When commissioner Adam Silver acknowledged the NBA’s ratings dip on Tuesday ahead of the NBA Cup final, he opened the door for others’ opinions on it.
Silver stopped short of blaming the game’s heavy three-point style and instead pointed to the wider decline of cable nationwide as the reason for ratings being down 19% year over year.
Since then, LeBron James, Charles Barkley, and a smattering of other personalities have weighed in on the state of the game and how the NBA got to where it is, with some offering solutions on how to fix it.
James wasn’t asked about the league’s ratings, but used a question about the new All-Star Game format, which is now a four-team mini-tournament, to discuss his issues with the game at large.
“Obviously the last couple of years have not been a great All-Star Game on Sunday night,” James said. “But it’s a bigger conversation. It’s not just the All-Star Game; it’s our game in general. Our game—there’s a lot of fucking threes being shot. So it’s a bigger conversation than just the All-Star Game.”
NBA teams often copy the reigning champion, and the Celtics have doubled down on their three-point philosophy since beating the Mavericks in June’s Finals. The Celtics are averaging 51.1 three-point attempts per game, five more than the previous record held by Mike D’Antoni’s 2018–2019 Rockets.
A year ago, the Celtics were the only team to score more than 40% of their points from three, finishing at 41%. This season, seven teams are scoring 40% or more of their points from three, with Boston leading the way at 47.5%, which would be a record if it holds.
Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla joked this week: “I add to that, I don’t watch NBA games. I’m just as much of a problem as everyone else,” saying he prefers to watch something different on his occasional off-night.
Here’s where some other notable personalities have landed on the NBA:
Lakers coach JJ Redick: “I don’t think we have done a good job of storytelling, of celebrating the game,” Redick said Thursday. “If I’m a casual fan and you tell me every time I turn on the television that the product sucks, well, I’m not going to watch the product. And that’s really what has happened over the last 10 to 15 years. I don’t know why. It’s not funny to me.”
“This game should be celebrated,” Redick continued. “The league is more talented and skilled than it was 18 years ago when I was drafted. That’s a fact. There are more players that are excellent. There are more teams that are excellent.
“We don’t have anybody that’s willing to step up to the fact that this is an awesome game and we should talk about it and celebrate it in a positive way,” he said. “That doesn’t mean we don’t critique it. We should critique it, but we should celebrate it. Nobody’s doing that, and the people that are have a small niche following on Twitter. And frankly, I would argue as well, that everyone in our ecosystem pays too much attention to what is said on Twitter. And part of this whole ratings discussion is because people on Twitter are talking about it.”
TNT analyst and Hall of Famer Charles Barkley: “I think we need to seriously consider starting on Christmas because, listen, you’re wasting your time going up against the NFL and college football; they own the weekends now. If we start at Christmas, there’s no other sports that we have to compete with. College football would be over, pro football is winding down, we’d have the entire calendar, late December, January, February, March, April, May, June to [ourselves].”
Mazzulla: “In the NFL, people aren’t like, ‘I want to see less scoring.’ They’re not going to make the end zones smaller. They’re not going to make the field smaller. Scoring is up across other sports. My question would be: Why, in basketball, is scoring being up an issue, as opposed to other sports? Does anybody want to watch a football game and see less touchdowns?”
Fox Radio host Colin Cowherd: “The three-point shot is boring and repetitive. Everyone plays the same. I would move the three-point arc into the bench, eliminate the corner, and move it back a foot. Make it part of the game, not the game.”
TNT analyst and Hall of Famer Shaquille O’Neal: “We’re looking at the same thing. Everybody’s running the same plays. … I don’t mind Golden State back in the day shooting threes, but every team is not a three-point shooter.”
Hall of Famer Magic Johnson: “They don’t hate each other. I hated Larry [Bird] and every Celtic. … That’s what it was,” Johnson said on FS1 this week. “The Celtics and Lakers hated each other. It made for great TV and people tuning in. … Now everybody’s shaking each other’s hand. Everybody likes each other, won’t go at each other really hard. It’s gotta get back to that. And there’s a reason why the number, viewerships are going down. And these guys better wake up and say, ‘Hey, man. We gotta change this.’ And also, load management. The guys gotta play.”
