is set up so much that I more or less stopped following the Astros and the Texans a long time ago, once I started having less free time.
Here in India, The English Premiere League and Champions League quite popular. But everyone supports one of the top teams. My roommate, a Liverpool fan lost interest when they started to lose and jumped ship to Barca. People just support the big teams because if you support a minnow it's just gonna be multiple years of depression. In the NBA it's just not the case. Unless you like the bobcats, there's always hope to turn it around in 2-3 years. You can watch games for player development even if your team sucks. I mean look at the Rockets the last few years!! Yeah, Miami is the top contender. But the were the favourites the year the Mavs won - and NO ONE pipped the Mavs to win. Then there's also Game 6 of the last NBA finals. Oh... And the NBA has a friggin' CAP SYSTEM!! As opposed to the sport where Russian Oligarchs and Arab Sheikhs buy top players like G I JOEs!!! Gimme the NBA any day.
I will say this though, Football is fixed at ninety minutes... easier to plan your life around watching a game. Fourth quarters in the NBA can go on FOREVER! Hypothetically Football is more unpredictable. Unless you're down 5-0 you can till turn the thing around with 15 mins left. That awesome Champions league final between Liverpool and AC Milan. NBA games... Sometimes a blowout makes the third and fourth quarter redundant and conversely, for A LOT of games... it really comes down to the first quarter and you feel you could skip the first three quarters. But in those cases the result certainly isn't predictable...
Yeah Football (Soccer) seems a lot more predictable than the NBA. I think a lot of people are coming from this from a American P.O.V Because here in American Football, your team can suck and suddenly become a powerhouse the next year. It's parity to the max pretty much. In the NBA it's a build up. A team like the Bobcats draft a player like Wiggins...and then hopes he can develop into a superstar elite player in 3-4 years...and then build around him in hopes that the team can win multiple championships. I like that...I like that build up of trying to get a superstar and then building around that player.
What does parity mean exactly? People always like to throw that word around, I looked that up in the dictionary and all it says is "equality". However looking at the NFL it doesn't seem any more equal than the NBA. Franchises like the NY Jets are still extremely popular due to being in a big city despite the lack of championships. QBs are still a scarce resource, and teams which lucked into a great QB like the Patriots or Pacers were relevant for a long time due to those QBs. Rather than parity, NFL seems to have a lot more luck involved than actual skill. You can be the best team in the world, but then all it takes is a bad game in the playoffs and then you're done. Conversely, as long as you can get in the playoffs it doesn't matter how bad you are, all you have to do is get in the zone for 8 games and you're the champ.
I cannot stand watching football anymore. Back in college, I'd watch three games in a row on Sunday. Of course back then all I was doing was drinking Milwaukee's Best all day and blowing off my homework. Now, football seems to move at a snail's pace. I mean it's more boring than soccer. Maybe if I'm bedridden I'll find time for it.
Some of this is true, but I think fans that solely follow the NFL don't realize that NBA players are the best athletes around, with the exception of soccer players. I like Football enough to watch it, but I don't find it as appealing, mainly because certain positions require more work than others. I may be wrong, but it seems like you can be fat as all hell in some positions. Basketball players cannot be in that type of shape and do their job. Or, the ones that are huge and overweight, cannot play at a high level.
