First and foremost: trades. Loading up. Teaming up. Ie: there is no sense of player with an organization for the long term that builds a sense of fandom within the community. I can't keep up with where players go anymore and it doesn't matter. Everyone makes the playoffs. Ie the regular season doesn't matter. I would be in favor of a 4 team playoff scenario. Games are paywalled to ridiculous methods at this point. No defense. That's about it.
I will say THIS...Having to purchase NBA league pass, Fubotv for NBA/Rockets games only to have these azzholes have the best games on PRIME & Peacock is a ripoff. This is them ripping off loyal customers. The NBA league pass should cover ALL games like they advertise it to do This is a slap in the face to the real fans
Too many reasons to count of why the NBA is a hot mess. Most frustrating is the eroding of the rules. One of my pet peeves is traveling. The no calls are egregious and players can do so much more to score now than ever due to it which just lowers the skill level required to do amazing things. I'll just stop there cause I could write a book.
There are things I hate, the flopping, the terrible officiating - a defender not able to stand their ground. But, I still watch for the amazing athletes and creativity. DD
I will say there have been times I have watched less of the NBA and the NFL because it seems like too many games are decided by the officials and how well teams are at manipulating the officials. I typically blame the teams/players more than the officials, as they put the officials into having to make a lot of difficult calls instead of just playing the game.
Basketball is my favorite sport, but the NBA is really harming its product. The final two minutes of a close game are excruciating to watch with all of the intentional fouls and timeouts. For a game that is fluid for 46 minutes to suddenly grind to an arbitrary halt is stupid. The refs are also too inconsistent and they impact the game way too often. Think back to how magical the 2024 Olympics felt and know that is how basketball is supposed to feel when played at the highest level. Then compare it to the modern NBA game. The latter is clearly worse. That is to say nothing about how Silver has cheapened the way the game looks with all of the ads on the court, jersey ads, alternate uniforms, and gambling omnipresence. His MBA-ified league looks gross.
I don't get this trend of wearing your road unis at home and your home whites on the road. That plus all the alternate unis makes it hard to even know who's playing and where they're playing. Always takes me a few minutes to figure it out. And too many 3-pointers. BUT.....that seems to be getting better this year (although I don't have the stats to back that up). Rockets are definitely shooting less this year.
People have said this sort of thing for literally 50 years now. I think there are always areas to improve, but I think the state of the game is fine. The players are talented, the strategies are evolving and the games are competitive. I think the *coverage* of the sport could be better since it is so narrative focused, but the games? It's working for me. I think the NBA is a much better product that the NFL right now.
I disagree on your last point, but I wouldn’t argue it because I don’t care…but totally agree with all your points in the first paragraph. I’ve been hearing folks b**** and whine about the NBA for decades now, and the complaints aren’t necessarily repeating themselves, but they certainly rhyme. I coach tournament hoops and prefer the college game because it’s real basketball to me. Unless you’re in the NBA, the game is played a completely different way at every single level. I tell the kids we coach to watch more college hoops than NBA if they really want to improve. But I appreciate the NBA and love the Rockets too much!
Aside from a highly suspect GM that just got fired, this has actually calmed down from the 2010s with Durant and Lebron orchestrating super teams. Sure, there's a play-in where some plays for the right to be irrelevant and has no impact on the actual result. Now, if we're talking about the Cup, that's just a farce. There are some great pirate sites. What actually sucks about the NBA and makes it unwatchable is the SGA/Jokic/Curry/Lebron phantom fouls, length of reviews, upgrading everything flagrant 1s, over-the-back fouls, lack of traveling calls, lack of 3 second calls. The rule book has just been torn up and it's really hard to feel like you're watching true unscripted competition - which is supposed to be the essence of team sports.
Preach Preacher Preach! I watch the Rockets when they're interesting (I didn't say "good", just "interesting"). I rarely if ever watch non-Rox NBA games. I can watch any 2 good teams play college ball.
