Adam Silver: “People love scoring, the one thing I think maybe that the league over-calibrated in terms of offense at times, because what fans clearly love too, is defense… they wanna see physical defense.”
Fans want to see less FTs and less commercials.
On less platforms
With more Blake Griffin
He’s so good, he needs to be the face of NBA studio stuff the way the NFL went crazy for Romo, the NBA should be going crazy for him. He’s chill, funny, insightful, has good chemistry, is very positive to the players but also will criticize and not just be an ass kisser. He will tell real stories for humor or to illustrate a point.
Positive to the players is a big plus for me.
Need less dinos who don’t even watch the game and just chirp about how “soft” or whatever this era is.
The post-career JJ Watt of basketball
Or even JJ Redick, pre-coaching
BG is so lit, his insight, ability to speak properly mixed with appropriate amount of humour is so good.
hes by far the funniest NBA player ever. Shaq aint got shit on dude
Shaq is only funny if you’re a HS kid 🤣, his humour is capped at laughing at others material
I’d take him replacing Kenny with the guys.
Bro what? Kenny has chemistry with the guys, it doesn’t matter if Blake is a funnier individual you can’t just plug 4 funny guys and make a show like inside.
It’s about the whole group chemistry
Ye that’s a solid point
As a longtime Kenny Smith hater, nothing could be better.
I’m also not a fan but he plays an important role as the straight man and voice of reason along with Ernie. Gotta have a balance
The guys have been friends with kenny for like 40 years now.
They are likely going to retire as a group. He’s been sitting next to Ernie since before chuck. I dont always love Kenny but it’d be weird to just replace him because “younger and funny”.
I honestly think if espn tried replacing one of them they would all call it a day
And less Ty Lue
This part is so important, the fact that they didn’t structure the TV deals that you can buy the NBA package and watch every game but maybe the amazon nbc espn games include commercials no matter what tier you’re on and they get money per nba package viewer or something sucks. Needing 4 different subs to watch the Lakers means ill just pirate until they figure it out.
I miss living in phoenix… Matt ishbia may be horrible at building a team, but damn he made it easy to watch games for locals. Anyway, sailing the high seas from Colorado now
*Fewer
I’ve always been a huge stickler on this, until just this year when I discovered that this idea came from a single man in 1770 (grammarian Rober Baker), who simply declared in a book of his that using “fewer” sounded more elegant. I care far less about it now.
Edit: RoberT 😝
*care fewer about it now ;)
Grammar dork here: Regardless of what some 1770s dude said, it’s not about elegant; it’s just correct standard English grammar.
In English we generally use ‘fewer’ for count nouns (things you can count, like apples, people, platforms), and ‘less’ for non count nouns (things you measure, like time, honor, aura).
So for ‘platforms’ the academically grammatically correct word would be *fewer.’ (FWIW it doesn’t bother me if people say less).
If you’re a grammar nerd, why did you capitalize “Regardless”? =)
Also, regarding your point, can you explain the reason why we do that?
My point is that that is where your second paragraph even came from.
This cant be true because Stannis Baratheon referenced it in Westoros in the 15th century
And compete removal of all sports betting trash
”“certain streaming sites”” tweaking out every game cause of their parlays man it ruins everything.
Fewer.
You’re/your and There/their/they’re get all the hype but less when it should be fewer is one that just keeps slipping by mostly undetected.
Thanks Stannis
There’s another Antetokoumpo?
House Baratheon’s coat of arms is a stag. Coincidence? I think not.
1000000000%
This is why I usually just watch a highlight of the game the next day. Can’t stand all the commercials and FTs
I record the game I’m going to watch so I can bypass the time outs and half time. I record about 25-30 minutes and end up watching the last quarter live
Chris smoove was the best medium ground for me. Some highlights are too damn long, his was the sweet spot for me.
