01Bear said:

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Alkiadt said:

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01Bear said:

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ducky23 said:

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All this talk about tedford or Rivera or pawlaski completely misses the point. We aren't hiring for a HC position. We would be hiring for a GM position. We need someone who understands Cal (it's challenges and bureaucracies) but also has actual experience running a front office and roster building.

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Then how about Shareef? He's definitely had experience building teams as a GM. Granted, his experience is in basketball, not football. But if it's sports management, he does have the experience; he's also a very smart guy who can learn the football side.

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Shareef is waiting on the NBA commissioner job.

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That's fair. He'd make an excellent commissioner.

As it is, the NBA is finding itself in trouble. It's increasingly losing viewership. Whether that's because people are tired of the politics, the changes to the game (especially the death of the midrange game and the gradual demise of dunks), or the lack of charismatic young superstars, the viewership numbers are down. The commissioner will have his hands full trying to regain viewers.

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The NBA is not in trouble. Ticket prices and other game-day revenue are higher than ever. Franchise values are at least twice what they were 10 years ago. In 2014, Jerry West told Steve Ballmer he overpaid when Ballmer paid $2 billion for the Clippers; West was wrong. The Clippers' value is at least $4.5 billion today. TV revenue in the new contracts will be 2.5x this year's TV revenue. So the NBA owners are not looking to dump the commissioner.

BearSD said:

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01Bear said:

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Alkiadt said:

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01Bear said:

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ducky23 said:

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All this talk about tedford or Rivera or pawlaski completely misses the point. We aren't hiring for a HC position. We would be hiring for a GM position. We need someone who understands Cal (it's challenges and bureaucracies) but also has actual experience running a front office and roster building.

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Then how about Shareef? He's definitely had experience building teams as a GM. Granted, his experience is in basketball, not football. But if it's sports management, he does have the experience; he's also a very smart guy who can learn the football side.

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Shareef is waiting on the NBA commissioner job.

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That's fair. He'd make an excellent commissioner.

As it is, the NBA is finding itself in trouble. It's increasingly losing viewership. Whether that's because people are tired of the politics, the changes to the game (especially the death of the midrange game and the gradual demise of dunks), or the lack of charismatic young superstars, the viewership numbers are down. The commissioner will have his hands full trying to regain viewers.

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The NBA is not in trouble. Ticket prices and other game-day revenue are higher than ever. Franchise values are at least twice what they were 10 years ago. In 2014, Jerry West told Steve Ballmer he overpaid when Ballmer paid $2 billion for the Clippers; West was wrong. The Clippers' value is at least $4.5 billion today. TV revenue in the new contracts will be 2.5x this year's TV revenue. So the NBA owners are not looking to dump the commissioner.

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I'm not saying the NBA's looking to get rid of Adam Silver. I'm saying Shareef would be a great NBA commissioner.

Also, the NBA is in trouble (or at least trouble is brewing). Without fans, it won't get TV dollars. Viewership is down. Fans aren't as interested in watching 3-point shooting contests play out every day.

The season is also 82 games, the first 2/3 (at least) of which is more or less irrelevant except for final standings, which translates into low(er) viewership and ratings. While this has been an issue for decades, the NBA has never figured out how to fix this problem.

Adam Silver is trying to remedy it with the NBA Cup, but no one really cares about that. The Lakers won the inaugural NBA Cup last year and there was no parade. In fact, Lakers fans largely think the Lakers only raised the NBA Cup banner because Silver pressured the team into doing so. Basically, the fans don't care about the in-season tournament any more than they do any other regular season game. Some fans are even turned off by the in-season tournament, especially the garish floor designs that come with them. That also leads to fewer eyeballs.

Couple this with the decline in viewership thanks to the current game (where the vast majority of shots are attempted behind the arc or near the basket, where practically every team runs the same high pick and roll, and where dunks are becoming increasingly rarer) and the NBA is in the beginning stages of a downward decline. Who knows, maybe the NBA will luck out and end up in MLB territory where it somehow manages to hold on and keep enough fans to continue as a profitable business. Then again, it could follow the footsteps of professional boxing or horse racing and become relegated to niche sports primarily followed by only a few, except for a handful of events every so often. Time will tell.

The decline in TV ratings directly correlates to the collapse of cable and satellite TV as a business. NBA's current TV deal is overly reliant on that dying business. TV executives must agree with that diagnosis, given that they will be paying so much more for the next contract. As for the style of play, it's true that some loud voices long for a return to the 88-84 final scores and thug-ball style of the 1970s. But the majority of today's fans, as evidenced by the sold-out arenas, prefer a game in which Steph Curry is a superstar to the game that existed when every team wanted to have a few guys like Bill Laimbeer launching an elbow into the face of anyone who drove into the lane.

BearSD said:

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The decline in TV ratings directly correlates to the collapse of cable and satellite TV as a business. NBA's current TV deal is overly reliant on that dying business. TV executives must agree with that diagnosis, given that they will be paying so much more for the next contract. As for the style of play, it's true that some loud voices long for a return to the 88-84 final scores and thug-ball style of the 1970s. But the majority of today's fans, as evidenced by the sold-out arenas, prefer a game in which Steph Curry is a superstar to the game that existed when every team wanted to have a few guys like Bill Laimbeer launching an elbow into the face of anyone who drove into the lane.

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I agree about the cord-cutting, but that argument just reinforces my point that the NBA is in the beginning stages of a troubled era.

As for the style if play argument, you're arguing a false dichotomy. The choice isn't either (1) thug ball or (2) three ball. The 00s were neither but attracted plenty of eyeballs. Steph Curry and the Warriors were a change of pace, and what made them great was their ball movement and off-ball movement on offense (paired with tight defense). What's happening in today's NBA is doesn't bear much similarity to the Warriors offense. Instead, it's a lot of standing around the perimeter while one guy drives and kicks or runs across a high screen and steps back for a three. The ball's not moving and neither are the players. Today's game is arguably as boring to watch as the 90s (not 80s) era when teams regularly failed to score more than 90 points.

*IIRC, even the Bad Boys Pistons regularly put up high scores. It wasn't until the 90s that teams really began wrestling matches on the hardwood.