Should the league be concerned about declining TV ratings? (Photo by G Fiume/Getty Images)
Each week during the 2024-25 NBA season, we will take a deeper dive into some of the league’s biggest storylines in an attempt to determine whether trends are based more in fact or fiction moving forward.
Fact or Fiction: Something is seriously wrong with the NBA
I thought the discussion about “what is wrong with the NBA” was mainly driven by social media, where people who purportedly like basketball were spending the early part of this season searching for answers to a decline in television ratings, but the conversation reached the mainstream this week. Commissioner Adam Silver addressed concerns in Las Vegas, where NBA Cup participants were also asked about the health of the league, as “Inside the NBA” hosts Charles Barkley and Shaquille O’Neal floated theories.
“It’s frustrating to me, because all it is now is a 3-point shooting contest and a free-throw contest, and I don’t like it,” Barkley, arguably the NBA’s most influential commentator, said on “The Dan Patrick Show.” “They can get mad, but I don’t want to go see a 3-point shooting contest every night. That ain’t no fun.”
“It drives me f***ing crazy,” O’Neal added on his own podcast.
The increase in 3-point attempts is probably the most popular position among armchair analysts. Teams are attempting nearly 40 per game — up from 35 last season, from 20 in 2013-14 and from 10 in 1993-94.
Even LeBron James — maybe the only person in the game whose voice holds more weight than Barkley’s — shoehorned his grievance into an answer about the latest All-Star Game format, telling reporters, “Our game, there’s a lot of f***ing 3s being shot. So it’s a bigger conversation than just the All-Star Game.”
I may be in the minority, but I do not understand the premise. Shooting is an important part of the game, maybe the most important, and an increased degree of difficulty — at a success rate that makes the NBA of the 1980s and early ’90s look unskilled — should not on its own explain why people may be turned off.
Was it better when teams were shooting 40.1% on 31.3 midrange…
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