[OC] I analyzed 1.57 million r/NBA comments to find out who this sub hates most
Josh hart randomly hitting the most hated is hilarious
believe it or not some of it was our own fanbase
Was it the thumb?
The thumb and the fact that he was shooting like 15% from three for a month.
No it can’t be the thumb if you look at the dates on the bottom right..
Is it because he doesn’t shoot the ball whenever he’s open?
yes and people were begging thibs to take him out of the starting line up and he did.
Yup, you can’t see it in the video, but negativity for him actually starts spiking in February. Him and Brunson rising in May is most likely due to the ECF. Haliburton is in the top 10 for a majority of the early season, but actually finishes as the 7th most “loved” player by the end of the finals. I think a lot this sub became Pacers fans in May lol.
he does now!
Definitely why Randle was up there for a long time
And now KAT…
TF you mean “believe it or not” no shit it was y’all
Nintendo Switch thief, so deserved
Lmao, I totally forgot about that.
Honestly, this sub has had so many ridiculous moments in its history that you could make a documentary series out of them
That was disappointing. Can’t look at him the same after that.
Same with Iverson after what happened in Austrailia
knicks got good now people are salty they cant make “lol knicks” jokes anymore
Of course, the Knicks being good have robbed me of one of my favorite pasttimes.
Meanwhile, Bronny being there is sad… dude is probably one of the better professionals I have seen in Lakers’ uniform, while growing to become a useful nba player year after year.
I hate Josh Hart
Josh Hart loves you.
The Jamal Murray hate is millions of Lakers fans mad when he keeps morphing into MJ against them.
Yea, I don’t feel he gets much hate here from the general public. Simmons being up there is weird as well, I feel like he’s not been relevant for ages, but it makes sense for him since OP states it’s per capita hate, not volume. Surprised Gobert isn’t higher, but maybe that’s more players that hate him, like Shaq and Draymond, not so much the fans?
OP, I’d like to see the same thing for pundits. SAS, Skip, Simmons, Sack Lowe, the fart guy, Inside the NBA etc.
Murray’s hate was heavily front-loaded. If you remember, he had a rough Olympics showing and then came into this season dealing with injuries right after signing a massive extension. His playoff run was solid but not bubble Jamal, so the rate stayed elevated.
Gobert is actually 4th in polarization! But Wolves and Jazz fans defend him hard enough to keep his net sentiment from being as extreme as someone like Draymond’s.
The pundit analysis would be incredible but my API bill says otherwise 😂
I was also confused by the Murray hate, until I remembered the part of the Minnesota series where he lost his shit and threw a heat pack onto the court
That’s what I assumed this was about. He made the money sign at the refs in that same game iirc and was just generally crashing out haha. People were pretty off put by it all.
Overpaid players get hated on, I think that is pretty clear from the chart by this methodology.
Wouldn’t be surprised if it’s Jokic fans also tearing him down
Nobody hates on Jokic’s teammates like Jokic’s fans do
The worst apart about Jokic is the Jokic only fans / stans if you will.
And worse, they rock Nuggets flairs, need mods to assign them Jokic stan flairs.
Same with Lebron and Doncic fans too tbh. Lebron fans have hated on and diminished his teammates to uplift him ever since the Heat days but it’s hilarious to now see the war between the Doncic and Lebron fans trying to pin the blame on each others idol on the Lakers sub whenever they lose.
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Jamal did have the ice pack incident against the Wolves.
No reason. Lol dude was throwing shit on the court during a playoff game.
Anthony Edwards threw a chair at a woman and actually hit her in Denver and yall will defend that so why you mad about a heat pack hitting no one and aimed at a ref
No, no. U a bitch.
He a bitch
Murray was obnoxious during our playoff series. Throwing a heat pack onto the court underneath a play is some of the most loser behavior I’ve ever seen from a player who got clamped. No ejection or suspension for that either.
He’s a whiner too which isn’t uncommon but contributes as well. When he’s losing he has bad body language and loves to do the money gesture whenever he doesn’t feel like he’s getting calls. He was throwing towels at the refs too.
He’s not good enough to have a true fanbase to defend him so it’s not that surprising most of the comments about him have negative sentiment.
As an opposing fan I can see some of your points, but that is a lot of hate for a guy who does very well when he plays.
Nah he’s pretty good
As a Jokic and Murray fan from afar, I can vouch that even in the season leading up to the title at the end, the Nuggets subreddit had alot of very vocal Murray critics. I think a lot of it was just driven by (this man is holding Jokic back from cementing his greatness). It didn’t make any sense to me but I think that was the basis.