Players will adjust if they start calling the game consistently. Maybe they don’t need 3 gather steps to be consistently ignored.
start giving out technicals if players annoy the refs too much. I really hate all the bitching players do to the refs every single game on every call. They do it because it works the NBA has to step in and fix it.
I remember that season in like…2004? 2005? where they made a big deal about trying to cut out the player bitching. Slapped Tim Duncan with a technical for laughing lol. The problem, as always with basketball rules, is that so much is just kind of interpretive to the ref in question, and subject to abuse that way. Ref likes a player? Lenient. Doesn’t respect a rookie? Technical.
Just watch the feeds that have no commercials, just the arena stuff. Much better. Although, you see quickly that every arena does the same things.
it’s better but the problem is that that time exists, there are almost 2 hours of non basketball in every game, whether I watch what are the parlays or some dude doing some show on the court I’m not watching what I want to watch
That sounds great, how do you watch those feeds?
If the answer is league pass where local teams are blacked out, or illegal streaming sites, do you see how that might be a problem for the average basketball fan?
the average basketball fan is probably 🏴☠️
Pirating, by sheer statistics, as a method that requires any amount of technical know-how, will always be a small minority even if a seemingly large number of individuals.
Most people will just not watch instead of pirating. That isn’t good either.
Just gotta move to a different state than your team and also be a fan of a bad team that doesn’t get nationally televised games. Easy
Free throws during Silvers era have been the lowest ever literally so if people want to see less free throws why did they like 80s/90s when there were way more of them?
Literally all 10 lowest free throw attempts average in a season have been under Silver
It’s more the manipulation that leads to some of the FT’s today.. in the 90’s/early 2000’s the FT’s were due to actual fouls, not an offensive player grabbing the defensive player and flailing in the air.
That is not true at all, players getting bullshit free throws has been happening since day 1, this happens in every sport
If you say shit like this you 100% didn’t watch, there were so many players early 2000s who did rip through moves, did bullshit moves that they had to literally make rules for and they still averaged so many free throws
This literally shows you why fans are morons they say shit like this when every other era had this, ethical free throws during the 90s/2000s but now they are not ethical lmao, go watch some games please
Didn’t MJ and guys from that decade often pump fake and then jump into guys?
MJ wasn’t the beginning of basketball you know
No superstar whistles have been a thing for a very long time Cuban and the Mavs filed an official protest for the 2006 finals against the Heat and Dwayne Wade
This is not true at all. I’m not sure why people love to mindlessly parrot this take. Players have always drawn fouls in “unethical” ways. There’s wasn’t some magic switch in 2000 where players arbitrarily decided to become unethical lol
You’re being disingenuous. I’ve watched basketball for a long time and yes, players like Kobe and DWade loved getting players up in the air to then jump on them for FTs, but there’s nothing even close to comparable to what’s being done now, and that has a lot to do with how games are officiated now. Back then a lot of these fouls that guys like Harden, Embiid, and Shai draw would just be non-calls, and these guys would have to play differently, but offensive players are initiating contact on drives and getting to the line too damn much
Yeah l feel like the big change in officiating recently comes down to this. They are allowing more defensive physicality, but it’s only really allowed against guys who don’t exaggerate contact. The end result is a guy like Jaylen Brown getting hacked all night when he’s finishing through contact without calls while someone like Shai benefits from touch fouls all night.
It’s the flopping that’s different.
Jordan was definitely baiting fouls.
This is true, though it’s worth mentioning that so far this season fta/g is the highest it’s been since like 2006 at 25 per game (that’s 4 more than last year).
I think all the players been studying shai
Give me that free flowing game international rules like in the Olympics
What? I want to watch Austin Reaves shoot 14 FTs a night. If the Lakers don’t end the season tops in FTAs again why should I watch?
Tune into any game randomly and there is a good chance in the next 30 seconds there is gonna be a stoppage of play
Commercials during FTs
Refs already got this message, and decided to beta test it on Giannis before rolling out to the rest of the league 😑
After listening to him for 10 years now I get the feeling that Adam Silver pretty much has no idea why anyone would like watching basketball
Adam don’t be outside.
