by: OD Sports Guy

First things first, the most important priority, (and my obvious bias) BRING THE SUPERSONICS BACK TO SEATTLE! That wrong has to be righted. Following over forty years of loyal dedication from fans, one of the NBA’s Champions and the 13th largest media market in the United States not having an NBA team is a travesty. For the record out of the top 20 media markets only Tampa and Seattle don’t have an NBA team. Tampa obviously is in a state that has 2 NBA teams. Just a reminder Seattle doesn’t have a team, not because they didn’t have the support or the success but because the state didn’t want to offer public funds for a modern arena. I won’t go into details or mention the villains involved, majority being our own, check out Sonicsgate on YouTube for that, video is also on the hoops page. We have rectified the arena situation, the NBA has grown new sources of revenue, Mr. Commissioner Adam Silver it’s time to include Seattle back into the fold. Ideally in conjunction with the number one draft pick in the AJ Dybantsa draft, but I’ll take what I can get.

Referees are far too involved in the game in some aspects and not enough where they’re needed. This is where the NBA needs to improve the most. The interruption of the flow of the game happens far too often. All of the replay reviews, challenges, flagrant reviews are detrimental to the enjoyment of the viewer.  Determining flagrant fouls with the directive in place being subjective would be totally fine. They rarely happen, it won’t be a big deal to avoid countless replay cameras for each occurrence. All of the other reviews should have a staffer of the NBA or in each arena viewing the replays and communicating the result without much delay. Make the referees job easier. My biggest gripe is not calling obvious illegal violations! PLEASE CALL TRAVELING!! This isn’t even basketball we’re watching. It’s entirely ridiculous the amount of traveling, palming/”carrying” and double dribble violations that occur unpenalized in each contest. You clearly see there’s been a mandate not to enforce calls on those violations and it severely cheapens your product. You cannot, in the highest level of basketball, allow such elementary rules of the game be violated in hopes of preserving highlights. It’s maddening watching 4-5 steps for a layup or 2-3 step backs on a jump shot, it’s illegal PLEASE STOP IT, DO NOT ALLOW IT ANY LONGER. TELL THE REFEREES TO MAKE THOSE CALLS, I CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE!!

 The NBA has done some cool things to improve and accommodate the players. Some of the rule changes in recent years have improved the game. Reducing the time allowed to get the ball past half court from 10 seconds down to 8 seconds is a great rule to speed the game up and allowing defenses to apply pressure to create more turnovers which felt like it was more of an occurrence than recent years’ past. Along those same lines, resetting the shot clock to 14 seconds rather than 24 seconds on offensive rebounds and second possessions was a great rule change. One more thing I’d like them to add is not being allowed to inbound the ball into the backcourt once you’ve advanced the ball to the front court. Offenses should be challenged to only using one end of the court to inbound the ball. Where the NBA is lacking is the inclusion of former NBA players into the competition committee. At the moment it is comprised of a selection of owners, executives and some NBAPA members as I understand it. The competition committee has failed the product. Worst term I have ever heard in sports is “FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT!!” To almost eliminate any physicality, any adherence to an offensive player is outrageous and completely against competition. That term and that ideology should be permanently eliminated. It is always about the product, please don’t cheat it. Ask more of your participants, not less of the product. Players have to contribute more to this game that has given them so much. The league has compromised a lot to acquiesce to the players. More rest, less training camp and practices (which I believe is a factor in these devastating injuries) , less back to back games, etc. Still they’re asking for less games and/or shorter games. For the record I would be completely turned off if the NBA took such measures. A more demanding sport like the NFL continues to look at adding more games with the damaging toll each game takes, yet players in the NBA softness are driving for even easier conditions and less work with never before seen compensation. Your viewership dwindled because of the lack of competitiveness shown on the court, the lack of creativity and innovation, the redundancy of style of play and of course the bloviated statistics garnered due the softness, not only of the players but also the way the game is designed to be played. It’s a far cry from the game I fell in love with in my father’s and uncle’s time in the 80s and my time in the 90s and 2000s. Please allow physicality back in the game. I saw some of this improve quite a bit in this year’s playoffs which was encouraging. We or at the very least myself saw the best brand of basketball that I’ve seen in quite some time. It’s very tiresome to see the same 2-3 leading players with the ball at the top of the key looking for a screen for an advantageous matchup that leads to a lot of dribbles and a shot or drive and kick to a teammate standing around for 20 seconds of the shot clock. There is a lack of good coaches out there, the NBA should look to improve that and should start at much lower levels. Nonetheless coaches in the league are powerless and always on the hot seat. You have to adhere to the stars and if you don’t have immense success immediately your days are numbered. Veteran NBA players are underutilized and almost extinct. I understand the value of putting more resources into a young player with incredible potential but there is a medium there that teams should find value in but have decided to do away with.