I think every fanbase has their players that drive them crazy. Sometimes irrationally. In the height of the Beautiful Game era of the Spurs, it felt like Danny Green - who was so serviceable for that era’s build- caught a lot of strays online from Spurs fans.
When I was a kid and the Rockets were in that title era, it was Kenny Smith.
I was surprised by that. Can somebody explain why the hate on Murray? I really don’t know.
It’s already explained for you. Lakers fans despise him and they are the biggest fanbase.
Last season, a large portion of our own fanbase didn’t like him either, due to coming in out of shape and then playing very poorly. Also had some antics off and on the court that were not good.
There were years of people calling him the worst contract in the league.
It was one year lol he just got paid
That would also explain Westbrook. Why are people hating on a 37yr old role player lmao
Bronny being up there is just sad
Legendary haters. He has been fine for a 2nd round pick.
As if Kevin McCullar Jr has been significantly better.
But has he been fine for a LeSperm protege?
With the way people talk about his dad, Bronny being anything not Wemby is already a bust in their eyes
Kevin McCullar catching strays for no reason but he’s probably been as good as bronny in the limited mins he has played, he’s like a mini jhart with an even worse offense
There are no strays for McCullar, but its not like the Lakers made some huge blunder by picking Bronny over the 3 players that got picked after him.
“2nd round” aka nearly the last overall pick.
I dont get how He has hate, yea i can understand and agree to an extent that he made the league due to father….. but how is he top 5 most hated in the nba when we got guys like KD .
It’s a percentage. LeBron/KD/Steph are all hated as fuck but at the same time they have the most amount of fans.
Steph is hated as fuck??
I struggle to think of a current player more admired than him lol
I’d say people hate his fans more than him.
Just like Jokic lmao
yeah he has like 100x less haters than lebron and kd
Everyone who is good will eventually be hated. It’ll come for Wemby at some point too
Why is KD the alternative when we have people like miles bridges to pick from
KD is one of us. Why would we hate him?
“You yourself will always be the worst enemy you can encounter” - Nietzsche
Because for large portions of the entirety of last season the NBA themselves shoved him down our throats. Legit at one point posting just his highlights in individual videos as he shot like 35% from the field lol.
Most people see him as an example of nepotism. No one likes nepotism.
Most people online, maybe. He gets cheered at every arena. 🤷🏽♀️
This is a big difference between chronically online fans and typical fans. He’s a likable kid. Thanasis ain’t getting that reception.
He’s Lebron James son. Of course he’s going to get that pop from all of Lebron’s fans.
Actually the biggest pop I’ve ever witnessed in my life was Bronny checking in the game for 30 seconds
lol this world runs on nepotism
Yeah, and it sucks!
Doesn’t mean that’s a something we should root for.
Nobody likes nepotism
Can we stop with this annoying fake self righteousness? Yes, nepotism is bad. EVERYONE agrees. But for the love of God let’s stop acting like people calling him the most vile shit ever unrelated to basketball is because of a knee jerk disdain for nepotism. Get fucking real.
And honestly, it has made the Bucks worse.
Oh this isn’t about the Antetokounmpos? Weird how that situation is treated with jokes rather than rage.
Also, nepotism has been running society for thousands of years. The fact that people get that upset over some basketball player getting into the NBA as a late 2nd round pick is beyond sad.
Yeah but it’s also not his fault his dad got him drafted. Hate the org not the kid. It’s not his fault he’s not an NBA player.
You can hate me if you want to give me an NBA contract that I don’t deserve.
But he has been perfectly fine compared to the other guys drafted behind him.
Which of those guys also got a guaranteed contract before stepping onto a professional court?
Just look at TA, dude was never hated nearly as much.
I am Shocked that Shai isnt up here.
It’s purely by a percentage of negative comments, not volume.
Also possible that this program isn’t counting both SGA and Shai as the same person
Or FTA and all his other annoying nicknames on here lol youre so right.
FTA kinda funny cmon
Im just mad cause it was so easy to get going lmao
Low hanging fruit the best kind, Westbrick, Chokic, Jamal Worry, Giannis Attemptafreethrow
Simple slander nicknames will always be gold. LeBrick is probably a hall of fame slander name
ason kidd’s prolly my favorite one of these
PB no J is like the full use of that one lol
Is it because he had no J?
yes sir
As far as the missing letter ones go I also always liked Haren
I can’t believe I’ve never heard Attemptafreethrow that’s amazing
It was funny but its been overused to death. No mention of Shai ever avoids free throws. Al-Shaida is way funnier imo
Check the date where it ended lol
Ehh still encompasses last season
Go check his website. Haliburton is #6 most loved player whilst also one of the most hated? Hrmm.. And Shai is top 10 loved but not hated at all?
