Why the NBA Not Being “This League!” Is Better

For what felt like forever, the only action in an 82-game NBA season came from storylines, not on the court.

It wasn’t “Let’s check the standings in the Western Conference” when getting a notification from ESPN; it was “Is there going to possibly be a superstar that demands a trade on social media today?”

We’d see the Woj Bomb following the trade, and all would respond with “THIS LEAGUE!” as the personalities that are so identifiable in a star-driven sport made the drama so juicy. Still, then we’d go back to… not really caring about the actual on-court product throughout the year until playoff time.

Sure, there have been superstar trades; the Luka Doncic trade and consequential Nico Harrison firing made their way into the mainstream. There’s a reprehensible gambling scandal and possibly a fake endorsement to get around the salary cap. Like any sport, theatrics, not including basketball, still bleed into the news cycle.

But for once, compared to the other professional sports leagues, it kind of feels… relatively quiet and positive? To the point where we can actually focus on basketball and give stakes to the regular season? Is everyone alright?

College sports are currently being overshadowed by NIL and coaching theatrics. The NFL will always be bigger than the actual football as an entertainment commodity, and unfortunately, baseball has entered a hibernation period with a potentially looming lockout. The NHL and NBA are in lockstep with their regular seasons, and both are doing their part in taking on the grand-scale responsibility of staying entertaining over long stretches, rather than the high-stakes, shortened regular season.

Why is it that the league feels so… steady right now? And do we like it that way?

The New CBA

The new CBA effectively killed the superteam era. Going above the salary cap apron has made it nearly impossible for the big spending big market teams to add a third or fourth piece. Now, player empowerment should not ethically be restricted from a labor standpoint. Still, it’s nice not having a disgruntled superstar on a small market team, and then the immediate reaction is to photoshop him in a Lakers or Warriors jersey with the caption “WHO IS STOPPING THIS TEAM?”

The only “superteam” right now is Oklahoma City, and the reason they were created was just that they… had a “superteam” Clippers team give them all the draft picks in the world for them to draft all of the young and inexpensive talent for the next decade. There’s been a bit more of a competitive balance because of how challenging it is to spend now, and both the teams and the players are starting to come to terms with that. We want more guys who are lifers, who can wear a jersey as long as they want, rather than being forced out by poor management.

Parity

The detractors may point out that the Washington Wizards currently have only 3 wins at the time of this; however, it certainly feels like the competitive balance has allowed even the bad teams to have either a young chip worth watching blossom or a superstar. The dead Los Angeles Clippers, which are the oldest team in the league, and potentially the exception, at least give you James Harden, who has had a renaissance playing in a nursing home.

The Wizards are trying to figure out how to build around Alex Sarr, the second overall pick, who’s just 20 years old and learning the league. Even the Pacers will sell you on the hope that Tyrese Haliburton will come back next year with a roster coming off the Finals. The sell is HOPE, and with a draft lottery where even Nico Harrison can land Cooper Flagg (and we’re about to get a historically great draft class), there’s entertainment even in the ethical tank. 

The Better Broadcasts

After seemingly years of complaints about the negativity of tasketball coverage that demeaned tlayers, had booths with no aadditionalcommentary or analysis, or just had no coverage, the NBA’s broadcasters wunderwenta complete overhaul, despite hhe different subscriptions rnow equired to watch  There are names like Vince Carter, Dirk Nowitzki, Blake Griffin, Tracy McGrady, Steve Nash, Udonis Haslem, and Jamal Crawford who are legends of the game, rooting for the players’ success in their analysis, paired next to seasoned play-by-play voices that make the game feel bigger, like Mike Tirico or Noah Eagle.

Even Nikola Jokic told the Amazon Prime crew that the format of the interview he was in was much more fun, and that’s a guy whose personal nightmare is TALKING about basketball despite being the best at doing it.

The Different Styles of Play

Credit: Erik Williams-Imagn Images

The rates of three-pointers have never been higher than this decade because the revelation was, “Well, three is more than two! Let’s shoot as many of them as possible!” and it simply turned into math ball and effectively killed the mid-range game and fossilized players like Roy Hibbert or Zach Randolph. 

Teams have to try things differently if they’re not a team full of sharpshooters to get around the rising rate of threes to increase efficiency; the Pacers played faster than the “Seven Seconds or Less” Suns last year and made it all the way to the Finals. The new-look Houston Rockets are so large that KEVIN DURANT is a shooting guard, and they employ Steven Adams, Alperen Sengun, and Amen Thompson to be linebackers that give them the best rebounding rate in the league.

The idea of simply “let’s put three superstars together on a team and figure everything else out from there,” which has historically failed, or the premise that having one guy play hero-ball is a facade, has made the league more fun.

There’s a greater sense of team identity that we missed returning.

The Heads on Shoulders

We rarely have this many young stars that are so driven and trained to be the best they can be at this time. For a while, the disease made everyone get a podcast at once; everyone was either too afraid or too unafraid to speak into a microphone. The cries for help on social media, whether from “rings culture” or a response to our dumb sports brain, left the players rightfully fed up with the state of the league. It kind of just feels like everyone is hooping now? Durant has moved enough that it’s just accepted that he’s a player who will move where he can play fun basketball.

Our 2010s-era stars get to be the grizzled veterans rather than feel the pressure to win now or else. The mentality, with so many eyes fixated at all times, has now come full swing, and the players have seemingly embraced that responsibility.

It’s absolutely cliché to say “The league is in good hands!” but the NBA feels like a year-round calendar that is fun again.