He don’t got internet
Adam drunk off blood boys
Lol
We are watching in real time as Adam discovers that NBA fans like basketball
I mean he tweaks weird things following trends and feedback but he’s lucky because basketball is cool and the players are cool. It’s whatever the opposite metaphor is of polishing a turd.
Tarnishing gold
I’m like King Midas in reverse, everything I touch turns to shit
Turdding a polished basketball
You can try to cover gold with shit but underneath it’s still gold.
I like when Adam Silver talks about his Skims^TM underwear
Holy shit, I never thought of that either
They like offense and they like defense, just not huge fans of special teams. He clearly understands fans.
He’ll always be my goat for removing the jump ball after every scoring possession
It was necessary for player safety
I’m not convinced he knows the rules or actually watches any of the games, other than the ones he has to attend for work lol
He’s far TOO business oriented. Every sports league should be the sport first, business second. It would work out better for business long term to view it this way. They found the one candidate who I dont think cares about the game of basketball whatsoever
Yeah, because the owners far prefer a guy whose mission in life is to make them more money (which he’s done) vs a superfan
Why would he? It’s a sport better enjoyed through highlights
He’s a multi generational lawyer turned executive. Was in a frat, went to law school but barely worked as an actual lawyer before joining the NBA. He’s not a ball boy moving up the ranks. This is America after all. Money is the bottom line and as long as that line goes up he’s doing his job.
What?
He joined the NBA in 1992, 35 years ago, literally working up the ranks lol
They mean he was always on the business side not the basketball side I’m pretty sure
“People love basketball because it makes me money!”
Fans love our revenue streams!
Fans don’t know what they want either. You have fans complain defense is too soft while others will call the tough physical teams dirty and jailhouse hoops
Fans want to see competition. One team somehow allowed to be physical while the other can’t isn’t competition, like last years baffling playoffs reffing. And certain players getting baby soft calls while other players get mauled with swallowed whistles isn’t competition.
it is called a rigged league. It is not even a sport at this point. It is a spectacle, an entertainment product like wrestling.
Honestly you see it in other sports, what fans want is different styles and imperfections and analytics has more or less killed that. Saw it in baseball the same way, every player realized the three true outcomes was what to play towards and every player started doing the same thing. I think nowadays you have some different identities but analytics makes a lot of it sameish and you just have teams that do it better.
It’s partially why people love kobe, he took the bad shots. Those shots would be completely computerized out of the shot chart today. But it mixes things up for the fan.
The pitch clock, throw-overs and bigger bases did wonders to increase basestealing.
Manfred has done a good job of adjusting to the analytic centralization of baseball. I would argue Silver has not.
I think most fans agree that interior defense and body-to-body contact is too strictly called. Where you see diverging opinions is what level of hand/forearm checking is appropriate.
This dude talks about basketball like Lucille Bluth talks about bananas.
No wonder why the all-star breaks suck
I was thinking “is this guy fckn moron?” While reading adams caption.
He still hasnt figured out we hate seeing ppl travel to Yucatán and back
Fans want to be able to watch players play defense without jumping out of the way for fear of getting called for a foul if the attacker jumps into them.
I think a general reevaluation of a defender’s right to their own space would be warranted.
FWIW it applies sometimes the other way too - if you’re a defender and you lean your face over an offensive players legs, you shouldn’t be rewarded for getting smacked in the face
if you’re a defender and you lean your face over an offensive players legs, you shouldn’t be rewarded for getting smacked in the face
I agree, attackers deserve their right to their space. I just think the current way of defenders needing to be stone still to not get called for a foul is ridiculous. I like the new rules about giving shooters space to land. But defenders should be able to play defense with their body if they aren’t initiating contact.
Not exactly the current conversation, but watching offensive fouls called on Wilt are wild compared to how the game is called today.