For one the NBA should probably move on from divisions at this point and stick to the 2 conferences. I’d like them to allow taunting and bantering with each other without the threat of a technical foul or ejection. It’s how myself and countless others saw the game and played the game growing up. It’s healthy, it breeds more competition and most of all it can lead to amazing rivalries, which sadly the NBA has none of at the moment. Please stop the overbearing censorship, it doesn’t do anyone any good. If the fear is it would lead to violence then increase the penalty on any violence. So much so that it would be obvious to everyone not to attempt. This is the highest level of the game in the world, everyone with aspirations in basketball wants to be in the NBA. Personally I don’t like the zone defense being allowed in the NBA. These are the top players in the world, if you’re a liability on the court you should be so skilled at your specialty that your team is willing to sacrifice what it might cost them at what you don’t do well to get playing time. For all others you shouldn’t see time and zone defenses allow that to happen. The creativity in the different machinations of defenses has also fallen by the wayside because of that and the willingness to just switch every match up. The game simply got lazy. But defense, rebounding are integral parts of the game. Where a team might not be able to hold their own against a powerful defense they used to be able to depend on different facets of the game to be a worthy adversary. Now the NBA is just an arms race, again because of the game design and the lack of physicality. Until the 2025 playoffs, I believe we’re seeing a shift in philosophy finally. However, former players such as Kevin Garnett, Isiah Thomas, Larry Bird, Reggie Miller and others who have given so much to this game and really care about it should be included in the NBA Competition Committee so we don’t sway the pendulum too much to any one side and get back the product we’ve always loved.

Things I don’t like the NBA has added are the extra awards such as Clutch Player of the Year, Western and Eastern Conference MVPs. It feels like the success of listing and talking about players accolades on television has inspired this. The addition of the NBA Cup also is very unnecessary. It doesn’t offer any more excitement or draw any more attention. I understand the concept and what they were trying to achieve here, as the Champions League in Europe for soccer is a highly anticipated and watched event. The difference is the NBA is it, it’s where all the top players in the world come to play it doesn’t have a rival league within the game of basketball. In soccer the greatest players are spread out through different leagues, so they need these other avenues to get them on the same stage. That’s not the case with the NBA. The awards feel desperate for more tv fodder, they’re unnecessary and don’t tell us much the current awards don’t already do. But they don’t do anything that would discourage me from the game. The NBA Cup however doesn’t make any sense. I would love it if they just created a NCAA type of tournament for the teams that miss the playoffs to determine draft order. That would be something I’d intently be paying attention to. Tampering with the game or better yet experimenting is something they should do with the all-star break. I love the idea of the USA vs. The World in the all-star game. While also adding a one on one tournament to the other festivities, that would be a beautiful weekend. But that is where you should try things. 

I’m not sure how much the NBA has control in the production of the coverage of their game, but if they do have considerable influence this is a major correction they need to make. ESPN has always done a terrible job with their NBA product. Both in terms of production and the selection of their talent outside of the combination of Mark Jackson and Jeff Van Gundy. Their other shows on their network are constantly involved in inane subjects in hopes of having viral moments offering absolutely no substance. I’d like the NBA to be involved in building narratives and the selection of talent if possible. All that being said, in my opinion this was the best NBA season in years. I think it is steering in the right direction and the next wave of stars definitely made their mark this season. Superstars such as Nikola Jokić, Luka Dončić, the mvp Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Anthony Edwards and the inevitable emergence of Victor Wembanyama the NBA is in great hands with the next generation of stars. What’s not occurring is the proper promotion of the bevy of stars the league has. We need to see these guys more, Lamelo Ball, Paolo Banchero and others need their games on tv more. The NBA is beyond the dependency of a superstar or two. There’s a host of great players that should be featured by the league. In the aftermath of the first Michael Jordan retirement I’m sure there were serious concerns of viewership and interest in the 93-94 season. But that season won by the Houston Rockets, saw an average television rating of 4.6 on NBC. This rating was part of NBC’s broadcast partnership with the NBA, during which the league’s popularity rose significantly in the 1990s, according to Wikipedia. The previous season (1992-93) had a slightly higher rating of 5.0. The 1994-95 season saw a further increase to 5.1.  So they grew in popularity with the existing and especially the upcoming stars. Follow that same model and feature the full breadth of great talent your league has to offer.