The NBA is entering the stretch run in what has been a fascinating season, headlined by two dominant teams in the Bucks and Lakers, with contenders in both conferences chasing them and ensuring that the path to the Finals is filled with pitfalls for both. The Rookie of the Year race is headlined by Ja Morant and the delayed arrival of Zion Williamson, both of whom have their teams in the playoff hunt by playing spectacular basketball.
The present and future of the league is pretty well established as bright, but the modern NBA is not totally beloved. The Houston Rockets have been the team at the forefront of the debate about changes in the NBA over the past few years, with their commitment to Moreyball, where shots at the rim, free throws, and threes are the end all, be all of their offense. They will shoot threes until they lose, which has happened twice in the postseason and led to arguments about the merits of whether “three-point shooting teams” can win in the playoffs, often lacking the context that every team in the modern NBA is a three-point shooting team.
Many of the most prominent complaints about the modern NBA come from former players and coaches that hold broadcasting positions with the league’s various TV partners, and as such, they have quite the platform. For Rockets GM Daryl Morey, the critiques on broadcasts have gone too far and he believes they are only working to drive viewers away from games and the league, as he explained on an appearance on FS1’s First Things First.
“Right now, if you tune into a lot of NBA telecasts, the announcers are hate watching their own game. It’s crazy. You’ll tune in, and they’ll be like, ‘Well, what’s happening here? They’re shooting too many 3-pointers. Back in my day…’
“Imagine the NFL if [Tony] Romo was basically like, ‘Oh, this passing is not going to work. Where’s my cloud of dust? Where is it?’ Literally, it’s the whole game. That’s NBA games right now. ‘Where is my cloud? Why aren’t we smashing that ball in there?’
“You tune into any NBA game, that’s what you get all night. I think we’re going to fix it over time, but right now…”
Morey isn’t alone in seeing this as an issue, but he’s one of the most prominent figures in the league to make this point publicly. As he went on to note, he also gets frustrated by broadcasters acting as though regular season games don’t matter very much, and wondered aloud why the league doesn’t do something about its partners being as negative or apathetic about games as they are sometimes.
“I think we have the best game that highlights our best athletes in the world, every single night,” Morey said. “It’s almost like cognitive dissonance. People tune in, and they’re being told how they shouldn’t watch, and how it’s not a fun game to watch. It’s bizarre to me. The NFL would never let it happen, and I don’t understand it.”
There’s certainly some merit to Morey’s point. The constant complaints about three-point shooting or the demise of post play or whatever else is different now than in the ’90s by commentators can be grating and surely influences how viewers think about the game. That said, you don’t want commentators that refuse to critique the product on the floor, but there is surely some better balance to be had at times, particularly with certain broadcasters.
As for making regular season games seem more meaningful, it’s tough because of how long the season is at 82 games, where you’re never going to be able to replicate the stakes of every NFL game because the sample is so much bigger. At the same time, there is something to there needing to be a bit of a shift in how we discuss things beyond a “how does this effect their playoff chances” viewpoint. Not every team is a contender and when you narrow everything into that window, you lose out on a lot of great stories, players, and opportunities to bring interest to the league as a whole on a broad scale. There’s work to do on our part as media members to be more willing and able to discuss teams and players on non-contenders and noting excellence and positive steps being taken without it having to necessarily be about how they can get to a championship — although the flip side of that is every fan base wants that to be the end goal.
There’s certainly a worthwhile discussion to be had here, but I’m not sure we will get it, namely because it’s coming from a Rockets organization that is so polarizing and has complained about their perception on too many instances for many fans to care too much about this when there is a legitimate point to be made.
[transcription h/t RocketsWire]