I just think the current way of defenders needing to be stone still to not get called for a foul is ridiculous. I like the new rules about giving shooters space to land. But defenders should be able to play defense with their body if they aren’t initiating contact.
Totally agree, and I don’t think they’re inconsistent notions. I think the general idea that everyone has a right to their own space shouldn’t be dictated by being on offense or defense (or “stillness” for that matter). If you jump into someone, you shouldn’t be rewarded.
WILD lol
They’re definitely good to have, but I do wish the landing zone calls were more lenient. It’s still the same space concept — we’ve all seen genuinely reckless closeouts, but we’ve all also seen fouls called because a guy pulled up while his defender, who barely moved, was just playing him tight.
I think there should generally be an expectation that offensive players protect themselves. Obviously it might be tough to implement in practice, but in a situation where an offensive player pulls up with a defensive player practically on top of them then I think not having a clean landing zone is on them. Why are they getting rewarded for putting themselves in a dangerous position, isn’t that completely counter productive to the reason for having the rule in the first place?
Exactly. I was watching a game last week where the defense got Austin Reaves into a ‘dead end’. He was surrounded by 3 players with no where to go… so he spazzed out like he had an aneurysm, obviously made contact with a defender and got FTs.
There’s a lot of annoying foul calls but that one stood out to me because the defense literally had him trapped, and then he was rewarded free throws because he initiated contact. Total BS.
He is learning LeBron and Luka
Gotta love that diamond Laker whistle.
The best way I heard it put is to stop officiating based on the offensive player. Watch the defence. Refs should be watching if the defender is using legal defence, not whether the offenders head snaps or they keel over or flail around.
Full agree, but until they take SQBR out of the rulebook, that’s not gonna change.
Jesus look at the NBA’s official example of illegal contact vis-a-vis SQBR.
The O/D are both moving in straight lines towards the basket. The O veers into the D with a little bump and then keels over like they were body-checked, FOUL.
Crazy how rules are more fair in your average pickup game. If you haven’t beaten your defender, you haven’t beaten them.
And if you want to try to finish through the contact, you better make sure you take a tumble to demonstrate your balance was impacted, otherwise (by definition!) it isn’t a foul…
Flopping is literally embedded in the rulebook
Man runs into another man, and it impeded his speed and balance. Well, yeah, it tends to do that. Perhaps don’t run into the defender?
Is it just me or did the dribbler initiated the contact in that clip and the narrator straight up lied?
Yes he did, the defender is in a straight line and level with the dribbler who is curving his run…
What always irritates me is the concept of legal defensive position. The way it’s interpreted is that by default, defenders are fouling if they are not in proper position. If you’re running beside a guy and he veers into you, it’s a foul because you were not square in front of them.
I think the default position should be the defenderis position is legal until it commits an act that makes it a violation. 95% of contact interpretation would be the same, buy you eliminate the cases where the refs are like .. well his shoulder is turned here so he actually isn’t in legal position despite being in between ball and rim.
This is exactly it.
There’s a balance that needs to be struck and I think we’ve skewed quite a bit too far toward one extreme, giving offensive players an advantage that often feels unfair, where they can lean, throw, or contort their bodies toward defenders in a way that yields an advantage even when defenders are doing whatever they can to remain in sensibly legal guarding position.
In contrast, I also remember what basketball looked like in the 1970s, when offensive players could do little more than breathe on a defender before being whistled for an offensive foul. I get that the pendulum swings to and fro, but I’m ready for it to swing back a little bit toward the defense without heading back to the ‘70s.
They have at least tried something like this and it was the superstars who rebelled and the league caved.
I despise when players decide they can’t get a good shot so they cosplay as M.Bison and Psycho Crusher into the defender while chucking up a shot with no chance of going on.
Brunson and Luka are the most egregious with that one.
It seems like Brunson’s signature move is drive past the defender into the lane, figure out where the defender is, slow/shift into his path, and force the defender to jump out of the way or get called for a foul.
