Yahoo Sports senior NBA analyst Kevin O’Connor is joined by basketball trainer and author Drew Hanlen to discuss how players are judged by fans and why that’s the real issue plaguing basketball today. Hear the full conversation on “The Kevin O’Connor Show” and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen.
Video Transcript
I really do think that the majority of the, the ratings issues or, you know, how everyone wants to talk about what is broken basketball.
The game says it’s all-time best.
Players are the most skilled they’ve ever been.
They make shots more than they’ve ever been.
The game’s paces up and down.
The concepts and the details with the coaching, you know, does is at an all-time high.
It’s the fan that is at an all-time low.
Fans only care about hitting their parlays.
They care about their fantasy teams.
Fans, uh, don’t really care about championships until it comes down to hating on people for championships.
They just want their talking about individuals, individuals, meaning like, so I’ll give you an example.
What is the biggest criticism of, let’s say Joel and Be?
He hasn’t got past champion, hasn’t got past the second round.
Second round means nothing.
Efficiency drops in the postseason.
So, so I would say those are all fair arguments, right?
But since when does the second round matter because people don’t talk about when they argue LeBron Jordan, they don’t say, Well, Jordan got knocked out by the Celtics even though he averaged 40 points and he got swept, but LeBron went to 10 finals.
They say LeBron didn’t get it done in the championship.
People do say that, but it’s silly to say it’s like it’s like knocking Tom Brady from making Super Bowls.
He makes the Super Bowl 10 times.
Yes, what I’m saying is the only thing that matters right now to us fans is championships.
So the problem is, I think that’s an issue because then it downplays the regular season.
It downplays individual, you know, accolades.
It downplays.
So like Michael Jordan, when he averaged 37 points a game in a season, he didn’t win the championship.
Should we just say that’s a bad season because he didn’t win the championship because he didn’t have a surrounding cast?
That’s what I’m saying is I think that has been downplayed.