I can't stand the "dumbing down" of mainstream basketball today

A little OT...

When it comes to local media coverage of NBA, I feel like smaller market teams, those which usually do not have the "heroes" that mainstream media talks about the most, have a problem which is different but which springs from a similar place... Homerism.

watching league pass, and being a knicks (as well as mets) fan, I am disgusted by the amount of homerism displayed by professional commentators. Is it really too hard to allot any, ANY, respect to the opposition? obviously i'm spoiled by having walt clyde frazier and mike breen, who are two of the best in the game, but its just ridiculous. If i had more that 100 posts or whatever the number is, I would make a thread about it. I'd probably mention Tommy Heinsohn in the OP.

Clyde was the reason for this post as he is constantly dropping not only classic clyde-isms, which I understand are not to everyone's taste, but also basic bball knowledge and strategy. Along with his extensive vocabulary, delightful vocal tone, and aforementioned unbiased (especially for a former Knick) position, this is why I place him above most other NBA color announcers. Hubie and Van Gundy are up there too for me, so its not like I have a NY bias or anything...

[QUOTE=Bandito][ I honestly didn't know coaching was that important until last year with the Knicks. The difference between Woodson and pringles is like the sky and the earth. That is when I started to admire good coaching and what makes coaches like Pop and Phil so effective.[/QUOTE]

I have an old friend that I've been trying to get on ISH for a couple years..... all he follows is coaches. He has gotten autographs of assistant coaches from like 1978 Bucks or the 90s Griz........ guys nobody ever heard of, he claims how they incremently shifted the game over the years, tiny little improvements in defense that came from guys like Brad Greenberg on the '80s Knicks. Whoever heard of him? Rudy says he came up with a defensive rotation that is used all over the country.... don't ask me :confusedshrug: or Cliff Ray.... to me he's the center on the 75 Warriors, right? but he's been coaching in the League for aeons and lotta players love the guy to death. Or Jimmy Cleamons.... P Jax always showered the love on that guy for the way he got players to go to the wall for the team... dude coached the Bulls and did okay.... coached the Lakers and did okay....
yeah there's a lot to that, no question

thats because the nba revolves around kobe, lebron, durant, etc. everyone else is irrelevant

the game sucks pretty badly, to be honest.

as long as "superstars" get superior treatment the nba will always be shitty unless you like really non-fundamental and solid basketball and/or are dumb.

The evolution of twenty-four hour sports media coverage and technology combined with celebrity worship has brought us here.
The NBA decision to specifically market individual players instead of teams; exploiting these social trends, has brought us here.
What we have now is a 24/7 media conglomerate(ESPN) that exploits any tidbit of sports news in an all consuming, unsatiable thirst. It gleefully feeds into the emotions of sports fans with overdramatic rise-and-fall accounts of their built-up hero's and martyrs, creating news mutants along the way, such as Tim Tebow and Jeremy Lin.
What we have is basketball in an ADHD age, where most people just watch the game recap and and whatever 2 minute blurb is being shouted by a sportcenter talking head. The actual fans come to places like this. You ever get into a good basketball discussion on the street or in a bar with a knowledgable person?
It doesn't happen often..
Most "fans" will usually just recite some sportcenter feel-good crap about whichever superstar is currently being hyped.

[QUOTE=Heavincent]You guys should check out the bballbreakdown youtube channel if you want more x's and o's talk [URL="http://www.youtube.com/user/bballbreakdown/videos"]http://www.youtube.com/user/bballbreakdown/videos[/URL][/QUOTE]

I subscribed to that channel some years ago, I don't know if you guys know of another channel like this, it would be great.

yeah, but they also need that superstar talk to gain attention. no one want's to hear small market team or player on regular basis, they need that attention to keep them business alive.

Good thread...I agree with the OP...

[QUOTE=treadster]yeah, but they also need that superstar talk to gain attention. no [B]CASUAL FAN[/B] want's to hear small market team or player on regular basis, they need that attention to keep them business alive.[/QUOTE]
Fixed...TRUE basketball fans enjoy good basketball and enjoy hearing about who is playing good basketball, regardless of what city its in...