It’s unentertaining.
That’s called a “veteran move” or a “high iq play”
Part of the problem is sports media rewarding that kind of play
The problem is ref rewarding this. Jumping into a defenser should not be a foul. You are dumb to jump into him, get fucked
sounds similar to franz wagner tbh. get the ball -> full speed until eurostep lay->get the and 1
fuck 50 ft games, so boring. bro im waking up at 2-4 am to watch games, just to watch commercials, betting, commercials for betting or people standing around at the ft line.
Exactly. Any offense initiated contact should be a no call at worst. I don’t need to be in “perfect guarding position” if someone slams into me, even after a gather.
Clean up this one call, players would adjust in like two weeks, and the game would be infinitely better.
Not even an offensive foul. Just more no calls! Make players actually try and score, we would get so many more incredible baskets and less bullshit.
The Deni Avdija school of contact. Bulldoze yourself into the defender, slow down right before the contact and collect free throws.
Refs: jesus christ man make up your mind
“Calibrate the officiating”…change the rules on the fly per usual. Enforce only when you want. Such a whack situation officiating is in this league
Right? And how is this a new thing for Silver. Peak Harden was an absolute beast, but it was unwatchable basketball for neutral fans.
And taking away the bail out calls will not make SGA and Luka less watchable. Theyll just stop baiting as much, theyre smart players. Honestly might even make their games more amazing to witness.
Honestly might even make their games more amazing to witness.
100% this. I find Shai absolutely miserable and infuriating to watch in part because you can see how good his game is, but it winds up being overshadowed by the bullshit flopping/foul-bating. Same with Luka to some degree. If you’re truly a superstar, don’t rely on fake-ass fouls for free throws and let us see you actually ball-out.
Edit: look at how much SGA’s credibility as a star is undermined by his baby-shit soft whistle.
I love that there was a highlight on the front page yesterday that said ‘unwatchable’ tongue in cheek… and completely ignored that the defenders didn’t even try to get close to Shai because they know they can’t lmao.
The way they just change things on a whim is out of control. More than offense or defense or any other one thing, I want consistency, which is the last thing you’ll find in an NBA game.
It’s not just that things change so often but that it’s never made clear how it’s changed. Like when the officiating changed after the ASB in 2024, people just had to find out by letting the games play out. There was no rule change, not even an informal notice given. All we got were leaked out rumors that Silver was embarrassed by the poor defense in the ASG, so he decided to crank up the “Defense” dial.
Oh so people like watching the whole game? Lol
Seriously lmao
Adam Silver loves basketball!
People like scoring, so we give Shai the red carpet to the basket. But people also like defense, so we let Dort/Caruso tackle the opposition.
We want to see defense. We don’t want to see freethrows if someone breathes on you or if you jump into the defender. We want to see scoring when you have to actually try to score.
The current approach seems like the exact opposite of what people want: mauling under the rim is completely acceptable, and breathing on opponents in the midrange or from 3 is verboten. Now you can’t even high-five 3 point shooters, which was the natural result of legal closeouts.
Embiid is the perfect example of how broken the system is. It should never be more efficient for a 7 foot, 300 pound superstar to be jacking up shitty jumpers from 6 feet rather than taking the ball to the rim.
It’s craaazy to watch the whistle on say Giannis or Jokic vs. Austin Reaves.
I know you say Reaves but we all know who you mean
Reaves and Luka are easily the worst floppers of the 25-26 season so far. The offball flopping Luka does is a tragedy
[removed]
This guy gets it ^
All 3 of em do it.
yeah and as bad as it has been in the past, watching two guys on the same team average 11.9 and 9.8 FTA’s per game is BRUTAL
its wild how you’re not allowed to say it anymore
This place is heavily curated now by the league. Posts get taken down that are negative towards players they don’t want bad things said about. Agendas get pushed here a lot by big players in the media. It’s too bad, used to be a more fun place to talk ball.
