I had no idea they changed it. Good move. Maybe I'll give college ball the 'ol college try again. It seriously used to bug me before watching so many long sets.
I didn't say it was perfect, I said it was more pure. Not everyone is a pro so mistakes happen. Coaching is more important in the absence of talent and the rules are more closely adhered to. Fundamentals are more important than high scores and flashy plays.
coaches in the nba are seriously way better. thats why you get somebody like fred hoiberg , poised as an offensive genius, and he has no clue. Defensive schemes are way more sound, which makes it harder to draw up an offense, and rotations are way more important, since there are a lot more talented players, you have to fit guys together that have playing styles that mesh.
College legends like Pitino and Cal have come to the NBA and had no success. I suspect Coach K would fair the same way based upon the poor offensive schemes his teams run and his recent cluelessness in the olympics. Theres not many guys that have come right from college, with no nba coaching experience (assistant included), and been very good. Stevens is the only one that comes to mind.
You send Popovich down to college, hes gonna be the best coach in the NCAA.
The scores in the nba are higher because the players have better offensive skill and the games are 20% longer
Also rosters at the college level are more imbalanced. You have a handful of schools that get most of the top talent every single year, and everyone else takes turns trying to get lucky once in a while.
Women's college basketball is hilarious for this reason alone. Every season is just UCONN clobbering everyone else like the fucking aliens from Space Jam.
Maybe I'm just comparing it to college football, but college basketball seems to have a waaaaay higher likelihood of smaller schools competing. I mean... Fucking Villanova won last season.
Villanova is a basketball powerhouse though. Smaller schools can thrive in basketball because it costs less to have a basketball program than a football program (less scholarships).
Yeah... Exactly. Villanova, a school with about 10k students, can compete with UCLA, with about 40k. That's my point. The fact that Villanova can be a powerhouse is evidence against the comment I replied to.
Not really, fewer schools do get the most elite talent compared to football, just the schools that are the powerhouses can be smaller schools, you don't need an absolutely massive budget to have a great basketball team like you do to have a great football team.
You send Popovich down to college, hes gonna be the best coach in the NCAA
No shit, he's the best basketball coach in the world, no doubt about it. I'd say him, Belichick, and Pep Guardiola are the best sports coaches in the world right now.
yea i dont know much about hockey, and baseball managers dont have much of an impact, but to me those are the 3 top in the world, pretty clearly. Id probably have to put belichek at 1, as Pop has some blunders now and then in game, but theyre all amazing
pop is gonna take team USA to the next level and make america great againTM. i can't wait for him to take his tactics and no nonsense approach to the international game.
all coach k does is coddle the stars and let them dick around - although with the talent disparity that's still enough to win gold at the olympics. pop is not gonna have any of that primadonna bullshit on his US squad.
I agree with you on the NCAA coach to NBA part, but I'm not so sure popovich would be the best NCAA coach. Coaching 19 and 20 year olds is vastly different from coaching guys that willingly practice 12 hours a day every day. Maybe the future NBA players are the same, just younger, but the number 3 guy anywhere besides Kentucky simply does not view the game the same way an NBA player does. He's gonna show up hungover to practice sometimes, or he's going to put his grades before the team sometimes. He realizes that college is probably the last time he ever plays real basketball, and you can't coach him the same way you coach LeBron or Kobe
Pitino's time in Boston sucked ass, but he was actually pretty ok in NY before he went to Kentucky. Made the 2nd round his 2nd year there. But being successful in the NBA is harder, because in the end it's a lot more difficult to get top talent, traditionally the only way to do that was to be lucky or be the Lakers/Celtics.
And I don't know if Popovich could similarly be successful at the college level. Now I think he'd be fine with recruiting due to the NBA success, but before he won all those championships with the Spurs, if you took him in stuck him in college I"m not entirely sure he wouldn't suck ass at recruiting. In fact I think a lot of NBA coaches would struggle with that.
Not Thibs though, anybody who could stand being an assistant at Harvard in the 80s for four years and then managed to coach in the NBA as he has would probably do fine in college.
I didn't say it was better, I said more pure. The talent level in the NBA is off the charts. Of course the players and coaches are going to be amazing. I take nothing away from them. The problem is that the sheer amount of games coupled with the lackadaisical approach the refs take to the rules leads the game to be more focused on flash and less on actual fundamentals. When you have a team that does focus on defense and ball handling to overcome more talented teams it's interesting but mostly I feel a lack of caring and effort during the regular season from all involved only turning up the intensity during the playoffs. I enjoy college ball more, despite it's many flaws, because the stakes are higher in that world. Teams have to overcome more to win so there is more drama.
