I think the NBA needs to focus on how to make more people tune in to the first half of the season. And player’s load management is getting ridiculous.
As a lifelong Mavericks fan, I hope the NBA fails...They've lost me.
sorry for you loss
Basketball has evolved into a game of calculated decision-making
141–150 of 266 posts
Re: Basketball has evolved into a game of calculated decision-making
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
the most popular sport on the planet - soccer - doesn't have playoffs anywhere except USA
I mean there's the World Cup though that's a bit different. The US (or US + Canada) is big enough that having large leagues of top-level teams makes some sense to have playoffs.
Re: Basketball has evolved into a game of calculated decision-making
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ok, we removed the solved part from the title above.
I think that's unfortunate: the article still has that title, and knowing it wants to lead to such an absolute conclusion can tell a prospective reader if they are interested to be led down that path or not.
That approach to baity titles doesn't generalize, I'm afraid—neither to users nor to titles. In general, baity titles cause threads to fill up with responses to the provocation in the title, making for shallow and ultimately off-topic discussion.
It's standard practice on HN to replace these with titles that are more accurate and neutral, but we always try to do this using representative language from the article itself. Usually that's a subtitle, or the HTML doc title, sometimes it can be the URL slug, or even a photo caption.
Often there's a sentence at the start of an article that walks back the title and says what the article is 'really' about. It's as if the title 'takes' too much and then the article 'confesses' and gives most of it back. These walkback sentences often make good HN titles because they represent the article more accurately. That's what I used in this case.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
Re: Basketball has evolved into a game of calculated decision-making
#144[deleted]
Re: Basketball has evolved into a game of calculated decision-making
#145I think this article doesn’t do the sport justice. Modern basketball is amazing and light years ahead of where it was even ten years ago. Watch “explain one play” on YouTube and you’ll begin to understand how much thought goes into even 5 seconds of normal basketball. The craziest part is how teams now days know how to punish a mistake, and virtually every point comes from very slight mistakes happening. Being too slow to close out, miscommunication on the dribble handoff, size mismatch, etc… in this way it’s like chess where you make threats but they’re just threats until your opponent commits an error. You still have to be able to punish the error.
A big conversation I see now days is what’s “wrong” with the modern nba, with too many 3’s being the most common refrain. That’s silly. I will tell you what’s actually wrong about the nba. They’re playing the most amazing basketball the worlds ever seen, but the entertainment ecosystem around them hasn’t changed at all. Literally they just talk about the stupidest stuff, like who’s the GOAT, instead of actually educating their audiences about the incredible level of play that exists now days.
You could argue that people aren’t interested in seeing that, but I don’t think we will ever know until it’s been tried. Instead, sports pundits are just being negative about the sport and filling the airwaves with low effort, toxic cliches while providing zero information about the brilliance we’re seeing. As to why I think people would actually care to know, I think it’s because once you’re exposed to this stuff it sticks and then you can’t unsee it. You start to notice the patterns and enjoy the game again.
So anyways sorry for the rant but it drives me nuts. Basketball is so cool right now once you start to get what you’re actually seeing and players can be so smart too. It’s amazing.
Re: Basketball has evolved into a game of calculated decision-making
#146Thinking Basketball is one of my favorite resources for basketball analysis. He recently made a video debunking myths about the modern game [1]. While yes, there’s far more analytics and knowledge in the game, it hasn’t lead to monotony or poor quality. It’s instead resulted in a Cambrian explosion of tactics, counter tactics, and really diverse team strategies. But the commentary and analysis in mainstream basketbal…
I love the modern game. I just think the pendulum has swung a tiny bit too far toward 3s in the past 3-4 years, that's all. Just a nudge in the other direction. My ideal would be to try changing 2s and 3s to 3s and 4s. But that will never happen.
> But that will never happen.
Yes, it will. However it will take depressed viewership to realize.
