Soccer....the beautiful game. Basketball...not so much. For one thing the noise at games from beginning g to end constant music. And the last 5 minutes the coaches play the game not the players. In soccer the players play the game not the coach.
What I mean is that coordinated pressing tactics are increasing the cardiovascular demands on players and reducing time and space on the ball across the elite level of the game, making the player types that can compete more limited to run-forever automatons, squeezing the beloved creative mavericks of prior decades obsolete.
Go watch ten minutes of an elite level game from 20-30 years ago, they're all over Youtube. The ability for creative players to have the freedom to do cool shit is being ruthlessly extinguished.
The trequartista has gone the way of the back-to-basket big man in basketball.
Soccer would become about sixteen point five times as watchable if the leagues would fine players for flopping based on post-game video review. But also it would become about sixty three point seven five times more watchable, at least in the USA, if MLS could attract more than about three players in the entire league capable of playing actual professional-caliber soccer.
Nah, even with the issue of the 3 point line, the product today is still far superior, in my opinion. The depth of the talent is so much higher than it was. The 3 point problem does need to be fixed, though.
Fair enough. From some sports fans in my midwestern flyover state, there is a type of nostalgia that often distorts things into "guys nowadays have no fundamentals and they don't play defense!"
I know you're not saying that, but I do think overall, it's part of the same overly-efficient problem Freddie describes - the players and play has grown has gotten so efficient that it can definitely be less interesting.
A long time ago I had a thought experiment where I imagined what the major sports would look like if the mechanics of the sport could be executed perfectly. The rules of the game of basketball disallow the defense from playing defense anymore once a shot is up in the air, meaning a basketball robot who can huck the ball into the net from anywhere on the court would be completely unstoppable.
The state of the modern NBA was completely predictable if you just understood that the overall level of skill would keep rising over time. Of course, I've always found the game unwatchable for a myriad of other reasons ("wait, somebody figured out that you can gain a strategic advantage by intentionally committing violations of the rules, and this discovery has led to the pace of play in close games becoming torturous, and it hasn't occurred to anybody to patch this clearly broken aspect of the game?")
Teams should be able to do decline a non-shooting foul in basketball, and if a team declines your foul, there is also a 5 or 10 second clock run off so you can't keep trying to force the team to throw it in.
I wish I could do a better job explaining the qualitative gap in the game that is played in 2024 than my vocabulary allows me but I just fundamentally do not feel the level of enthusiasm about basketball that I did in ye olden days.
Like it's not physical, and no one seems to really genuinely dislike the other team very much. There's the 3 ball thing that's noted here and in general it just feels like it's less entertaining. I didn't watch the finals this year, I was on vacation In D.C. and trundling into my hotel room in time for the 4th quarter I just didn't want to be bothered to stay up an extra half hour and watch the conclusion. It's hard to acknowledge this isn a way because it's hard to say exactly what it is.
Those guys, and women for that matter, are pounding each other out there every opportunity they get. Watch the players without the ball: shoulders, elbows, and hands are used for pushing and jabbing whenever a player shields the view of an official/officials aren't looking. The shoulders these guys give each other routinely after a shot/play (you know when the two players don't look at each other and they `bump' into each other) would put most of us on the ground with a very sore arm.
With a decent enough surround sound you will even hear the physicality on television.
I don't understand that argument either. Go back and watch highlights and full games from the midrange-heavy era pre-1996 or so and you'll see way less contact, way less falling to the floor. It almost looks quaint. This is the incoherence of the old-NBA-was-better crowd. They either claim they want the old gracefulness back, with all its midrangers and skyhooks (fair enough I guess) or they misremember the level of physicality in the game.
Exactly! The players are now stronger, faster, have more endurance, and are better conditioned. They're doing that because it's a prerequisite to compete in a modern league (Jokic and Doncic, being the freaks that they are, go against this but Zion Williamson certainly doesn't).
By ignoring play in the paint Freddie fails to see so much of that old basketball he appears to love (Donovan Mitchell is fantastic to watch there).