[QUOTE=MARLO]
The NBA decision to specifically market individual players instead of teams; exploiting these social trends, has brought us here.[/QUOTE]
This

The NBA is a hype machine designed to lure casual fans.


[QUOTE=CavaliersFTW]I love catching Spurs games, that teams offense keeps everyone moving well without the ball[/QUOTE]
I'm guessing you haven't watched a Spurs game since Feb :lol

the Spurs are playing truly terrible basketball right now :(

I agree with the OP. The was the NBA is covered and presented is an embarassement. It really is little better than pro wrestling. Nothing wrong with wrestling; at least they're open about the fact that its all a show.

Solution?

- Dont watch ESPN
- Dont talk shop with casual fans

Find knowledgeable fans, and talk with them. The internet makes this easy.

[QUOTE=JohnnySic]
Find knowledgeable fans, and talk with them. The internet makes this easy.[/QUOTE]

Yeah completely agree with this great point even tho at times it seems like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Even tho the most internet sites are filled with trolls/idiots if you use your ignore tool properly its really not that bad and there are a number of people on here who I always check in to see what there two cents is on a matter.

[QUOTE=Rake2204]

Rick Kamla: Early third quarter, Brandon Jennings scooping inside for two...

Dennis Scott: HO! B-Jenn-Jenn slicin' inside for the scoop job!

Brent Barry: Yeah, Jennings did a great job of sliding inside there and you saw that with the scoop.

WHY!?!?!?![/QUOTE]

haha. It's general stupidity in the human race, tho... everything is dumbed down. I don't think many people understand stuff. I was reading this:

[url]http://www.evolveidea.com/creativity/creativity%20and%20the%20levels%20of%20knowing.php[/url]

It seems like more and more people are not even on the 2nd level. They just hear and say "it must be true because I heard it." So many people say things that are just wrong or that may be right, but the reason why they think it's right (that is, the argument they use the fact to prove) is wrong.

I think of commentary as comedy. I don't look for insight.

-Smak

The best teams always win championships, not the best players. The best players can help make their team better, but on a bad team, they have no shot. And, by team, I also mean the coaching, which is arguably the most underappreciated aspect of basketball. I value a play to get a role player an open shot at the end of the game rather than a contested jumpshot by a superstar. Always. Doesn't work always, but works out better in the long run.

[QUOTE=dynasty1978]The recycled, tired cliches, counter-arguments, and arbitrary stats are what get me most. I blame ESPN primarily for lowering the intelligence of basketball followers by pushing their TV "analysts", bias web content, and contrived first take debates.

Examples of eye-rolling commentary:
"makes players around him better"
"replace player x with player y and the team is better/worse"
"team is better without star player x"

Too many variables to make simple-minded statements and pass them off as credible.[/QUOTE]
I am with you 100% on this one bro. They do it all without using any context.

D League now live-streams its games on youtube.

With online streaming sites like VIP BOX and live-stream youtube, maybe its possible (or near possible) to cover live games, yourselves... There's alot of potential in that.
Would also set a fire under ESPN's legal team's a$$ but you cant take on the internet.

"Never get involved in a land war IN ASIA"

Cavaliers, you are so right. Listening to all the home market analysts on League Pass this year, it was clear that there only a very few that call the game the right way. Matt Guokas (Orlando) stands out. Ditto Fratello (Nets).
Only a few others: the best of the rest are probably Jack Armstrong (Toronto)and Fiorentino (Miami). Scott Hastings (Denver) has improved a lot over the years and now does a good job. Malik Rose (6ers): not bad. I wonder what you think of the Cavs' Austin Carr - to me, he never seems to say anything particularly insightful. Here in Sacramento, Jerry Reynolds really "dumbs it down".

