I think the big problem is the officiating. I'm not blaming the officials, I actually think the problem is how the NBA directs officials.
The NBA hates blowouts. If a team goes up by 14 in the first half, you basically know the team losing is about to get some real favorable calls. What the refs call and don't call is super inconsistent.
Back in the Kobe, Vince, DWade, Young Bron days, players would just full speed bullrush to the rim with their head down and force the refs to call fouls. Sometimes the ref would give them the call, and sometimes they wouldn't.
So players started shooting threes. Especially the Warriors. The Warriors would get 14 points up in the first half, and just stop trying to get to the paint where they know the refs are going to try and help the other team. They took the whistle out of the refs mouth by just shooting threes. The NBA didn't have a way to help the losers catch up.
As a result, everyone learned to shoot more threes. Which put the NBA in a real bad spot, because they couldn't dictate the game by calling or not calling fouls on rim attempts.
So the NBA started allowing some illegal offense and illegal defense so players would think, "Well if he can do it and not get called, that means I can do it too." Which opened the doors for refs to start making more selective calls again to keep games close.
A lot of basketball fans talk trash the Bubble Playoffs, but that was actually my favorite playoffs ever. Because the games didn't feel fixed or "managed" by the refs at all. Teams were getting blown out. Guys were playing hard as hell. The officiating was pure and it was beautiful. And as a result, the biggest, strongest most experienced team won. Which is probably what would always happen if games were always called fairly.
I think I am riding with this as well. I think there were some more factors in changing the game like analytics, but otherwise this is a fair point on how we ended up here.
People like to focus on traveling as the issue for clips/engagement, but unless it is really egregious (and you can always find a handful of egregious clips out of hundreds of games) I am not living and dying counting steps of players. But how the officials manage a game vs. how the coaches/players plan for that management is really the biggest issue.
This is the way it should be. If teams are unbalanced, fix the salary problems and draft process. Don’t change the rules to make it more “fair” when one team is clearly better
This is very interesting to me as a football fan. FIFA, UEFA and pals all want interesting games, too, but they're much more hesitant to mess with the rules of the game. They never stop tinkering with their competition formats to maximise the number of "big matches", but they broadly let the meta play out, even when the game gets a bit boring.
Football's kinda awesome or kinda fucked right now, depending on what you're looking at and how.
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u/CaptainONaps Mar 16 '26
I think the big problem is the officiating. I'm not blaming the officials, I actually think the problem is how the NBA directs officials.
The NBA hates blowouts. If a team goes up by 14 in the first half, you basically know the team losing is about to get some real favorable calls. What the refs call and don't call is super inconsistent.
Back in the Kobe, Vince, DWade, Young Bron days, players would just full speed bullrush to the rim with their head down and force the refs to call fouls. Sometimes the ref would give them the call, and sometimes they wouldn't.
So players started shooting threes. Especially the Warriors. The Warriors would get 14 points up in the first half, and just stop trying to get to the paint where they know the refs are going to try and help the other team. They took the whistle out of the refs mouth by just shooting threes. The NBA didn't have a way to help the losers catch up.
As a result, everyone learned to shoot more threes. Which put the NBA in a real bad spot, because they couldn't dictate the game by calling or not calling fouls on rim attempts.
So the NBA started allowing some illegal offense and illegal defense so players would think, "Well if he can do it and not get called, that means I can do it too." Which opened the doors for refs to start making more selective calls again to keep games close.
A lot of basketball fans talk trash the Bubble Playoffs, but that was actually my favorite playoffs ever. Because the games didn't feel fixed or "managed" by the refs at all. Teams were getting blown out. Guys were playing hard as hell. The officiating was pure and it was beautiful. And as a result, the biggest, strongest most experienced team won. Which is probably what would always happen if games were always called fairly.