Also Al Horford was a > 40% 3-pt shooter this season and last season. Boston fans would be irate, and should be irate, if he's not taking threes.
Yeah the Celtics were pretty dynamic throughout the regular season, Brown has probably the deadliest midrange % in the league and Tatum was much less reliant on 3 pointers this year and still averaged 25-30 a night. I have no idea why Freddie was arguing the Celtics don't "feel dominant" and then trying to pass this off as a maligned opinion as if half the sports media and virtually the entire NBA fanbase outside New England hasn't also been fielding the same unsubstantiated complaints all year long. And the increasing number of 7 footers like Porzingis and Wemby who can make pocket passes and shoot from the arc is making the game more entertaining to me, I don't get all the boredom and whining.
All of this reminds me of NBA chatter 20-25 years ago, when everyone used to complain the game was "too slow" compared to college ball. I think it had to do with Jordan coming in and out of retirement and there was no real "face of the league." Of course nowadays we look back fondly on Iverson/Kobe/Pierce/Duncan era, but all of them got huge hate in late 90s / early 2000s that we've conveniently forgotten. I think we're seeing a similar thing as we approach the end of the LeBron era, I'm just letting it wash over me and basking in the glory days people 20 or 30 years from now will inevitably nostalgize lol
Of course, the three-point line was originated as a gimmick by the ABA, in which little D was played, and an open, bells-and-whistles game was put forward to comprte with the NBA. Later it was adopted by the NBA to open up the game, enticing shooters with a bonus to take what was a bad shot. Now, as the second-best shot on the floor (after a layup or two-footer), it is not opening up the game but narrowing it. So the line should be moved back a couple feet. Alternatelty, it could be - gasp - eliminated. Otherwise, no mid-range jumpers unless its 1) the playoffs, and 2) the refs aren't calling much.
This is why the NHL is the best league right now, and why more people should tune in. We’re still at the “stop the players from assaulting each other midgame” stage, and are at least a decade away from an analytics revolution. It was glorious to see NBA fans that were bored by the Finals tuning in to one of the most exciting Stanley Cups in years.
I regret to inform you that every NHL team has a full analytics department, and the hockey has been “solved” in a similar manner to basketball already. Things are harder to implement because the speed of the game brings more randomness. There are also old school personalities (ie Torts the coach of my flyers) who are, for better or worse, stuck in their ways. However make no mistake, the same phenomenon has overtaken the NHL and changed the game in meaningful ways (including shot selection like the NBA). Whether you think that’s made the game better or worse is an opinion, but I think it’s a mixed bag.
For one thing, the enforcer/goon as a defined role is pretty much extinct. To the extent that they still exist, it’s normally a highly skilled player who just so happens to also be a tough guy. Gone are the days where guys would be brought up through the system primarily based on their physicality. 4th lines are pretty much less skilled versions of the 1st line, or young guys developing into top 6 forwards.
Also, very similarly to the NBA, the game has evolved towards more “positionless” play with systems being looked at fluid 5 man units rather than distinct wingers, center, and defensemen. Because of this, there’s way more offensive defensemen than there used to be, and scoring ability is heavily emphasized in defensemen. Teams were built around guys like Lidstom and Pronger who rarely cracked 50 pts in a season but rarely made mistakes. It makes perfect sense why, but today it’s trending towards the defensemen who can get you 65 points even if he gives up a few goals in the process.
I mean yes analytics exist, and they have altered the game somewhat, but hockey has not been “solved” to anywhere near the degree we see in baseball/basketball, i.e. to the point where we need rule changes to keep things interesting. Like I alluded to, the rule changes we’re currently seeing in hockey are to keep the players from killing each other. You’re absolutely right that this is in part because hockey is more random than those other sports, though. Anyways Flyers suck
I am a 69 y.o. woman, completely disinterested in basketball, but have come by some peripheral knowledge of the sport by way of my husband for the last few decades. I must say, Freddie, that this was a fantastic, fascinating analysis. I love your attitude and voice. Great piece. Thanks!