My biggest problem is when the NBA artificially creates a superstar like Rose or Harden through undeserved hype in order to increase ratings to the casual fan. That is the worst of the worst. They will always ignore "boring" defense, rebounding, and big men and give all of the success to flashy perimeter players no matter how inefficient they are.

The dumbing down can be annoying as well.

[QUOTE=CavaliersFTW]ESPN, NBAtv, TNT. All of it.

NBA analysis today is all about hero-name dropping. "Can Kobe/Lebron/Durant pull out this win" Did "Kobe/Lebron/Durant" do something athletic tonight.

Nobody talks about actual basketball on tv. Nobody talks about great on-the-floor teamball and playmaking. [/QUOTE]

Its just a totally different Era.

Its a transition from "Team Basketball Age" to "Hero ball Age".

And its from a "two-point league" to a "three-point league".

Also look at the way they dribble, until the 80s they're not allowed to palm/carry/travel like the stars did now. It starts with MJ (dribble from side of the ball to change direction) and MJ did get away a bit, But today's player benefit a lot more.

The rules are changed to open up the middle, streetball-type play are encouraged to bring more entertainment.1-on-1,not 5-on-5,is what they want to transfer.

The emphasis of the league is once on "competitiveness", now on "business".

Michaelray: hand on the side of the ball is not palming/carrying. Per the NBA rules, the hand must be under the ball, bringing the dribble to a pause. [url]http://www.nba.com/videorulebook/category.html?cid=77[/url]

Its the same way with baseball except MLB Network has some great analyst who break down everything. Harold Reynolds is dat dude!

I agree. Skip Bayless is one of this names who only discuss the star players stories and does not do an insight based on a team view.

I still laugh at first take episode when Mark Cuban OWNS him and let him speechless.

Dick Stockton is the worst example of this, and he's been around forever. All he would ever talk about is how many lead changes the game had or who's the high scorer, or how the teams' stars were doing. The fact that hewas given so many high profile games shows that this is how the NBA wants to market itself.

It's a business. I made a thread about this, but everyone looked past it.

I like to think of Gladiator times when talking about basketball, football, anything major that's held inside a arena.

Back in the Gladiator days, they would hype the baddest guy up. The baddest guys name would be spoken from everyones tounges. They're the main event. That's who people want to see.

apply that to today, and you get people like LeBron, Kobe, Durant, etc.

Hardly anyone back then just like hardly anyone now watches each pass carefully or the technique of the sword being swung.

On the flip side I remember guys like Barkley giving Spurs credit for playing basketball. But there's always going to the that next guy. Someone after LeBron will be talked about like MJ and Bron, and so on until they need to change it up.

They play for a living, and the businessmen hype these guys up for a living. Money's a major factor that musn't be ignored.

Take it to the park with the same people, and we have a whole different story.

It's also like if you want to see good driving (or good basketball) would you watch someone drive a fordfocus(kwame) or watch a lamborghini(bron)? Don't nobody give a shit about a fordfocus.

ive posted this at least once before, but it made a lot of sense to me.

chuck klosterman (a writer) explained it on the bs report once. its like, diehards who will actually appreciate more in depth analysis, we are gonna watch the game regardless of whether its dumbed down or not. We love the game too much, we are gonna watch it no matter how stupid the coverage is, if you are producing an nba show, you dont have to worry about this audience.

but its the fair weather fans you have to worry about. if you are the producer, you actually have to worry about these people watching.

So in essence, the nba is marketed to people who only kinda like the nba.

You dumb down the analysis so as not to alienate these fair weather fans. If a fair weather fan turns on TNT or ESPN, and sees the analysts talking about anything complicated, he wont understand it, and wont watch, and while us diehard fans might appreciate it and watch. But if the show has simple, easy to follow discussion, the fair weather fans can understand and enjoy it, and us diehards will watch regardless, because we actually love basketball.

Its funny sometimes to catch coaches in their attempts to dumb it down. You can actually catch Nate McMillian thinking of the the dumb down way to say things. So yeah it comes from the higher ups. Mark Jackson visibly went into shock at NBC's coercing him into another level of it. He got so mechanical that it totally took away his humor.