I remember a picture of KAT dunking over Durant 4ish years ago getting like 14k upvotes and getting removed. I think it’s been going on for a while
Have you watched Reeves lately? He’s getting the benefit of the Lakers whistle to an absurd degree.
Lately? This has always been his game. Hes just white and on the lakers so he avoids a shit ton of criticism. I been calling this fish out for years.
I mean, not really. Do you mean SGA?
I used Reaves as an example because Giannis is obviously better than Reaves. We’re talking about a multiple time MVP, champion, FMVP, 9xAS, 9xALLNBA who’s still in his prime who teams are fouling intentionally vs. a 27 year old with 0 accolades and a 15.4 career PPG whose true shooting has jumped 8% to 69% on 29PPG.
Only the stanliest of Lakers fans can say that makes sense. All these efficiency stats we’re seeing out of guys like AR and yes, SGA, are directly linked to a) a million free throws, and b) not being able to properly defend them because of said free throws.
It’s the same thing that happened with Embiid and Harden. Generational flopping is getting rewarded and no one wants to see it except the team that’s winning because of it.
That’s why he had to work on his game away from the basket. People see all the foul grifting but when he posts up and tries to back guys down they just maul the shit out of him and because he’s so much bigger he never gets the calls.
i’m basically repeating what you’re saying, it’s crazy to me that high-fiving a 3 point shooter is a foul now bc it used to be the golden standard for closeouts. i always knew if i had a good closeout if i high-fived the shooter.
Fr just scoring and scoring and scoring is not entertaining to me lol I wanna see players earn baskets whether it be a tough shot or working the defense in order to get an easy shot. Just simply putting the ball in the basket doesn’t just equate entertaining
Nah, I want every game to have 83 free throws or whatever absurd amount we saw last night-that’s entertainment.
They want to see basketball. Not referees jerking each other off.
Let’s not intermingle two separate spectator sports
The refs call what they’re told to call
Then make it so that offensive players jumping into people isn’t a foul on the defender lol. This mf can’t make up his mind, being a ref under the silver regime must suck a fart. ‘We want physical defense’ ‘we want 30+ points a game to be easier’ constantly conflicting narratives
There needs to be language about lateral motion contact being allowed by defenders. Players need to be able to drive past moving defenders to get to the basket.
Every basketball coach ever: move your feet when you play defense
NBA refs: the player on defense was moving when the offensive player barged into him. Defensive fould.
there already is, they just need to enforce it. defenders are allowed to occupy space. offensive players are not allowed to dislodge them
they just don’t enforce most of the rules concerning offensive player movements
the league didn’t like the physicality and defensive first style of the late 90s and early 2000s, the back to back pistons finals (ending the the slugfest pistons/spurs) made them introduce the freedom of movement rules, things have just tipped further and further ever since
The fascinating thing for me is that some fanbases have become in favor of fouls getting called and some against it because of their favorite players.
Why does ANYONE think how fouls are called better in the NBA compared to how FIBA does it with far more non-calls on blatant attempts to get get to the line?
FIBA doesn’t do that, Luka is averaging 15 FTA for Slovenia, he averaged 6 free throws on 25 mins per game at age 17 in the Euroleague
Best players on heliocentric offenses will force you to call free throws no matter what, they are an entire offense like that you will have to do it
Go look at Manu Ginobili playing back then in Euroleague and for Argentina drawing free throws like prime Harden
Unrelated imo. Yes, good players are good, and the only way you stop them once they have the ball is a foul. The “if you foul, then make it count” approach is what gave us the technicals and flagrants, and that’s fair in my book to protect players.
Having said that, FIBA has fouls, sure, but all the absolute bullshit is gone. Jumping into defenders is a no-call, can’t travel as much (can still travel a ton tbh), the rip-through is called less, all that.
FIBA has dumb rules too like being unable to put your hand in front of a players’ face.