I love the NBA, but agree with about 100% of this. I also just enjoyed reading it.
Now, I'd like to share my very best idea ever on how to fix the 3 point problem and make the NBA way, way more interesting: adjust the value of the three point shot periodically. This is an obvious statement but the three pointer is worth 150% of two-pointer, but is nowhere near 150% harder to make. Again, obvious, but it's literally the entire problem. Every few seasons, the NBA should change the value of the shot to better reflect the difficulty of the shot. I'm too lazy to look it up right now, but let's say the 3 pointer is currently shot 25% worse than a 2 pointer. Cool - change the value of the 3 pointer to 2.5 points in that case. Teams will stop relying it on it as much. If the math changes (because guys stop shooting it as much and get worse at it) then you just bump it back up a few years later. Oh, 3 pointers are now made at a clip 40% worse than 2 points? No sweat, going into the 2028 season, it's now worth 2.8 points.
Yes, I realize this will never happen (mainly because people would bitch about having a decimal in their score total), but it's the best idea I've ever had, and I would very much like it to happen. It's a bullet proof idea.
I'd just kill the corner three. Arc goes around at 24' instead of 23'9, and just...disappears in the corners where it currently goes straight at 22'. If you want to space the floor in the corner and take that open shorter jumper, fine, but it's 2 points not 3. That alone would go a long way in changing teams' offensive strategy and shot diet.
I'm trying to shift the Overton Window, BABY (probably a bank shot joke here somewhere), and so by demanding decimals in our points, they'll have to settle for eliminating the corner 3. I'd take it!
How does this league make money? I say this as a fan who watched more playoff basketball than is probably healthy, considering my opinion on the modern product is close to FdB’s, who else is watching? The NBA feels like a bubble waiting to burst right now.
Games turning into ersatz three point shooting contests is the main reason I bailed on the NBA a couple of seasons ago. Boring, predictable play with outcomes rendered boat races by halftime thanks to twenty-plus point leads.
And as you mentioned, the smug stats bros and soap opera culture that surrounds the NBA with commentators and players seemingly more interested in where someone might play (or coach) than where (and how) they're currently playing.
Baseball could be excruciating to watch recently thanks to analytics-driven TTO bullshit, but at least MLB has taken steps to create more exciting games with new rules like the pitch clock, banning the shift, using bigger bases, less pitcher changes, etc. And it seems like teams are figuring out batting average is kind of important, despite what the Big Brain Sports Knowers on Twitter and Reddit tell you.
Yes. Was gonna say this. Becoming more like baseball would actually be a step in the right direction for the NBA because at least MLB made much-needed rule changes.
Yeah, beyond the rule changes (which have helped enormously) it does seem like the MLB is course correcting a bit back towards hitting for average. It's not there yet, but I'm praying the days of guys who hit 30 home runs while batting .200 are numbered
SPEAK ON IT!! 👏🏼
Sorry, I've been busy helping drag out in public, kicking and screaming, an understanding of exactly who the fuck is running the U.S.
Yeah....good luck with that!
Soccer....the beautiful game. Basketball...not so much. For one thing the noise at games from beginning g to end constant music. And the last 5 minutes the coaches play the game not the players. In soccer the players play the game not the coach.
Soccer is suffering a lot of similar efficiency-mongering sucking the beauty out of the game unfortunately.
Not sure I agree could you explain. Thanks
A good defense can make a great team stumble keeping the goals far and in between. But your not referring to that...right?
What I mean is that coordinated pressing tactics are increasing the cardiovascular demands on players and reducing time and space on the ball across the elite level of the game, making the player types that can compete more limited to run-forever automatons, squeezing the beloved creative mavericks of prior decades obsolete.
Go watch ten minutes of an elite level game from 20-30 years ago, they're all over Youtube. The ability for creative players to have the freedom to do cool shit is being ruthlessly extinguished.
The trequartista has gone the way of the back-to-basket big man in basketball.
Maybe allow free substitution?
