JJ Redick Gave Without A Doubt The Best Response To The Current Discourse Around The NBA Product
Unless you've been living under a rock, it's hard to avoid all the bad faith arguments when it comes to the NBA product. That's not to say it's perfect, but things are starting to leave planet Earth a little bit with how the game is talked about. The same people who are very quick to tell you they no longer watch the NBA are somehow the ones who are telling you how boring it is to watch or how much a certain approach has ruined everything.
My question to those people would be, if you're not watching, how would you know? As I blogged the other day, awesome games are happening every single night. The idea that everyone plays the same and it's all just chucking 3PA is simply not a true statement. But in order to know that, you have to watch.
Anyway, what I'm always more interested in is not what NBA Twitter or the hot take talking shows have to say about this topic, we all know the type of echo chamber those things are. How about the perspective of someone who lives it? Someone who understands the game of basketball and today's league, who you know is watching everything and can give an informed opinion? That seems like a pretty credible and valuable source to ask about the current state of the league.
I know this is around 4:30 minutes long, but JJ Redick has probably given the best answer to this question that we have to date that I highly recommend you listen to
There you have a calm, nuanced answer with the appropriate context, and guess what? He's right!
Everyone sees that purple line right? Those are long 2s. Rim shots (the red line) are pretty much consistent. Midrange shots (green line) are pretty much the same. It's true that 3PA (blue line) is up, but as JJ correctly stated, that does not mean teams and players have stopped taking 2pt FGA. It just means they've taken a step back from a long 2pt FGA to a 3PA. The horror! There is still variation, there is still an importance on rim pressure and 2pt shots. The ones that have been eliminated are the dogshit low percentage long 2s. If someone tells you they don't watch the NBA because a player took a shot from 26ft instead of 24ft, they are full of shit.
So as much as that idea has seemed to become this weird talking point when it comes to this topic, the data simply doesn't support it.
JJ also makes a great point when it comes to the whole TV ratings bullshit. What's the number 1 thing you hear with that?
"Threes are ruining the game! Look at the ratings drop!"
What seems to get lost in this conversation is of course, who the ratings are calculated. The situation JJ described with his local feed and Spectrum and all that is no different from any other market. Local ratings and viewership aren't included. League Pass isn't included. If you're only counting games on national television that's only a small percentage of the actual games in the league! Add in the illegal streaming aspect of the equation, and you can see that there's way more nuance required when talking about ratings. Why that never seemed to get mentioned is odd to me, probably because it doesn't go with that existing narrative.
But the part of his explanation that I probably agree with most is the storytelling aspect of the NBA and how dogshit it is. This is the biggest issue of all if you ask me. The NBA has a media and marketing problem. Unless it's LeBron or Steph Curry, they don't know what to do. Whether that's storytelling of other rising teams and players in the league or even having an honest discussion of what's happening on the floor. Just like he said, nobody is saying you can't be critical when warranted, but that's not what is happening.
Lord knows the LAST thing I ever want to do is speak even remotely positive about anything Lakers related, but I am a slave to the truth. Out of all the hot takes you hear when it comes to the NBA product and all the things wrong with it and why there's this big glaring problem, I think it's refreshing to hear a well-informed opinion backed by actual evidence.