Basketball from a fans perspective

Published Tuesday, Thursday plus Saturday & Sunday

The product is good

I read an account regarding the NBA and wanted to share portions of it with you. We are in an age where it seems all we read and hear are nothing but complaints regarding the NBA, the league ain’t that bad and I intend to point toward a few facts and not just my opinion. “The phrase “don’t pour money down the drain” is an idiom that means you shouldn’t waste money on something that is not useful or valuable. It implies that spending money in such a way is a wasteful and ineffective use of resources.” The NBA is in much better shape than some of its critics would have you believe. At the same time I am not seeking to claim there are no issues…anytime human beings are involved problems and controversary is going to be present in one form or another. 

As for the game the season begins in the fall the league will be operating with a new television contract. The previous agreement was a reported $24 billion, this contract was replaced by a $76 billion agreement involving Disney, NBCUniversal, and Amazon Prime Video. Corporations have no intended desire to waste or lose money, do you really expect corporate decision makers to spend dollars foolishly? The Celtics were placed on the market and sold for a record $6.1 billion, more recently Mark Walter a minority owner purchased the balance of Laker shares for $10 billion. It’s clear these new owners don’t believe they are wasting money spending large sums of money to purchase teams. How about gaming, NBA 2K has historically outsold Madden NFL, let’s pause at this point and clarify something. The NFL family of television networks swamps the NBA in pure numbers but the audience is somewhat fractured. Football for the most part has far lower television numbers throughout the world than basketball, especially the NBA. Again this speaks for itself, “Both the NBA and NFL are highly successful in utilizing social media, but data suggests the NBA currently holds an edge in overall social media presence and engagement, particularly on platforms like Instagram, X/Twitter, TikTok, and YouTube.” The NBA product can always be improved and should be evaluated at all times. I have no issue if I’m informed Joe Smithy is not playing up to expectations, I don’t appreciate members of the media “fighting” players on social media. We have witnessed this occurrence with one particular media person.

The issue as I see it are the messengers and not the message, the NBA has allowed these spokespersons to “bad-mouth” the NBA often with little counter argument. These messengers are on television, radio or even some in print generally disparaging the NBA. I’m not suggesting a muzzle for them but we the public must carefully consider this fact. The audience often overlooks that these individuals may not be the most reliable sources of information about the league, in addition they often offer little in the way of opposition to their view. In closing there is no requirement for you to love NBA basketball, if you don’t like it that’s okay but to constantly criticize the sport while deriving a portion of your income is a far different matter to me. Later the 2025-26 NBA television broadcast changes will be discussed in detail.

Say what

For a time now the NCAA has considered expanding the basketball tournament. From ESPN’s college basketball page; “An expansion of the tournament would be a historic and potentially controversial step for the NCAA. An eight-team addition would be the biggest jump in how the men’s NCAA basketball tournament has been comprised since 1985. In 1985 the tournament expanded to 64 teams, one additional team was added in 2001. In 2011 expansion once again saw the number rise to include 68 teams its present format.”

The number of teams presently under consideration is to raise the number to no more than 76. There is no official explanation for this increase in the numbers other than “we want to do this.” My belief it’s a money grab pure and simple by the NCAA, besides the fact it will bring about the demise of an institution. The National Invitation Tournament has been on life support since the much larger NCAA Tournament began expansion. Raising the number of teams to 76 will be the death of the NIT which began play in 1938. Should the number of NCAA Tournament teams be increased there is really nothing any of us can accomplish to halt the process other than to boycott the tournament.

Cooper Flagg

Could this be a comparison, Magic Johnson to the Lakers and Cooper Flagg to the Mavs. Hold on a moment allow a further explanation, I am not comparing Flagg to Magic from a talent standpoint. This is a team comparison between those Magic Johnson Lakers and these Mavs who add Cooper Flagg to the lineup, the situations are somewhat the same. The Lakers won 54 games losing only 28 the season prior to the draft which brought them Magic. Yes, I realize the Mavs finished the season with a losing record (39-43), we must take into consideration the number of injuries plus the “trade” certainly were contributing factors. This Mavs team (on paper) has so much more potential than exhibited this past season.

Kyrie Irving will be missing until the very least the last portion of the season however there are “others.” When healthy Anthony Davis remains one of the most talented power forward/centers in the NBA. For this purpose he’s plugged in at the 4, manning the post position will be Dereck Lively II. At small forward Cooper Flagg and shooting guard is Klay Thompson. Brandon Williams will play the point until Irving is able to return. The Mavs have an adequate bench, is it enough to win consistently in the NBA, that remains a question mark for now. As for my earlier statement, games are played on the court and not on paper. As for the outlook, The Texas Triangle will be quite a problem for NBA teams headed to the state next season, the Spurs who appear poised to move to the next level and the ascending Rockets and those Mavs.