I think it's those pesky analytics. Bah.
Soccer would become about sixteen point five times as watchable if the leagues would fine players for flopping based on post-game video review. But also it would become about sixty three point seven five times more watchable, at least in the USA, if MLS could attract more than about three players in the entire league capable of playing actual professional-caliber soccer.
Nothing beats the 80s-90s era NBA. MJ is still the best.
Nah, even with the issue of the 3 point line, the product today is still far superior, in my opinion. The depth of the talent is so much higher than it was. The 3 point problem does need to be fixed, though.
I think the reason I love the 80's-90s era is the exact fact that they aren't as talented, but made up for that with heart and toughness.
Fair enough. From some sports fans in my midwestern flyover state, there is a type of nostalgia that often distorts things into "guys nowadays have no fundamentals and they don't play defense!"
I know you're not saying that, but I do think overall, it's part of the same overly-efficient problem Freddie describes - the players and play has grown has gotten so efficient that it can definitely be less interesting.
I mean this as the upmost compliment as a 35 year old sports fan who’s read way too much sports writing:
This read as a beautiful cross between ‘05 Deadspin and Peak Rick Reilly.
I'm watching more and more Aussie rules football. It's one of the only sports that still seems fun.
Absolute banger
A long time ago I had a thought experiment where I imagined what the major sports would look like if the mechanics of the sport could be executed perfectly. The rules of the game of basketball disallow the defense from playing defense anymore once a shot is up in the air, meaning a basketball robot who can huck the ball into the net from anywhere on the court would be completely unstoppable.
The state of the modern NBA was completely predictable if you just understood that the overall level of skill would keep rising over time. Of course, I've always found the game unwatchable for a myriad of other reasons ("wait, somebody figured out that you can gain a strategic advantage by intentionally committing violations of the rules, and this discovery has led to the pace of play in close games becoming torturous, and it hasn't occurred to anybody to patch this clearly broken aspect of the game?")
Teams should be able to do decline a non-shooting foul in basketball, and if a team declines your foul, there is also a 5 or 10 second clock run off so you can't keep trying to force the team to throw it in.
I wish I could do a better job explaining the qualitative gap in the game that is played in 2024 than my vocabulary allows me but I just fundamentally do not feel the level of enthusiasm about basketball that I did in ye olden days.
Like it's not physical, and no one seems to really genuinely dislike the other team very much. There's the 3 ball thing that's noted here and in general it just feels like it's less entertaining. I didn't watch the finals this year, I was on vacation In D.C. and trundling into my hotel room in time for the 4th quarter I just didn't want to be bothered to stay up an extra half hour and watch the conclusion. It's hard to acknowledge this isn a way because it's hard to say exactly what it is.
`Like it's not physical'
Those guys, and women for that matter, are pounding each other out there every opportunity they get. Watch the players without the ball: shoulders, elbows, and hands are used for pushing and jabbing whenever a player shields the view of an official/officials aren't looking. The shoulders these guys give each other routinely after a shot/play (you know when the two players don't look at each other and they `bump' into each other) would put most of us on the ground with a very sore arm.
With a decent enough surround sound you will even hear the physicality on television.
I don't understand that argument either. Go back and watch highlights and full games from the midrange-heavy era pre-1996 or so and you'll see way less contact, way less falling to the floor. It almost looks quaint. This is the incoherence of the old-NBA-was-better crowd. They either claim they want the old gracefulness back, with all its midrangers and skyhooks (fair enough I guess) or they misremember the level of physicality in the game.
Exactly! The players are now stronger, faster, have more endurance, and are better conditioned. They're doing that because it's a prerequisite to compete in a modern league (Jokic and Doncic, being the freaks that they are, go against this but Zion Williamson certainly doesn't).
By ignoring play in the paint Freddie fails to see so much of that old basketball he appears to love (Donovan Mitchell is fantastic to watch there).
Also Al Horford was a > 40% 3-pt shooter this season and last season. Boston fans would be irate, and should be irate, if he's not taking threes.
