2023-24 NBA Thread

[WilyWestbrook0]

300 mil for a guy who's probably not even the best on his team:

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/...rmax-extension

[pwaldo]

300 mil for a guy who's probably not even the best on his team:

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/...rmax-extension

[pwaldo]

Anthony Davis is now making $62 million a year for some reason. It is going to be hilarious when this league folds because they are burning through all this money with stupid contracts that are going to players that don't bring in any fans or eyeballs to the game. Also lol at the WNBA players still making less than Russia

[Devlin]

franchises keep being bought for billions of dollars, it seems t be a pretty solid sport..

it seems to be only trailing Football in popularity. I'm not much of a basketball fan.

Drove past HOF going to and coming from work for 30 yrs.

[pwaldo]

it seems to be only trailing Football in popularity. I'm not much of a basketball fan..

It actually trails baseball in popularity. The TV ratings for the NBA have been down something like 50% since Curry entered the league. The NBA is saved by other sports because they have that big China money coming in but even that seems to have cooled off with that whole Rockets GM controversy and the Joe Biden administration being so anti Russia (China has backed Russia and other BRICS countries over the US) so it just seems like China has cooled on the NBA. But I have no actual data either way since it is a bit tricky with China being pretty locked down since Covid.

[WilyWestbrook0]

It actually trails baseball in popularity. The TV ratings for the NBA have been down something like 50% since Curry entered the league. The NBA is saved by other sports because they have that big China money coming in but even that seems to have cooled off with that whole Rockets GM controversy and the Joe Biden administration being so anti Russia (China has backed Russia and other BRICS countries over the US) so it just seems like China has cooled on the NBA. But I have no actual data either way since it is a bit tricky with China being pretty locked down since Covid.

I just have the Finals ratings on hand, but it looks like they took by far their biggest hit during lockdown with all the protests:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_Fi...vision_ratings

In fact the ratings had been on the upswing from 2011 onward, but just fell massively with the bubble Finals. So it wasn't Curry, it was covid and the protests that brought the NBA down.

I think it had been eclipsing baseball since around the strike era, but I don't have the data for that -- I've never really followed baseball much. I do know that football has been the biggest sport ever since baseball's strike, and possibly before that; I was a kid at the time, and I remember baseball being America's sport until 1994. People then got excited again with Sosa and McGwire only to find out a few years later that those guys were all taking steroids, and then baseball I think fell behind basketball. Not sure if it's recovered since. You'd think football would take more of a hit with all the CTE stuff and Kaepernick, but it hasn't.

[Devlin]

Peope can't get enough of FB.

Comcast Sports Boston show on 2-6 Mon-Fri in the aft, consistently beat out red sox afternoon games on TV ratings' Up here the Patriots are King, sox and Celts, not sure, probably give edge to Celtics. Fans up here have been very fortunate, 9 Super Bowls, 3 basketball finals, 4 WS, all wins, 3 Stanley Cup finals in 20+ years
I pretty much root for the B's, though i liked Brady, the team not so much..

They (fans) are passionate about all .

[WilyWestbrook0]

We're less than a month from the season starting now, and of course the Bucks made lots of noise getting Lillard while also moving Holiday, who was moved again afterward to the Celtics. This changes everything in the Eastern Conference, where the Heat greatly overachieved last year. Miami ended up not getting Lillard despite the Heat being his first preference, and now two of their conference rivals look a lot better on paper than they do. The East will be very interesting to watch this season. I think everyone anticipates a Bucks and Celtics ECF provided everyone stays healthy and there aren't any chemistry issues. I will keep following the Heat because of Kevin Love, but I don't think they get out of the semis this time. Same with Cleveland; they didn't really get any better, and it was a bad look when their exec got pulled over for intoxicated driving last month. That was prior to all the deals, too -- the players can't be too confident in the leadership at this point. The Cavs have a lot of young talent, but if everything implodes this season and they don't get past the first round again, they may break up the rebuilding experiment that looked so promising just a year or so ago with Mitchell, Garland, and Mobley.

Out West, I'm really excited for OKC. They should definitely make the playoffs provided they stay healthy; they came so close last year, and that was without their rookie big man Holmgren. Even with load management, Holmgren should make enough of a difference as a paint presence to catapult them to the postseason. I'll also keep an eye out on the Spurs to see if Wemby meets the hype. As for the Western title contenders, Denver should remain strong, though it will be tough to repeat as champs with the East getting so much better, even if they do end up returning to the Finals again. Regarding the rest of the West teams, Phoenix will be one to watch to see how Beal does with all the other offensive firepower in Durant and Booker. I think the Warriors will show their age and take a step back; CP is almost as old as me, so I don't think he makes a big difference at this point of his career. This is also probably the last shot of the Kawhi/George duo doing much of anything for the Clippers. The Mavs will be heavily monitored as well to see if the Doncic/Irving duo amounts to anything. The Grizzlies I think are still too young and I question whether Morant ever truly grows up. Finally, we'll still hear constantly about the Lakers, who added Vincent from Miami, but still probably don't have enough to beat Denver.

Any thoughts/predictions?

[pwaldo]

In my opinion you have the

Celtics
Bucks
Heat

in the East in that order with the Heat way below the other two. The Celtics and Bucks are like 1a and 1b and the Heat are like a 4. I only give them a shot since they seem to own the Bucks and the Celtics seem to back into every series they should dominate. They just don't finish strong in the playoffs with this group.

Out West you have the

Nuggets
Suns
Lakers
Warriors

The Warriors and Lakers are only there IMO because of their history and I wouldn't count them out until they are dead with a stake through their hearts. The Nuggets I feel got worse and not have teams gunning for them so it will be very difficult for them or any team in the West to run that gauntlet. Once again the East is really really weak. The Suns I know a lot of people like them but they seem very wild to me and what I mean by that is I could see them win it all but then at the same time I could see them totally implode and lose in the first round.

So unless a bunch of injuries happen I like somebody in the East to walk away with the championship this year just because the road is going to be so easy for them to travel and it will be BRUTAL for anybody coming out of the West. Remember Denver last year got to rest and the East teams were destroyed. I don't think any of the other East teams outside of a major trade doing anything in the playoffs so it should be a cake walk until the Eastern Conference Championship which will give them an edge over anybody coming out of the West.

[WilyWestbrook0]

Season now starts in a few days. Preseason is over; Wemby had some flashy highlights, but curious to see if he can keep up any of that kind of magic in the regular season. Also curious to see how the in-season tournament goes. I remember being skeptical of the play-in tournament when it was introduced awhile back, but I really like that innovation now.