Basketball has evolved into a game of calculated decision-making

Post by bdangubic » Sat, Feb 15, 2025, 10:24 PM UTC

atmosx wrote: post #78

meisel wrote: post #23

This article presents a readable overview of today’s NBA trends, but IMO is too absolute in its judgment. Basketball is not a solved sport. There is still innovation, for example with OKC’s historically good defense that relies on playing 5 smaller but faster players. There are still good all-around players. There are still people that hit a lot of mid range shots. We have trends going the other way, sure, but they h…

In my opinion, the real problem with the NBA is that we no longer get the marquee matchups in the Finals that we used to during the 90s and 00s, mainly because the season is too long. An 82-game grind isn’t sustainable - it practically guarantees that stars like Giannis, Luka, or Jokic (or their key teammates) will get injured to the playoffs or not at all. The fact that we’ve never seen Embiid vs. Giannis in the ECF…

Post by bdangubic » Sat, Feb 15, 2025, 10:26 PM UTC

Spooky23 wrote: post #117

atmosx wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion, the real problem with the NBA is that we no longer get the marquee matchups in the Finals that we used to during the 90s and 00s, mainly because the season is too long. An 82-game grind isn’t sustainable - it practically guarantees that stars like Giannis, Luka, or Jokic (or their key teammates) will get injured to the playoffs or not at all. The fact that we’ve never seen Embiid vs. Giannis in the ECF…

It's weird because almost all of the levels below the NBA are better games than the NBA. Nobody really goes out of their way to follow AAA baseball teams, but college basketball and even some high schools are great games. The pet theory is that the NBA is a RNG for gambling now the game isn't really the game. TV is near death, so gambling is the only source of revenue that can possibly replace the big TV deal.

Post by necovek » Sat, Feb 15, 2025, 10:27 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #69

meisel wrote: post #23

This article presents a readable overview of today’s NBA trends, but IMO is too absolute in its judgment. Basketball is not a solved sport. There is still innovation, for example with OKC’s historically good defense that relies on playing 5 smaller but faster players. There are still good all-around players. There are still people that hit a lot of mid range shots. We have trends going the other way, sure, but they h…

Ok, we removed the solved part from the title above.

Post by pandemic_region » Sat, Feb 15, 2025, 10:31 PM UTC

idlewords wrote: post #130

bdangubic wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

couple of feet is not enough. the line needs to move far enough such that vast majority of the players (more than 95%) shoot less than 30% from there. so probably 8 to 10 feet back. absolutely should happen but they will likely do something awesome like shortening quarters to 10 minutes

Just fill the ball with water.

Post by bdangubic » Sat, Feb 15, 2025, 10:35 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #125

epolanski wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about being smug: 1) playoff format rends 6 months of games not very important, the biggest difference is in your seeding. That's..all? 2) another way it makes the previous 6/7 months pointless is that your entire season is based on a single set of games. You can be the best team in the league by far, but then if one player gets injured or you're out of form or unlucky it's over I just don't like leagues wit…

Most sports pretty much have a playoff system to a greater or lesser degree. That said, basketball has pretty much always been one of the major US sports that can rely on a fairly small number of really good players and the rest don't matter nearly as much. Stars (pitchers, QBs, receivers, etc.) matter elsewhere but probably not individually as much as they do in basketball.