Thank you.
There are those that are so focused on nitpicking things they don’t like about something that they are blinded to how vastly worse other outcomes can be.
We have never had more parity at the top of the league than right now. We have had a different NBA champion every single year since 2019. In those six years, we’ve had ten teams play in the finals (only the Celtics and Heat appearing more than once in those six years). We haven’t had a major free agent defection since 2019 (maybe I am forgetting something here). There are no “super teams” (three max players that force their way to a single team and a bunch of scrubs and ring-chasers) burning up the league.
We have basically gotten rid of low-scoring, stagnant, boring offenses that consist of one or two guys iso-ing and bricking a bunch of mid-range garbage. We used to hear belly-aching about low-scoring games that resembled football and had restrictive illegal defense rules that protected players that lacked talent. Now, teams can employ any team defense they please which makes games much more dynamic. Allowing these complex defenses forces teams to shoot better, run faster, jump higher, and pass better on average. There has never been more movement and action in the game than now. But now the criticism is that the games are too high-scoring or that we should be mad that we traded the bad mid-range shots for bad three-pointers.
Basketball as a game has never been better. The players might not be as interesting as they used to be (or maybe we’re all just trapped in nostalgia), and the game isn’t as physical as it used to be. Those changes and actual parity emerging makes the playoffs less dramatic as it isn’t Lakers-Celtics every other year, or the supposed best ever drubbing everyone for most of a decade. It’s just not as dramatic. But are we watching for drama, or because we like basketball?
Anyway, if the odds were flattened, most small market teams would be ****ed. I don’t get how we can’t all see that.
