How can people watch basketball anymore?

If Kyrie weren't so greedy and passed the effin ball maybe they would have won. Just like most Dook players that come from Coach K's regime. Though don't count Grant Hill because he was the best player to ever come out of that program. Kyrie is prob the 8th-9th best PG in the league and Curry is maybe 6th-7th so they were matched up toe to toe. Cavs played their best basketball they will ever ever play under that lineup and it will never be good enough.

"Kevin Durant is a LooooOoOOOOOooser"

-Donald Trump

-Russell Westbrook

Walt Bellamy's Avatar wrote:

Regarding a comment above concerning Golden State players' contracts:

Thompson & Green are signed thru 2019 & 2020.

Iguidala has already stated in a recent interview that he, Curry & Durant will be holding a presser or together announcing their intentions for next season within a few weeks.

All the warriors beat writers/commentators are certain this means they all will resign with the Warriors at least through next season.

The real questions then become: will there be enough $$ left over to sign Livingston, West, Pachulia, McGee, and Clark? Will West and/or Pachulia decide to retire?

Will free agents like Zach Randolph want to join the team on veteran's minimum salary like Pachulia & West did this year?

There likely will be some turnover, but nothing like last year.

Curry and Durant have already said they'd take pay cuts

For a sport that is boring to watch we certainly spend a great deal of time writing about it. We don't have many threads about soccer, lacrosse, baseball or hockey.

There aren't any scrubs in the NBA. They are all so good that they kind of neutralize each other but they are all incredible athletes. They make the game look easy.

It is statistically one of the most difficult sports to turn professional in. Durant is a super freak of nature to be able to move like he can at his height and still make outside shots like he does. Lebron is a freak as well. I don't know who would be tougher to guard one on one.

What if Darryl Dawkins could be young again and playing in today's league? 6'10, 270 lbs of pure muscle and can jump to the moon. Imagine if he didnt have to worry about fouling out and was allowed to run with the ball on his way to the hoop. Who in today's league wouldn't get out of his way?

The Warriors had the best defensive rating in the league, to go with a sensational offense. But the Cavs with a shotblocker would have put a serious dent in the easy buckets they got every time someone broke to the rim.

The style of defense has been changed by the rules but make no mistake that today's players have far better skills than the vast majority of NBA players in the past because they play AAU ball with all-star teams from an early age and so get a lot more disciplined playing from an early age. If you have been around some of these higher profile AAU teams over time, you will know that these players are already highly skilled from an early age. And that was evident in this series from the best. But the Warriors can be broken by a team with size and defense, like the Spurs would have been with a prime Tim Duncan and a healthy Kawhi and Tony Parker. So, it is a tall order but one key signing or trade could put the Cavs back ahead of them. And Durant has been fragile in his career and could lose time next year at a key moment.

I would say that all those AAU, etc leagues actually make the top players less skilled, not more. And it shows. The resson that no one in the NBA today csn do the kinds of things that Pete Maravich (just for example) could do with a badketball is they dont have the opportunnities to spend several hours a day by themselves in a gym, playground, their backyard or park honing those skills.

It's a lot more interesting than hockey, where most of the goals are mistakes.

Perhaps there IS a rule about it, but nobody's ever been able to tell me why hockey teams don 't just get 400-pound goalies who cover the entire open net. Don't tell me they can't move. They wouldn't HAVE to move.

Who would the Cav shot blocker guard? Durant, Green, Iguadala? He could be brought away from the basket the way the Warriors spread the floor and shoot. But yes, size, defense and depth is the only way to beat them.

Coach wrote:

For a sport that is boring to watch we certainly spend a great deal of time writing about it. We don't have many threads about soccer, lacrosse, baseball or hockey.

Hell, for that matter Coach, we don't have many threads about running either!!!

Nope, the Warriors have so many 3-point threats the shotblocker could not camp in the lane and wait for drivers to come to him, he'd have to guard the 3 point line. The Cavs on the other hand, do not have nearly as many 3-point threats in their lineup but they have great one on one players in Lebron and Irving so they go to isos. Only problem is, playing offense this way is exhausting. Lebron and Irving (when he feels like it) are also the Cavs best distributors and because the Warriors are so great offensively, can't hide on defense. By the fourth quarter, both are gassed. The Cavs do not have the cap space to sign a superstar like the Warriors did in Durant. Don't forget, the Warriors best player, Curry, is on an affordable contract plus the Warriors chose not to resign players like Bogut to clear cap space for Durant. The Cavs' stars make too much money for them to duplicate what the Warriors did. The best they can do is shore up their weak bench. That won't be enough.

Basketball is America's version of soccer, bunch of sissies diving around to get each other whistled at.

NBA sucks wrote:

I just turned on game 5 with a minute and a half left in the first. Golden State was down by 5. Curry pump fakes a 3, Korver jumps up then Curry jumps into him and gets 3 free throws. The next play, Cavs miss and GS rebounds. Some scrub gets a touch foul on a fast break at halfcourt and gets 2 free throws. Then a few seconds later Curry gets two more free throws for a touch foul.

That's enough nonsense fouls for me to turn off the game. I have no idea why the ratings are so high for this.

So many here have missed the point of why you posted, thinking that you are somehow criticizing watching sports entertainment in general.

Since you main point was that "fouls" in the NBA seem completely arbitrary and yet seems to be the central deciding factor to nearly every game, it is hard to really get drawn into watching NBA basketball.

I have noticed this as well, and completely agree. I used to watch a lot of NBA (20 years ago), but just can't get into it anymore. The foul situation, and the scandal a few years ago about refs manipulating the games, made me loose interest.

NBA sucks wrote:

I just turned on game 5 with a minute and a half left in the first. Golden State was down by 5. Curry pump fakes a 3, Korver jumps up then Curry jumps into him and gets 3 free throws. The next play, Cavs miss and GS rebounds. Some scrub gets a touch foul on a fast break at halfcourt and gets 2 free throws. Then a few seconds later Curry gets two more free throws for a touch foul.

That's enough nonsense fouls for me to turn off the game. I have no idea why the ratings are so high for this.

I don't like the nonsense fouls either but overall this is a great era for basketball.

The offensive output of BOTH teams in the finals was unlike anything we've ever seen. The sport is growing in viewership and around the world, and our American NBA players are the face of that growth. Get with it or get lost.

Portland Hobby Jogger wrote:

Officiating, or the lack of consistent officiating, is why the NBA is unwatchable most of the time. Evidently, superstars are immune from traveling, double dribbles, and other calls reserved for mortals. The integrity of the game takes a backseat to a SportsCenter highlight dunk run in from half court.

Oh, why does the final 2-3 minutes of a close game take 20 minutes to play and resembles a middle school girl's slap fight more than basketball? If I want to watch 20 minutes of free throw shooting interspersed with slow walking, I'll go to my local YMCA to watch some middle aged men "network" before their Corporate/40+/Under 6 Foot league tournament.

It is very obvious a lot of the posters here watch almost 0 NBA games each year. I get that you tuned in for 1 hour of game 5 and think you are an expert now but your comments are pretty much garbage. Especially the one about the final 2-3 minutes of a game. Very rarely does the end of an NBA game take very long to complete because the foul shooters are all 80%+. Also with the short shot clock, getting stops and then scoring quickly are about the only way to realistically come back. You must be thinking of the college game where the parade to the foul line does happen in close games.

Yep, and the movies Rambo, and the Chuck Norris films where he rescued the POWs is a way we assuage out guilt. Its faux satisfaction and guilt reduction. Because we actually lost the Vietnam War.