This is a basketball sub so lets keep the convo related to basketball only.

I agree 100% with this mindset but unfortunately that is never going to be the case with r/nba. The majority of this sub cares way more about celebrity gossip/drama than they do about the sport itself. They’d rather hear about Lebron’s instagram posts or Kyrie’s third eye than learn anything about the game of basketball. Most NBA fans (especially on r/NBA) prioritize first and foremost their weird parasocial relationships with these tall millionaires.

I think your statement is flawed. I don’t think most basketball fans think NCAA basketball is “better” than Euro league ball. But it is absolutely more relevant. NCAA basketball games are on when people are awake in the US. A lot of people in the US went to a college that had solid basketball programs. A lot of people in the United States have done a bracket and paid attention to March Madness. The overwhelming majority of NBA players played in the NCAA, and the overwhelming majority of NBA players did not play in Euro league.

I don’t think minor league baseball is better than NPB or KBO. But a lot of baseball fans have been to way more minor league baseball games (and seen some of those players go onto the big leagues) and are a little bit familiar with their team’s minor league affiliates. They’re not watching Korean and Japanese baseball at odd hours that isn’t on TV.

Before this season I was adamant that the jury is still out on Mac Jones and anyone who declaratively said he sucks was just a hater, because this team hadn’t really put all their trust into him yet and tried to avoid putting the game in his hands too much the first two seasons. I’d thought that his peak might not be a guy who goes above and beyond to win you games, but he would take care of the football and never be the main reason your team loses games.

The jury is in. This guy absolutely sucks, and there are like 6+ games this year that he’s probably the #1 reason his team lost. A league-average QB would probably have won at least 4 of those games and the Patriots would be in the hunt for the division.

I actually had the exact opposite feelings about Kobe - I loved the #8 kid with hair playing as Shaq’s Robin, but I always thought bald black mamba rapist #24 Kobe was the most overrated player in sports.

The NBA has the worst coverage and the worst fans of any professional sport. When I talk to a fellow MLB or NHL fan, they pretty much always are first and foremost interested in the sport itself. They are interested in baseball and hockey. That is not the case with most NBA fans. Most NBA fans are fans of celebrity drama, who these players are dating / what they do with their personal lives, and maybe highlight-reel plays. But the average NBA fan has little appreciation of the game of basketball and probably can’t even dribble a ball.

It’s something I hate because I love this game but the discourse around this league is just terrible. When I watch MLB or bring it up with others, people talk about the nuances of the game of baseball itself. But most NBA talking heads and fans don’t give a shit about basketball or have a clue how the sport actually works, and they just want to talk about Lebron’s Instagram posts or Kyrie’s third eye or some shit that has absolutely nothing to do with why I like NBA in the first place.

Most Celtics fans would have you believe the main reason their team has come up short in recent years are some combination of Joe Mazzulla, Marcus Smart, Jaylen Brown, and the refs. It’s not. The reason is simple. The NBA is a superstar league and in this league you go as far as your best player can take you. Jayson Tatum has absolutely not been consistently good enough to be the best player on a championship team and it is the #1 reason the Celtics disappoint every year in the playoffs. If he were then this team would’ve won the 2022 Finals (where he played like absolute dogshit) and they would’ve at least made the Finals last year. But Tatum has as many dominant games as he has ice-cold games where he just looks like an unserious playoff scorer. His team is never going to win a title until he cuts those crappy performances out. Their are other parts of the team/org that can be criticized but none of them are nearly as big of an issue as their best player losing his shot in big playoff games.

Why do we consider Luka a point guard but not Harden or Lebron?

i have never ever seen a bigger gap between skill and BBIQ in a player in my life. jaylen brown has legit stretches where he looks like the second coming of michael jordan, it’s like the rain man scene in the hangover with all the numbers and math symbols flying around. and then he spends the rest of his time doing shit like this.

People love to mention Jaylen Brown being overpaid so far this season but his salary is $25M this season, definitely a great bargain. If you want to argue he’s overpaid next year when his new contract actually kicks in, go for it. But his contract is a really good value this season no matter what his advanced stats say (and I say this as a huge Jaylen Brown critic).

And even if he is a bit overpaid while he’s on his $300M contract, as long as he is healthy/available (as healthy as he’s been so far in his career) it will never be a boat anchor contract or one of the worst contracts in the league. He is still a positive player. Even if he’s a little overpaid that’s not a bad contract. The bad contracts are when you tie up a bunch of cap space in a negative/useless player - usually a guy who can’t stay on the floor due to injury.

i hated the 2021 season for this reason (covid had a way way bigger impact on players being out in 2021 than 2020). from a competitive balance standpoint, the 2021 season was one of the most unfair seasons ever, because covid did not impact all teams equally at all. a team literally had to play all of their home games 1,000 miles away in a foreign country.

the bubble was at least fair and equal to everyone and there was not nearly as many players missing from the bubble as there were from the covid protocols and the physical demand of the weird 2021 season.

I just can’t picture someone that looks like Kristaps Porzingis being a serious player who can hold up to a full season + intense playoff run. I’m not saying he isn’t talented when he plays. But pretty much all the lanky/goofy bigs we’ve seen in this league (at leas in recent memory) have struggled to stay on the floor too much to have a notable impact in the postseason. If he can help the Celtics to a championship it would be totally unprecedented for both him and guys that look like him.

While I do think Tatum is definitely better just because he’s noticeably more durable - one thing I’ll say is that I don’t think Embiid has lost to inferior teams in the playoffs, while I think Tatum has on more than one occassion.

I wonder if someone like Tatum could get it. If the Celtics had far and away the best defense at the end of the year, and Tatum is the only starter who played 70+ games, I feel like he’d have a very good argument.

That is part of it but the Knicks big men tonight clearly hustled for boards more than Porzingis does. I’m fine with it because if Porzingis bangs too much down low he’ll most likely get hurt. But he’s not necessarily an elite rebounding talent, and I think the Celtics may struggle a little bit against dominant physical big men.

How are you not going to even list James Harden who averaged an efficient 33/9/7 on 62% TS from 2017 through 2020 lol. He only missed 19 regular season games across those 4 seasons. He’s like the most underrated and underappreciated star ever.

I think Lebron is the obvious answer to this question but you listed guys like Patrick Beverley and Jeff Green without considering Harden.

I love Hubie and I think he’s still better than most color guys but I’ve definitely noticed a decline for a few years now. I don’t think he’s terrible or that there’s better alternatives so I say let this man call games until he dies.

I think the Rams had a very good offensive line in 2018, but I remember 5 minutes into that game after Goff’s first possession I KNEW the Patriots were gonna win solely because I could not see him moving the ball against that defense. That Patriots team was good but nothing particularly special. They won because they made fewer mistakes than their opponents and just were more complete.

The opening chapter of Michael Lewis’s book The Undoing Project goes into Darryl Morey’s early analytics in the 2000s. It is not a basketball book at all but that first chapter is relevant.

Bill Belichick is rich in sex appeal

Embiid is better at guarding Jokic than Jokic is Embiid (at least that seems clear in their limited matchups), but I don’t think either is great at it. I think Embiid could be but he’s always kinda worn down on the offensive end.