When Kobe was destroying the word team in the beginning of the year, you weren't supposed to mention it. I thought Worthy was going to get fired but he eventually changed his tone. Even the written press was at a loss as to what to say. Kobe was totally killing any chance of the best Center Forward combo of having big games but you had to say Kobe was carrying the very same team he was destroying and bringing down to humiliating levels. Articles like Kobe should pursue the scoring title were popping up. You wondered where were the articles that asked, can Kobe help right the ship by passing? This was just too much thinking.

No articles on who pulled Kobe's coat about changing. No articles on what was Kobe's priorities. No articles on, can a coach talk to Kobe. You didn't see one on Kobe's pacing problems over the past three years or the wear and tear of his long last three years. When Kobe rights the ship, they low keyed that as well. There will be no articles on the torch has to be passed now. While everybody with a thinking head is pondering should the team should be given to the guy who right now is the best center in the game if he stays? but you wonder if the dumb down wants it like that.

i have no problem with journalists, sure there are dumb ones out there, but there is plenty of great articles written everyday, you just need to know where to look.

plenty of articles were written criticising kobe's play at the start of the year.

[QUOTE=chips93]i have no problem with journalists, sure there are dumb ones out there, but there is plenty of great articles written everyday, you just need to know where to look.

plenty of articles were written criticising kobe's play at the start of the year.[/QUOTE]
Where were those articles. Please share a couplel

what else wud u expect if even news-shows are merely entertainment-shows in disguise nowadays?

[QUOTE=CavaliersFTW]ESPN, NBAtv, TNT. All of it.

NBA analysis today is all about hero-name dropping. "Can Kobe/Lebron/Durant pull out this win" Did "Kobe/Lebron/Durant" do something athletic tonight.

Nobody talks about actual basketball on tv. Nobody talks about great on-the-floor teamball and playmaking. It's literally all about creating stories about _____ star player willing their team to victory against ______ star player on the opposing team and above the rim highlights. It's all smoke and mirrors and no meat and potatoes.[B] I love watching older Lakers games with Chick Hearn [/B]or games where Bill Russell is doing color commentating because they actually add insight to plays that are developing and they didn't just glorify the stars. I do not like the way the game is presented today, it is presented for casual mainstream fans who just want a hero not [I]actual[/I] sport/basketball fans who want to see and understand a good game.[/QUOTE]


Chick Hearn was great. He called the game the way it was supposed to be done, play by play and still managed to entertain the viewers. He was also pretty objective, he would call the Lakers out when they weren't playing well. I've heard him say the Lakers were stinking up the joint plenty of times. Announcers and analysts today are pretty boring, and they talk a whole lot without saying much. That's why I don't watch pre game, halftime, or post game shows. There's nothing any of these guys can say that I don't already know.

[QUOTE=CavaliersFTW]ESPN, NBAtv, TNT. All of it.

NBA analysis today is all about hero-name dropping. "Can Kobe/Lebron/Durant pull out this win" Did "Kobe/Lebron/Durant" do something athletic tonight.

Nobody talks about actual basketball on tv. Nobody talks about great on-the-floor teamball and playmaking. It's literally all about creating stories about _____ star player willing their team to victory against ______ star player on the opposing team and above the rim highlights. It's all smoke and mirrors and no meat and potatoes. I love watching older Lakers games with Chick Hearn or games where Bill Russell is doing color commentating because they actually add insight to plays that are developing and they didn't just glorify the stars. I do not like the way the game is presented today, it is presented for casual mainstream fans who just want a hero not [I]actual[/I] sport/basketball fans who want to see and understand a good game.[/QUOTE]

That's why I like certain announcers like Steve Kerr. He tells it like it is and has better insight than most, and doesn't get caught up in the star power as much.

[QUOTE=dynasty1978]The recycled, tired cliches, counter-arguments, and arbitrary stats are what get me most. I blame ESPN primarily for lowering the intelligence of basketball followers by pushing their TV "analysts", bias web content, and contrived first take debates.