Something ain’t right because there’s no way that Tyrese Haliburton, Jamal Murray or Josh Hart are more hated than Ja Morant, Dillon Brooks or Grayson Allen. In fact those 3 don’t even appear anywhere in the top 20 hated list?
And if it’s a quantity problem there’s no way Ben Simmons is more talked about and hated in 2026 than Shai, Doncic, Tatum or even Sengun.
Or Dort.
Not a single mention of Ja Morant is crazy, this sub can’t fucking stand him, and honestly at this point neither can Memphis Fans
Ja doesn’t play enough to for people to talk about him. He has a few big incidents and then gets injured and disappears for the season.
His grenade celly also helps offset some of the negative comments about him.
Ben Simmons is top 3 for basically the whole time
Yea he, or the AI made a mistake somewhere because there’s no way that Tyrese Haliburton, Jamal Murray or Josh Hart are more hated than Ja Morant, Dillon Brooks or Grayson Allen.
And if it’s a quantity problem there’s no way Ben Simmons is more talked about and hated in 2026 than Shai, Doncic or even Tatum and Sengun.
It’s clearly quantity. He’s only ever mentioned as a bad example. He has the 3rd highest negative % while having only 11k comments (second lowest is Harden at 28k). Luka will get fat comments but also talk of his scoring and vision. Ben Simmons one and only comment buried in hundreds of replies will be about him being a bum.
Been irrelevant for a while that guy
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Simmons is used as a comparison/punching bag a lot on this sub, even now.
Need to attack a player who isn’t committed enough? Compare him to Simmons. Need to call a player washed? Compare him to Simmons. Need to make fun of a funky jumpshot? Simmons-esque.
When Trae got traded half the comments about how he ended Ben Simmons career
He did
And Simmons has zero defenders, essentially every time he’s brought up it’s in a negative context. Draymond is defended by Warriors fans, no one goes to bat for Ben.
Even Ben Simmons’s defenders are putting in Hawks-series-Ben-Simmons level efforts.
And Draymond - while bad and a problem - is at least entertaining. It’s fun to watch some dude just go totally nuts for no reason (like choking out Gobert, cause why??). It’s not fun to watch Ben Simmons lose all his potential to mental health and physical health problems.
Getoffmydickerson would go bat for Ben!
yeah Ben is beating a dead horse at this point , I wouldn’t say he is most hated anymore.
Simmons still gets hated on here even if there is just a video of him fishing.
That was a funny ass video tho lol
The fact Ja Morant isn’t ever on this list shows your analysis is flawed.
Nobody cares that much about the grizzlies LOL
Yea, but it is % of comments with negative sentiment, so I would imagine volume could be pretty variable. Idk if there is a mimimum threshold. I would he surprised if so, because who in 2025 is talking about Ben Simmons.
It says 5000 comments is the threshold.
Watching Randle leave the list got me a little misty eyed lol. Last postseason really shut some people up.
Yeah his end of season run, and playoff performance the first two rounds, really helped turn it. Still dont understand why he was that hated in the first place though
It was always undeserved.
People just can’t understand context. They were basing his playoff performances on the years he was 1) seriously injured and playing anyway in an effort to help the team, and 2) when literally his next best players were rookie RJ Barrett and the ghost of DRose (no offense to DRose; i did appreciate his Knicks tenure).
Those of us who realized the WHY part of Randle’s playoff failings always knew he’d show out once he got a genuinely decent opportunity. I just wish it was with us that year we made the OG trade; we had a genuinely incredible team for like a month there lol
Because Knicks/NY fans have unmatched vitriol even towards their own players.
How the hell is Jamal Murray up there constantly? Did he do something I don’t know about or is it just Joker nuthuggers hating to make Jokic look better? Jokic has no rings if Murray doesn’t go insane that run.
The average nba commenter is jealous of the time he got a blowjob
He had that year where he got the bag and then played like shit for a long while, and Malone was heavily anti-bench, so he sucked for heavy minutes.
I’m just guessing here and possibly misremembering.
And coming off an injury I remember him being ass for Team Canada but still getting lots of minutes.