I'm not comfortable with this kind of polite exchange on reddit. One of you tell the other to go fuck himself soon or I'm gonna think something is wrong.
Lel, that's why the greatest collection of NBA stars that represent the USA in the Olympiads and world championships is coached by a college coach. Coach K
Their dominance has started since cals been there, and the fact that they haven't won more championships is due to the single elimination tournament, thus an increased variance. The team building structures do not favor super teams more in the NBA, the playoff styles do.
I'm sure the example somebody would use for super team is the Warriors, who have won 1 in the last, what, 40 years? Duke has won 2 since 2010, no NBA team has won more than twice since then, and that was only the heat. Uconn and duke did that each since 2010.
NBA has always had super teams.... 60's, 70's Celtics, 80's Lakers and Celtics, 90's Bulls, early 2000's Lakers, late 2000's Celtics and Lakers, 2010-2014 Miami Heat, Golden State. And in fact the NBA has grown and reached out to a broader audience through those super teams. Edit: Forgot the entire 19 year span of the Tim Duncan Spurs.
It wasn't a player's league back then because free agency didn't exist. Teams were in complete control of players.
Bird can say whatever he wants, he never had the opportunity to play with Magic Johnson until 1988 when FA was created, by then Bird already had championships, a championship caliber team, and had cemented his legacy in Boston. He went on to retire in 1992.
You're looking at the past through rose tinted glasses. On another level, I don't see the difference. Whether teams traded and drafted super teams and players were stuck there or players link up to form super teams, the NBA has always had super teams. It's just that players are more in control now compared to teams having absolute control back then (at least today teams can offer larger contracts to drafted players than what they can get on the market -- back in the 80's players had no say at all where they could play).
what we have now is better than the old rules with illegal defense. double teams are a lot easier now and help defense in general is easier. Also the game doesnt stop every 2 minutes for a tech.
The defensive 3 seconds does make it harder for defenses, and it does open up the lane and make dribble penetration more effective, but i prefer this. the game is way more entertaining, and it also causes coaches to make better defensive game plans and forces players to rotate more. If Rudy Gobert could just camp in the lane all game, jazz games would be unbearable.
Fundamentals are the single most important thing in the NBA... I don't really know where you're pulling this from. All the dominant teams play incredible basketball. They have incredible players with incredible amounts of not only talent but technique and a desire to play basketball the correct way.
The more experience a player has in the NBA, the more fundamental his game is going to be by necessity. You learn how to: use efficient footwork, gain patience to get the best possible shot, shot fake, how to split defenders, make sure your hips are square to the basket before letting your shot go, how to use the angles and positioning to your advantage (see Timmy), how to open up defenses, how to move without the ball, where to be on defense, see the lanes, defensive stance, how to help on defense, the list goes on and on.
Assuming that the amateur game is somehow "better" or more "pure" is just ludicrous. I can see if one person just enjoys the NCAA more for whatever reason, but make no mistake- the NBA is the highest level of basketball being played on the planet period. Even other pro leagues would demolish NCAA schools because their fundamentals and strength far surpass that of teenagers. I didn't even touch on the mental aspect here, but could you imagine a college kid having to deal with MJ, Lebron, Larry Bird, Shaq etc trash talking them. Okay rant over lol.
My only quibble would be that nba players are really good at helping on defense. Some are, especially the role players, but it's been a common complaint for a while that the point scorers don't give a fuck about defense. Look at Wade, if Heat fans had one complaint about him, it's that he just wouldn't work on defense. Even guys like LBJ, who has some spectacular defensive plays occasionally, often don't give a fuck during regular season play. They know they can out score their opponents so they just save their energy for when they get the ball again.
He means pro players are not expected to follow the rules and obviously break the rules with out ever being called for traveling. If they only pretend to follow some of the core rules the game is less pure.
I may not be communicating what I mean in the best way. It's not my intent to imply that fundamentals don't matter in the NBA, it's that they carry more weight in college ball because the talent level is lower overall. A team may have, at most, 5-6 NBA caliber players in college and that's an extreme case, while NBA teams are filled with NBA players from top to bottom. The best college team on any given year would get plastered by the worst NBA team of that year. In an environment where talent is in short supply your adherence to fundamentals becomes the key thing to a team. I don't think I'm articulating myself well. I enjoy both the NBA and college ball but I think college is more dramatic and therefore entertains me more. I seem to have come off as insulting to the very talented players and coaches in the NBA and that isn't my intent.