Re: Basketball has evolved into a game of calculated decision-making
#147Stolen bases in baseball is similar to this. In 2023, MLB made two rule changes with stealing being at all time lows (and them thinking fans love stolen bases): 1) Limiting the number of pickoff attempts by pitchers, and 2) Slight enlarging of the bases. Take a look at the jump[0]. It's been interesting to follow some changes teams have made the past two seasons where teams are figuring out how to better time steals…
I don't really understand the comparison. The game changes with the rules. The meta shifts with the analytics. But stealing bases has long been a science. It was something I admired about college level development of players in the 2000's - stealing bases went from fundamental to advanced and well beyond "just let the fastest guys do their thing." UVA's coach had a saying like "every player on this team will be capab…
I think the comparison in general to baseball is pretty apt. Baseball has always been ahead of the curve in terms of analytics in sports. In the last 10 years it really went to extremes that made it unwatchable. The OP didn't mention the pitch clock, but that has made numerous improvements as well. The shift rules too. The game is a lot closer now to its history than it was just a few years ago.
The NBA could use its own blast from the past. There's too much isolation and 3s. When the 3s are falling, it's fun, and when they're not, it's terrible. Much like baseball and its homerun or nothing strategy.
I think the NBA has other problems too, though. The regular season doesn't mean much so their superstars take lots of time off throughout the year. Either shorten the regular season or eliminate some playoff teams.
Re: Basketball has evolved into a game of calculated decision-making
#148Thinking Basketball is one of my favorite resources for basketball analysis. He recently made a video debunking myths about the modern game [1]. While yes, there’s far more analytics and knowledge in the game, it hasn’t lead to monotony or poor quality. It’s instead resulted in a Cambrian explosion of tactics, counter tactics, and really diverse team strategies. But the commentary and analysis in mainstream basketbal…
> your average viewer is watching a chess match but not even understanding the basic moves
Your average viewer isn't tuning in to watch a chess match. You'll notice that professional chess doesn't have the same viewership as basketball.
Regardless of the mathematical strategies, it sucks to watch a bunch of three pointers getting missed. The NBA team average is 36% on 38 attempts per game. Thus, in an average game, there are 76 three-point attempts and 49 misses.
The worst is when they take and miss a three-pointer early in the shot clock, maybe even from the logo. Shoot, clunk, possession over, yawn.
Draymond Green just said that the modern game is rarely a chess match. https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/43860581/no-substance
> Green talked about a recent Warriors game against the Los Angeles Lakers and how it was "refreshing" to go against a thinker like LeBron James, who is notorious for finding weaknesses and exploiting them.
> "Every possession is some type of chess move," Green said. "You don't get that today in the NBA, often. ... You don't just get that on a regular basis. It's just who can run faster, who can hit more 3s. It's no substance. I think it's very boring."
Re: Basketball has evolved into a game of calculated decision-making
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
I love the modern game. I just think the pendulum has swung a tiny bit too far toward 3s in the past 3-4 years, that's all. Just a nudge in the other direction. My ideal would be to try changing 2s and 3s to 3s and 4s. But that will never happen.
> But that will never happen. Yes, it will. However it will take depressed viewership to realize.
So, yeah. Never.
If the answer is “they have to make less money”, it’s just very unlikely to happen. Most sports, but especially the global behemoths that are basketball and football (soccer), have made more money over time just because of population.
Re: Basketball has evolved into a game of calculated decision-making
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
completely the opposite because of the structure of soccer (completely different to basketball, it is an invasion sport but statistically very dissimilar), it has completely reversed the ordering of the sport there is significantly more strategic diversity, and teams that were unable to compete ten years ago are now able to compete effectively with wealthier teams (there is no catchup mechanic in soccer unlike US spo…
Pep Guardiola 1000000% ruined soccer in similarish ways today's nba is broken
he has changed strategy multiple times based on team composition
possession-based at Barca, more pragmatic at Bayern, first City teams used wing-backs and insane attacking then acquired more defensive players and went back to suffocating opposition
playing out from the back is ludicrous only because teams who are unable to play that way insist on doing it, and the credibility of that strategy as a global minima has already passed (largely due to the issues Burnley had last year and Spurs/Southampton had this year)
this year has proved that there are multiple ways to win. imo, the most boring manager is Arteta who does the defensive stuff without (almost) any attacking players (and is, thankfully, failing...the worst thing would be a manager playing like a Serie A side and winning)