20 mpg on 29% fg% and 14.5% from three. His whole country hated him
Yeah last year was a rough one for Jamal.
Lakers fans can’t stand Jamal ‘MJ for a series’ Murray, an Jokic stans have to tear him down to big up Jokic.
Sounds about right. I’ve always liked him, when he’s on his game is smooth AF.
Lakers fans don’t like him but that’s because of the playoffs and he appears on the list in January and the Lakers didn’t even face him that season in the playoffs.
It’s not Lakers fans driving the negative comments. Maybe a part of it but I can guarantee you most of it is Jokic stans that drool at the mouth to shit on everyone around him to prop him up.
He did through that heat pack lol
That heat pack is such a nothing burger lol. We got dudes in the league that are actual domestic abusers. Redditors clutching their pearls over a thrown heat pack are ridiculous.
Because this whole exercise is flimsy and uses AI to determine whether something is positive or negative by filtering for key words.
But judging by your comment you’ve already made* your mind and agenda up.
I think the beginning of last season was his worst stretch. He was rusty, had weird attitude things, he had given some shitty excuses after losing to the wolves the year before, throwing the ice pack in the playoffs, the Vegas trip during a nuggets road trip plus his contract.
I think he mended all of it and has been fine since but it was a bad look for him for a few months.
the fact the data isn’t weighted by upvotes either is a huge mistake.
Surprised Tatum isn’t on here
Tatum is too boring to be hated on
He is apparently overrated and corny to this sub
He gets called corny because he does corny things he’s not really hated
People actually treat him better on here than like any other social media platform
this is data for the 2024-25 season only, would probably be further up for the 2023-24 season. Tatum hate for sure peaked during the Celtics championship run and during the Olympics after that, last year there was a lot of sympathy for him after he tore his Achilles
My first thought too
There isn’t angry hate for Tatum, it’s more like a lack of respect. He’s a good dude, and a great player, but he’s corny and thinks he’s better than he is, so people disrespect him relative to the frame he’s set up. In a world where he was more stoic and not a Celtic, I’m pretty sure he’d be widely liked.
Ben Simmons being so relevant in hate posts whole years after his career being any relevant truly is a sight to behold
They hate because i’m a huge threat. Don’t hate me cause you ain’t me.
Wasting prime offseason content
Or is it just prime All-Star break content? 🤔
We knew Luka and Jokic would be nowhere near this list.
Luka is literally first in raw negative comments
Most people will just watch the video which is great work by OP. I don’t see Luka there or Jokic.
Interestingly enough, the fact that you had to check the details to find that Luka is mentioned kind of illustrates the denial that this sub has about the role of race in how Jokic and Luka are protected.
Just imagine Luka was black! The guy bitches about every fucking possession while also at the top in the league for getting foul calls. If Embiid, LeBron, SGA (insert anyone from that list in the video), this sub would be calling for his head LOL.
I used to be a bit skeptical about race’s influence in this sub. But then that whole Jokic vs Embiid era started. HOLY FUCK! I have read some of the most racist shit I’ve seen on Reddit in a long time (you’d have to go back to the era of TheDonald or the lightly moderated UnpopularOpinion subs back in the day).
Just imagine Luka was black!
I can. His name is James Harden and you see how he gets treated here compared to Luka.
Wonder why… 🙄
They’re classy players
This data is only last season, where most of this sub felt very bad for him and was way supportive of him after the trade.
Where tf is Dillon Brooks lol
Draymond green don’t get nearly enough hate
Fantastic post OP, love it. Hate comments will probably win here as well though.
Thank you, I appreciate that a lot! I love data and basketball, so this was a fun way to put it all together. It’s my first time putting my work out there and having it be open for criticism, but you gotta be prepared for the hate…especially on this sub
I teach a Python class and about to teach a class on streamlit next week. So cool to see you use it! Do you mind if I show this to my class?
I don’t get the Embiid hate in the end. You can bitch about flopping and foul baiting if you want (as if plenty others don’t do it), but he’s still crazy talented and generally fun to watch when he’s cooking.
I think a lot of you who hate on him are just kinda internet trolls honestly and seeing spiderman doubles w/ Embiid in that regard, it just triggers you.
Seeing him 2nd after Draymond who has punched his own teammate, got in numerous fights, screams in the refs faces every night, etc etc etc really shows how ridiculous the Embiid hate is
Jokic stans still got a chip on their shoulder about the 2023 MVP race.