Examples of eye-rolling commentary:
"makes players around him better"
"replace player x with player y and the team is better/worse"
"team is better without star player x"

Too many variables to make simple-minded statements and pass them off as credible.[/QUOTE]

Totally feel you man. That's why a lot of casual hoop fans blurt out sh*t like their facts since that's what they've been conditioned to believe. There's a lot of ways to manipulate fans' perception of a team or player by showing biased angles and making them appear factual.

Off-T, they should seriously ditch those coach interviews every other Q. Retarded as f*ck.

Remember back in the day where being athletic and tall meant you had the opportunity to be the GOAT basketball player?

[QUOTE=CavaliersFTW]ESPN, NBAtv, TNT. All of it.

NBA analysis today is all about hero-name dropping. "Can Kobe/Lebron/Durant pull out this win" Did "Kobe/Lebron/Durant" do something athletic tonight.

Nobody talks about actual basketball on tv. Nobody talks about great on-the-floor teamball and playmaking. It's literally all about creating stories about _____ star player willing their team to victory against ______ star player on the opposing team and above the rim highlights. It's all smoke and mirrors and no meat and potatoes. I love watching older Lakers games with Chick Hearn or games where Bill Russell is doing color commentating because they actually add insight to plays that are developing and they didn't just glorify the stars. I do not like the way the game is presented today, it is presented for casual mainstream fans who just want a hero not [I]actual[/I] sport/basketball fans who want to see and understand a good game.[/QUOTE]

Well, I don't know if "nobody" today discusses it on tv. Doug Collins used to be pretty good at it(he should stick to tv and away from my Sixers). Overall, I agree, though. It's marketing, man. That's what sells at the end of the day.
Aside from TV, Charley Rosen discusses a very traditional view of basketball, and hates just like you the "hero ball" mentality. I can't stand hero ball mentality either, and it usually caters to younger and less sophisticated fans.

Also, this "hero ball" mentality contributed to the US getting shut out internationally in basketball from 2002 to 2006. Twice, 02 and 04, we sent a rag tag team of individuals only to discover that Iverson and Marbury couldn't juke and crossover their way to the Olympic Gold against dug in defenses from the Euros and Argentinians, and even the Puerto Ricans. Surprise surprise, a team of individuals cannot beat a real team.

Sorry to say that Iverson contributed heavily to this "hero ball" mentality during the early 2000's. I love his competitiveness being from Philly and all, but he was the poster boy of "hero ball".

Fortunately, the influence of Coach K with Team USA, the influx of international players and concepts, plus rules changes in 2002 regarding allowing of zones and others have begun to change a lot of "hero ball" with teams like the Spurs leading the charge. It is still a problem, however.

[QUOTE=Pointguard]Where were those articles. Please share a couplel[/QUOTE]

pretty much anything zach lowe from grantland writes is great

sbnation has a ton of great blogs, espns truhoop network too. id mostly read cavs blogs from there, but other teams' blogs are pretty good from bits ive seen.

draftexpress is great for draft stuff, hpbasketball is very good, but a bit, abstract? not sure how to describe it, but very different.

the point forward nba blog at sports illustrated is pretty good too.

or i just follow a handful of writers on twitter, and whenever they write soemthing, they will link to it, guys like; zach lowe, kevin arnovitz, beckley mason, tim ziller, jared dublin, brett korenmos, rob mahoney, john schumann, tom halberstroh, kirk goldsberry.

[QUOTE=rlee]Michaelray: hand on the side of the ball is not palming/carrying. Per the NBA rules, the hand must be under the ball, bringing the dribble to a pause. [url]http://www.nba.com/videorulebook/category.html?cid=77[/url][/QUOTE]

They cannot dribble from side of the ball from 60s to 80s.
Look at great ball-handler like oscar,pistol,tiny archibald ,isiah thomas,
If they could push the side of the ball to change direction,
it would be much more easier to penetrate.
its strictly called palming then.

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