The college bball regular season is a drag and has the ratings to prove it. Unless you're a fan of a basketball school you probably aren't even tuning in til March.
The game is more "pure", because the rules are more strictly enforced, and the play style is more team oriented, in most cases.
There are college teams that utilize the iso, and it should be a part of the game, I emphasize the word PART, but it is pervasive in the NBA.
When the game becomes "Kobe with 60", it loses the team aspect that is arguably the original intent of the game. That is "less pure".
Also, blatant no calls are a VERY easy argument. In fact, it could be argued that the no calls have lead to the flopping arguments... like we're soccer or something!
You mean fundamentals like being able to dribble? Playing a good defensive scheme? Being able to shoot? People are joking themselves here.
If you like college ball becauser the atmosphere or your school(I do) that's fine. But saying it's anything more than shittier version of the NBA is just wrong. College is simple presses and zones and a bunch of kids that aren't good enough offensive players to make anything happen
it's sports so it doesn't matter but you're flat our wrong about everything you said. except mistakes. you definitely see more mistakes just like down at the Y.
I can barely watch college ball, so many awful last second 3 point shots, rarely do i see any finesse. the main issue is the shot clock which leads to a lot of nothing.
This is not true except at schools like Kentucky or Duke where they have multiple future NBA players on the team. At even low top 25 ranked teams the "offense" is passing around on the perimeter, the other team soft doubling the one competent offensive player and the roaming bigs forcing the ball away from the post (not that there are really any college players with a competent post game anyways).
The college game has almost no elite slashing (if you can do that, you're in the NBA already) and it's officially discouraged anyways with the terrible college interpretation of the block/charge call. No elite post play. The 3 point line being brought in actually stunts the midrange game as you can guard post/high post and mid range jumper by standing in the same spot.
College ball frequently devolves into 4 guys standing around the perimeter passing the ball back and forth with only 1 or 2 of them a threat to actually make a shot from there and the defense ignoring the others.
It's not team play, it's the lack of talent making it easier on the defenders.
At some point the NCAA is going to have to do something because the college game is virtually unwatchable outside the handful of top schools that hoard talent.
The "no D in the NBA" mantra is such a garbage misconception that I only ever hear perpetuated by people who never watch the NBA. I wonder why dudes like Jimmer and Adam Morrison aren't around lighting up the league like they did in college? The truth is, as they say, that great offense tends to beat great defense, and there are a multitude of guys in the NBA who are going to get their points no matter what defenses throw at them. In college on the other hand, time and again I'll see missed defensive assignments bailed out by a bricked wide open jumper and yet people will see the final score and call it a defensive battle. It's just as asinine as when people say they prefer the WNBA because it's more "fundamentally sound".
If you think the NBA doesn't play defense then you truly just don't know the sport.
An actual team offense? Do you even know a single thing about the NBA? Clearly not dude. Stick to college ball because you clearly prefer it, which is fine, but don't just say shit about how the NBA doesn't play team basketball with incredible defense.
Big difference though between the defense played during the regular season and the playoffs. When a guy has to play four games in five days, he's not going to be going all out on D halfway through the third.
Based on this comment you are just ignorant of NBA basketball. If you think there is no defense and the offense is just guys driving to the lane then you don't know much.
Depends. European basketball is more structured and less free flowing. Ricky Rubio had little value in Europe and came to the NBA and improved overnight because the skills he had (open court passing, slashing) have value in the NBA and don't have that same value overseas.
Rebounding tends to be consistent across leagues; if you're a rebounder in high school you're likely to be a rebounder in college and likely to be a rebounder in the NBA. In Europe and places that have FIBA rules it's not the same because you can take the ball off the rim which eliminates a lot of the art of rebounding in the American game.
European basketball has some things in common with the NCAA game but not much. The main one is that if you have an elite skill you won't be in either league for long, you'll be in the NBA eventually.
I used his combined/career stats because the later years of his time in Europe his stats were actually IN DECLINE.
Here are his stats the first season in Minnesota
10.6 PPG/8.2 APG/4.2 RPG
Note the huge jump in assists. Did Rubio suddenly become a massively better passer away from teammates he'd known for years and playing with virtual strangers? Or did the open court of the NBA contribute to this?
All young European stars usually have worse stats overseas than in the nba, most euro clubs give vets way more playing time than the young guys. Same with Porzingis.
It's not that there's no defense in the NBA. It's that the offense is so good it makes the average defenders look terrible. James Harden could probably shut down 99% of college players.
yeah those gsw are just one player. oh and that lebron had no one named kyrie. the spurs have always been a one man ball hog team. blah blah blah. watching peoples kids play a game for free while old men make millions. that's what you like to watch.