Just say thunder fans man lol
Sixers fans a couple years ago too. Maybe they have changed with Maxey being their star. Luka fans like the fouls getting called too.
I feel like Luka and ar really turned on the foul baiting this year because they saw how the winds were blowing. I’d prefer everyone actually attempt real shots instead of baiting (Luka and AR) and I’d prefer that they start calling offensive fouls for all the push offs (SGA). Rip throughs should be no calls. If a defenders body and arm are stationary, it should be on the offensive player to avoid it
I haven’t heard a single person ever say they like more fouls being called.
I feel like I see this type of thing often on this sub, people forming a problem out of a purely made up talking point
I really hate this mentality that scoring is what people want to see.
I bet there’s not one basketball fan on the planet that says “I hate defense”.
Silver seems to think scoring means high scores, which is a ridiculous takeaway.
Fans don’t want to see gaudy box scores. They wanna see highlights: dunks, blocks, crazy shots in a phonebooth, and frenetic play; not flopping, FTs, and stoppage.
Crazy box scores also get attention if a player has a big night it will get upvoted on here.
There’s so many 45+ pt games now that it’s pointless. I remember when a player getting 30+ pts was considered a big night.
First half of last year and this year there’s been a crazy box score every night
Go watch a game recap video for NFL. It’ll be 15 minutes long and show a good mix of both offensive and defensive possessions.
Now watch one for the NBA. It’s like 90% offense, the ONLY time they show defense is if it leads directly to an offensive score lol.
Tells me a lot about what they think the fans want to see.
Yes thank you! It frustrates me because you can’t get a handle for how the team is when all you see are offensive successes.
I think you are wrong. Defense was literally illegal for decades and the fans didn’t care.
Didn’t people hate the deadball era?
People say this in defense of their favorite era, but in terms of marketability, the NBA was still at its most popular and producing global and cultural icons, Kobe, Vince, and Iverson as examples. Younger fans will say low scoring games are boring as if the most popular sports in the world arent low scoring.
Teams have been trying real hard to emulate what they saw with Indiana and OKC last year but doing the whole super physical full court pressure with less talented defenders tend to actually make a lot of defenses look worse especially with the regular season whistle (Indy wasn’t actually that good defensively in the regular season either last year partly because someone like Nesmith was in foul trouble a lot)
That might be part of it but there’s also a lot of inconsistency.
Some nights when I’m watching games, replays show that a defender has their hand on an offensive player pretty regularly and there’s no calls. Other nights, an offensive player pretends he’s getting pushed at the slightest touch.
NBA refs have to do a better job of not letting offensive players call their own fouls. An offensive player’s reaction to getting touched cannot be what triggers a whistle. Its as simple as that.
A lot of the reason OKC can do it is because of the depth. Dort can still play aggressively even in foul trouble, because we’ve got Caruso, Cason, Dub, SGA, and Mitchell all available to take over guarding the other team’s best guy, and then the drop off is not terrible to a Wiggins or Joe. Other teams don’t have 7 All-Defense level guys, so their good defenders have to pace themselves. Coach D has also made it his defensive philosophy to spend fouls like a resource, so the players don’t have to think twice about applying pressure defensively.
It’s a copy-cat league. Same thing happened with a lot of teams trying to space the floor and shoot 3s when their personnel just aren’t good 3-point shooters.
This dude just needs to stop grandstanding and acting like a puppet master who influences the trends of the league.
For starters, no more point spread and betting ads every 5 minutes.
The idea of loving the entire game is just an alien fucking concept isn’t it
Allow defensive strategies, regain back some of the dribbling rules, pull back on that gather step rule, voila you have organized basketball being played again. Organizations will be able to build teams the way they want it, and not have to follow one trend of playing. There will be different styles again and players won’t look like a carbon copy of each other out of the draft. It would look less like playground basketball and a 3 point contest, but you can still have athleticism as it is still the NBA.
