So recently, I read this from Adam Silver. He complained about the NBA media not talking enough about tactical aspects of the game:
“I think where we can all do a better job, and again I’m not just pointing to the media here, is talking more about the game. My frustration a bit, I think sometimes the color commentary in our games gets reduced to, ‘this team wanted it more’ or ‘this team tried harder.'”
[…]
Said Silver: “There’s really complex defenses, what is the offense like? Why is this team losing the way they are? Why is this team successful? Explain what the pick and roll is … explain what’s happening on the court.”
Reductive analysis reinforces the idea that basketball is just a game of individuals and athletic feats. Silver believes that in order to raise interest in every team every night, the discussion needs to be more granular and more celebratory.
“There is this sense (in football) where the coaches are viewed as these field generals, going out there with these complex schemes,” Silver told Redick, who works as an NBA analyst at ESPN. “Then in basketball, it’s just about athleticism. That somehow the coach’s job is just to get the guys to play hard. Rather than … these incredibly sophisticated defenses and offenses.”
That leads me to the question: How much is the success in Basketball really about tactics/strategy and how much is it about individual quality? Can coaches in the NFL (or in other sports) on average do more to win their team games primarily on good tactics and good coaching than coaches in NBA? Or are those sports similar in terms of how much influence a coach can have?
Is the NFL more about collective strategy and the NBA more about individual athleticism/skills?
Just wanna point out that Adam Silver’s love of basketball is so genuine and the exact opposite of how other sports commissioners talk about their sport in such robotic lawyer talk. Im not even sure Roger Goodell is actually a human, or that Rob Manfred even likes baseball
As a fan of baseball this resonated with me. Owners that are as concerned with growing the sport in a positive way as much as increasing their bottom line is what we need more of.
I don’t believe this quote shows Adam Silver loves the game. He wants to emulate the NFL because the NFL generates even more money than the NBA. On the pod he said:
Say what you want about Goodell but he has said absolutely not to jersey ads. Meanwhile Silver is out here selling ads on jerseys, the entire court, sidelines, stanchions, he is shilling underwear, gambling, literally everything he does is trying to boost revenues.