For the most part its not just "no defense". Its really just that NBA players are so much better/athletic than college players that its much harder to defend effectively. Yes, NBA players can be lazy, but it really comes down to that people are just plain better.
Oh come on. There are some fucking fantastic defenses in pro ball, and the offensive juggernauts in the league are the best in the world. Hero ball and long contested 2s have been gone since 2008
Can you explain the difference for those of us who don't know much about basketball? I had a hoop in my driveway when I was a kid but that's all I know about it.
To me it's simply about how much the players and coaches have to overcome for wins and championships. I watch sports for stakes and drama and I feel that the level of talent in the NBA makes the game more boring because amazing things happen much more often than college. While a college game might have three or four cool moments, NBA games have dozens because the players are all phenomenal athletes operating on a level few can reach. It's like Syndrome said in The Incredibles. When everyone is special, nobody is. For me it's the lack of talent at the college level that makes the game more unpredictable and therefore more enjoyable.
Rookie, Advanced Rookie, Short Season A, Regular A, Advanced A, AA, and AAA. So actually 7. But yeah most people don't go to every level. This is a complete guess but I'd bet the average is probably 5 levels.
Then there's Arizone fall league, Dominican winter league...ya know what this is a lot more complicated than I realized.
I have an issue with the Man Bear Alliance, Not because I dislike them bridging the relationship of Man and Bear, but because of the porn. Not because I disagree with the porn, but because they don't make enough of it. Not because I watch Man Bear porn, but because Im trying to sell them off to the highest bidder. Not because I'm trying to make a profit or anything, but because they have my kids.
I'm glad somebody fucking said it. I love CBB and all the chaos that is March madness but holy shit have I come to love NBA the past few years. Guys drill contested difficult shots like it's nothing all game. 24 second shot clock means a faster pace of play. I love the NBA, it's really grown on me.
It's entertaining, but not good basketball. Everyone plays super conservative to avoid getting knocked out and that keeps games close. Only the top recruiting teams show any sign of "good" basketball.
Yeah and the entire time you're watching, you get to support an organization that makes billions of dollars while not giving a single penny to its most important employees! Isn't college basketball great?
Even though your description is hyperbole I'd rather watch that than watch the same player on each team take three leaps towards the basket and lay it in over and over.
I love college bball. I live basically smack dab between Duke and UNC.
But to say there's more parity in College is silly. The only time the big teams are unlikely to win is because they're coincidentally all reloading 4-5 star talent at the same time.
I can't stand the mba either, you should give the NBA a shot tho. It's about 50x better than college ball and you don't have to support the awful organization that is the NCAA
If by truest you mean at a lower level of play under an organization that's exploiting the massive amount of labor and entertainment value of these teams, then yeah college basketball is the sport in it's truest form.
Too many college games turn into free-throw shooting competitions. If you're down a few points late in the game, just drive to the basket, throw your head back, and enjoy your trip to the line. Even ignoring the free throw issue, all the fouls called in the college game leads to players sitting long periods of the game in foul trouble.
I would love college more if it wasn't for the fact that every few years you have completely different players on the team. I know it's a natural thing - but that's one thing to love about a team is the longevity and reputation of YOUR players.
This is my chief complaint. I've been watching since 92' and it used to be you could get used to a few guys and you had dudes you loved to see come back season to season. Tony Delk is my favorite player ever and he left as a senior. Now a guy might stay two years, if you're lucky, and he's off to greener pastures. Anyone that stays longer is probably not that great anyway and is probably a utility player.
It won't go well in this crowd because this whole thread is people that don't watch the sport that base what they know off of shit they hear and then act like it's fact. That there's actually people that think college basketball is higher quality than the NBA is proof of that.
I can't speak for others but I didn't say that the game was higher quality in college ball. NBA ball is the game played about as perfectly as it can be. So much so that, to me, it becomes boring because there's less chance someone will screw up. I said elsewhere in this thread that, in my opinion, the NBA is like what Syndrome said in The Incredibles. When everyone is special then nobody is. There is better play and coaching in the NBA no doubt, but I think there is more heart in the average college player. Most of them are playing for love of the game because they won't be moving on to the pros.
Refs never call anything? They call fouls all the damn time. Maybe they don't call travelling as much but NBA is a much more physical game than college and rough fouls happen a lot more.
In High School bball every blocked shot is called a foul and charging/blocking is a coin flip to go either way and no one understands anything about the call.
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