“People love scoring” is such a idiotic assessment. People love skill, athleticism, creativity, competitiveness, and fairness in sports.
Nobody loves the free throw fests that end tight games - even though those are scoring. Nobody loves flopping or foul baiting, even though it scores points. Nobody loves genuinely dangerous closeouts even though it is “good defense”. Nobody loves when both teams play 5-out and take turns swinging the ball around until someone shoots an open 3 for the entire game.
People love to see variety, teams that scouted their opponents and came up with creative ways to use their strengths to exploit their opponents’ weaknesses. People love to see elite athletes scoring over difficult contests. People love to see forced turnovers, diabolical ball handling, and passes that thread through defenders to hit openings they didn’t even see.
And while I’m on the subject of what a rancid scrotum Adam Silver is: people also don’t love when you let your favorite GM get away with blatant cap circumvention because you love his stadium so much.
I don’t know….
I am ok with NBA players trying to do both. Strategies are built over entire seasons, not during one game.
What I would like is to watch less degenerate advertising, and most importantly I would love for the NBA to completely disassociate from betting.
Betting is basically one of the main reasons a lot of sports suck now, the suck so much more than before…. Everything eventually leads toward the big advertisers and while I am tired of watching insurance commercials, I straight up despise everything about betting and gambling.
Bunch of degenerates taking criminal money and dressing it up as something that supposedly enhances the sport experience, when in reality it makes every single part of it worse.
But yeah. Adam… I see that the entertainment value somehow always falls on athletes playing a certain way instead of production making sure we get to watch a great game of basketball without constant interruptions.
Ruined the league
Every time this thing speaks, it makes people wonder:
“why do we have an indecisive, nebbishy, extremely strange, creepy, clearly neurotic, alien-human-hybrid, who never played basketball at any significant level, making all the crucial decisions for the leading basketball league on earth ?”
Ayo chill on our vampire looking commissioner 😭
I know right? Even Commissioner Nosferatu has feelings
Because he is only doing what the owners want, and most fans understand that.
Well, maybe change the rules so that defense isn’t outlawed then.
If only there was something he could do.
We just want to see consistency you moron.
Adam Silver is never gonna get it. It’s all marketing lingo and focus groups to this idiot.
People want good basketball, not physical defense. I want to see good defense where no foul is called because the offensive player initiated contact that wasn’t a foul. I guess you could call that FAILED physical offense that gets punished with correct no-calls. If that flopping MF ends up getting put on his ass because the defender held his ground or even defended his space, that’s good too. It’s not physical defense, though. It’s good basketball. The adjusted rules of the modern game, the braindead and ego-driven fucking officials, and adam silver’s focus groups will never allow it though.
No, fans are tired of the flopping and foul baiting. Not calling any individual player out bc theres a lot of players that are doing it and rightly so bc of how the game is officiated.
But I think the general consensus is we’d prefer that the league cracked down on that.
I JUST WANT TO SEE BALL AND MAN.
SHOW YOUR HANDS AND SLIDE YOUR FEET, ADAM.
He’s wrong, we’re here for the timeouts. Please give each team 10 of them and then mandate they save and use at least 5 in the 4th quarter when things are starting to get interesting
We also love superstars being forced out of small markets. And 20 ads every 5 minutes and 20 FTAs for one player alone. Adam Silver just understands the fans so well.
It’s really not even physical defense it’s just the foul baiting and flopping that turn people off from the sport. The flopping has been better but the baiting has became worse post harden cp3 era where now every guard in the nba flinches as a pinky touches them and they get the call almost every time.
There’s also no consistency at all. SGA can pump fake get a guy off his feet, jump into him and get a call. A big like Jokic can put up a fadeaway where the guy is pushing him on his back and he’ll never get the call even though he’s complained about it probably a hundred times a season. Or just any big can get clobbered in the paint and no call is made but a guard gets tapped on the waist going to the rim and gets a call.
Why are people clowning him for this? This is a very positive comment