I’m still pretty convinced Jokic and Embiid both took an MVP from each other. Just swap those two years. So it evened out in the end.
could be that embiid has both a lot of haters and a lot of injuries.
per OP, “hate” includes any negative sentiment. which means “it sucks that X got injured” or “X is on a bad contract” probably count as hate. compare to how Dame pops up at the beginning of May right after he tore his achilles
edit: OTOH I checked the full thing and Kawhi is top 10 most loved so who the hell knows
This sub likes talking about basketball more then like they actually like basketball
….what else are you supposed to do on a site like Reddit besides….talk?
They like to complain about it too
Here to add to the Draymond hate.
Interesting post.
I have to say, no real surprises, pretty much what I expected.
Will you make one about the most loved players please, we need more positive stuff
Oh look, this sub hates the Sixers, who ever would have thunk it? That’s another reason I love Maxey, his weapons grade likeability breaks their brains.
Russ don’t deserve that hate
3 of top 5 are sixers allstars. Kind of interesting
Wtf did Bronny James do?
The gap between Draymond and #2 is nowhere near big enough.
Which one of you Brodie haters took a few months off to recover from getting your stomach stapled early last year?
AI slop, I encourage everyone to go through the github and look at this caliber of ai
The prompt handles NBA-specific slang — “washed,” “cooked,” and “fraud” register as negative while “nasty,” “filthy,” and “GOAT” register as positive.
How else would you analyze millions of comments besides writing a script or prompt with keywords.
you are right he should count them himself
sentiment analysis has existed long before generative AI
this is not just sentiment analysis, its sentiment analysis using comments on reddit after reddit made changes to its api making pulling data harder
sentiment analysis would not classify “nasty” as negative
Fair callout and I’m happy to clarify what AI was actually used for since you took the time to go through the repo.
That’s a Claude Code subagent I built to help me validate player nicknames. It’s not part of the analysis pipeline at all, just a fun side experiment learning about AI tooling. I used Claude Haiku 4.5 (cheaper model) with this prompt: ``` Classify sentiment toward NBA players. Slang: nasty/sick/filthy=positive, washed/brick/fraud/cooked=negative, GOAT=positive. Comment: {comment} Respond ONLY with JSON: {“s”:“pos|neg|neu”,“c”:0.0-1.0,“p”:“Player Name”|null} ``` That’s it.
I actually tried VADER first. It struggles with domain slang — “he’s so nasty” reads as negative to VADER but is high praise in NBA context. Same with “cooked” (negative in NBA, neutral elsewhere). LLM classification handles this better because it understands context.
The player name matching (LeBron → “bron”, “king james”, etc.) is pure regex/config.
Happy to discuss methodology. The GitHub has everything.
Not sure why you’re getting flack; this is exactly the kind of stuff LLM can be used for well.
I really wonder what would it look like if you opened up the time scale though. There’s no way if you widened this to like 2015-2025; KD wouldn’t be net #1 for at least 5 years straight?
Reddit automatically thinks anything that even touches AI is “slop”, you’re basically just using it to do standard machine learning classification which has been part of data analysis for years. Most people who don’t understand that just see the name “Claude” and think you typed in a prompt to do everything for you.
Dumbass hivemind redditor tries to understand AI (IMPOSSIBLE)
So make another post you think does it better rather than just bitching?
Idk how else you’d go about it dude. Gonna read each one or try to gather the general sentiment through AI?
Yes and?
This sub’s ceiling for hate far exceeds its ceiling for love.
So true.
Where the fk is lu dort
Sixers are number 1. Haters gonna hate
Dame is #11? What did he do?
People hate Jamal Murray? Also, this sub must be the only place that likes Lebron. He’d easily be at the top anywhere else.
I’m assuming it’s because Lebron is getting towards the stage that Brady did at the end. Still hated, but a lot of people realise they’re watching the end of one of the greatest careers of all time, and respect what’s given to the game - also that he’s able to still perform at a high level.
Lol no Lebron wouldn’t. This isn’t total hate comments, it’s a percentage.
Lebron might be polarizing but a ton of people love him now. He’s old and is a legend to the game. There isn’t exactly a ton to hate on in the context of most posts you would see on this sub.
Imagine taking this poll in like 2012. Lebron would probably be like 10% ahead of #2.
This objectively proves this sub has a small market syndrome…
I mean I get the Donkey hate. All that dude does is want to fight everything and everybody. He belongs in the UFC for the bs he pulls not the NBA
wtf did Jamal Murray do to y’all?