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2021 NBA Offseason Thread

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It's a close race for me between that style of play and superstars colluding with each other behind the scenes to team up (I know it's not officially colluding).

Personally I don’t care about superstars figuring out ways to team up any more than I care about organizations scheming to amass superstar-laden rosters. Not every superstar is as lucky as Kobe Bryant or Tim Duncan with competent organizations capable of building championship-caliber rosters around them their whole careers. As long as salary cap limitations prevent teams that invest heavily in superstars from building absurd rosters around those stars, superstar heavy rosters can be top heavy and vulnerable. Even the Miami Heat had significant roster flaws and required incredible two way effort and production from their stars to cover for the weaknesses of some of their role players. What bothered me about the Warriors was that due to a once in NBA history cap spike, they were able to add a superstar to a 73 win team and become virtually unbeatable.
 
I have to imagine part of the issue with ratings is most of the biggest stars play on the West Coast, making a lot of games hard to watch for fans, Durant, the best/2nd best player in the league is out all year.

Also for the Eastern Conference you have 6 teams 14 games or more over 500, then 9 teams under 500, with the 7th best team being 6 games under .500. Over in the west, its not much better, 7 teams over .500, 1 team at .500 and 7 teams under .500.

The league as a whole has 13 teams over .500. We are still feeling the fall out of GS, you have so many top heavy teams now, very little average teams, and a bunch of bad teams. Bad basketball is not fun to watch.
 
I have to imagine part of the issue with ratings is most of the biggest stars play on the West Coast, making a lot of games hard to watch for fans, Durant, the best/2nd best player in the league is out all year.

Also for the Eastern Conference you have 6 teams 14 games or more over 500, then 9 teams under 500, with the 7th best team being 6 games under .500. Over in the west, its not much better, 7 teams over .500, 1 team at .500 and 7 teams under .500.

The league as a whole has 13 teams over .500. We are still feeling the fall out of GS, you have so many top heavy teams now, very little average teams, and a bunch of bad teams. Bad basketball is not fun to watch.

As someone who lives in the Eastern time zone this is a huge issue. It’s really hard to watch any West Coast games. In terms of rating decline, there’s also nobody to pull viewers in the the early national tv games the way that LeBron used to basically from the mid-2000s onward. I also think the preponderance of bad basketball, especially in big markets, isn’t helping. For the better part of the laat 20 years the biggest market has had trash basketball. Chicago also hasn’t been good for a while. Same with Washington. Finally there’s just been so many national TV games with stars absent - Warriors games with a G-League roster, Pelicans games without Zion, Clippers game without one or both of its stars, etc.
 
I have to imagine part of the issue with ratings is most of the biggest stars play on the West Coast, making a lot of games hard to watch for fans, Durant, the best/2nd best player in the league is out all year.

Also for the Eastern Conference you have 6 teams 14 games or more over 500, then 9 teams under 500, with the 7th best team being 6 games under .500. Over in the west, its not much better, 7 teams over .500, 1 team at .500 and 7 teams under .500.

The league as a whole has 13 teams over .500. We are still feeling the fall out of GS, you have so many top heavy teams now, very little average teams, and a bunch of bad teams. Bad basketball is not fun to watch.

Durant isn't better than LeBron, Leonard, Harden or Giannis...
 
Durant isn't better than LeBron, Leonard, Harden or Giannis...

I think they are all grouped very close. But if healthy, IMO it is right between Durant and LJ as the best in the league. I think Leonard is very close, splitting hair. But even if you put them slightly ahead of Durant, outside of LJ none of them have near the marketing or star power as Durant.
 
As someone who lives in the Eastern time zone this is a huge issue. It’s really hard to watch any West Coast games. In terms of rating decline, there’s also nobody to pull viewers in the the early national tv games the way that LeBron used to basically from the mid-2000s onward. I also think the preponderance of bad basketball, especially in big markets, isn’t helping. For the better part of the laat 20 years the biggest market has had trash basketball. Chicago also hasn’t been good for a while. Same with Washington. Finally there’s just been so many national TV games with stars absent - Warriors games with a G-League roster, Pelicans games without Zion, Clippers game without one or both of its stars, etc.

A healthy Zion might fix the ratings all by himself lol. That dude has the crowds going electric similar to Lebron's rookie year.
really a blow to any NBA conspiracy theory as if he was in Chicago or NY the great buzz he's already generating would be fever pitch
 
A healthy Zion might fix the ratings all by himself lol. That dude has the crowds going electric similar to Lebron's rookie year.
really a blow to any NBA conspiracy theory as if he was in Chicago or NY the great buzz he's already generating would be fever pitch

NBA Zion is a bit different from the NCAA Zion, honestly when I watch him play in the NBA I'm constantly worried he'll get injured. Which is weird, because I don't like the Pelicans and couldn't care less how that franchise does.
 
I think they are all grouped very close. But if healthy, IMO it is right between Durant and LJ as the best in the league. I think Leonard is very close, splitting hair. But even if you put them slightly ahead of Durant, outside of LJ none of them have near the marketing or star power as Durant.

Durant will never be fully healthy again so this is a debate about history more or less. 30 year old players don't recover from a torn Achilles.
 
Personally I don’t care about superstars figuring out ways to team up any more than I care about organizations scheming to amass superstar-laden rosters. Not every superstar is as lucky as Kobe Bryant or Tim Duncan with competent organizations capable of building championship-caliber rosters around them their whole careers. As long as salary cap limitations prevent teams that invest heavily in superstars from building absurd rosters around those stars, superstar heavy rosters can be top heavy and vulnerable. Even the Miami Heat had significant roster flaws and required incredible two way effort and production from their stars to cover for the weaknesses of some of their role players. What bothered me about the Warriors was that due to a once in NBA history cap spike, they were able to add a superstar to a 73 win team and become virtually unbeatable.

Agreed on this. The only real glitch in the system was the Warriors who basically got out of the salary cap system to build an unbeatable team. The other multiple superstar teams, very much including Miami, did not feel unbeatable and had noticeable weaknesses. People forget what a close call it was for Miami -- Boston takes them to 7 games in 2012, then they barely win against the Spurs in 2013, they could easily have ended up with no championships.

We'll see about the Clippers. Once Kawhi Leonard stops taking half the games off to go to strip clubs they could end up looking unbeatable in the playoffs.
 
Durant will never be fully healthy again so this is a debate about history more or less. 30 year old players don't recover from a torn Achilles.

I am not arguing he would be anymore. I was making the point, that part of the reasons ratings could be down is because he is out. Before the injury he was right up there a top 3 player, and drew a lot of national attention and helped the NBA sell tickets.
 
Yet again Porzingis looks like a star when Doncic is out. They need to figure out how to make him look like a star when Doncic is playing.
 
Poor Victor Oladipo. 6 for 31 shooting for 16 points total in his last two games, both losses, and he probably singlehandedly lost both games for the Pacers. Just doesn't have the physical ability to play the role he used to. Hopefully he can play himself into shape. Very much respect him as a person as a player and he was in a great situation prior to his injury.
 
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