Yeah the Celtics were pretty dynamic throughout the regular season, Brown has probably the deadliest midrange % in the league and Tatum was much less reliant on 3 pointers this year and still averaged 25-30 a night. I have no idea why Freddie was arguing the Celtics don't "feel dominant" and then trying to pass this off as a maligned opinion as if half the sports media and virtually the entire NBA fanbase outside New England hasn't also been fielding the same unsubstantiated complaints all year long. And the increasing number of 7 footers like Porzingis and Wemby who can make pocket passes and shoot from the arc is making the game more entertaining to me, I don't get all the boredom and whining.
All of this reminds me of NBA chatter 20-25 years ago, when everyone used to complain the game was "too slow" compared to college ball. I think it had to do with Jordan coming in and out of retirement and there was no real "face of the league." Of course nowadays we look back fondly on Iverson/Kobe/Pierce/Duncan era, but all of them got huge hate in late 90s / early 2000s that we've conveniently forgotten. I think we're seeing a similar thing as we approach the end of the LeBron era, I'm just letting it wash over me and basking in the glory days people 20 or 30 years from now will inevitably nostalgize lol
Well done.
Of course, the three-point line was originated as a gimmick by the ABA, in which little D was played, and an open, bells-and-whistles game was put forward to comprte with the NBA. Later it was adopted by the NBA to open up the game, enticing shooters with a bonus to take what was a bad shot. Now, as the second-best shot on the floor (after a layup or two-footer), it is not opening up the game but narrowing it. So the line should be moved back a couple feet. Alternatelty, it could be - gasp - eliminated. Otherwise, no mid-range jumpers unless its 1) the playoffs, and 2) the refs aren't calling much.
This is why the NHL is the best league right now, and why more people should tune in. We’re still at the “stop the players from assaulting each other midgame” stage, and are at least a decade away from an analytics revolution. It was glorious to see NBA fans that were bored by the Finals tuning in to one of the most exciting Stanley Cups in years.
This is true, although MLB is making a comeback with the very effective rule changes.
But nothing comes even close to NHL playoffs for pure sports joy/anguish.
I regret to inform you that every NHL team has a full analytics department, and the hockey has been “solved” in a similar manner to basketball already. Things are harder to implement because the speed of the game brings more randomness. There are also old school personalities (ie Torts the coach of my flyers) who are, for better or worse, stuck in their ways. However make no mistake, the same phenomenon has overtaken the NHL and changed the game in meaningful ways (including shot selection like the NBA). Whether you think that’s made the game better or worse is an opinion, but I think it’s a mixed bag.
For one thing, the enforcer/goon as a defined role is pretty much extinct. To the extent that they still exist, it’s normally a highly skilled player who just so happens to also be a tough guy. Gone are the days where guys would be brought up through the system primarily based on their physicality. 4th lines are pretty much less skilled versions of the 1st line, or young guys developing into top 6 forwards.
Also, very similarly to the NBA, the game has evolved towards more “positionless” play with systems being looked at fluid 5 man units rather than distinct wingers, center, and defensemen. Because of this, there’s way more offensive defensemen than there used to be, and scoring ability is heavily emphasized in defensemen. Teams were built around guys like Lidstom and Pronger who rarely cracked 50 pts in a season but rarely made mistakes. It makes perfect sense why, but today it’s trending towards the defensemen who can get you 65 points even if he gives up a few goals in the process.
I mean yes analytics exist, and they have altered the game somewhat, but hockey has not been “solved” to anywhere near the degree we see in baseball/basketball, i.e. to the point where we need rule changes to keep things interesting. Like I alluded to, the rule changes we’re currently seeing in hockey are to keep the players from killing each other. You’re absolutely right that this is in part because hockey is more random than those other sports, though. Anyways Flyers suck
I am a 69 y.o. woman, completely disinterested in basketball, but have come by some peripheral knowledge of the sport by way of my husband for the last few decades. I must say, Freddie, that this was a fantastic, fascinating analysis. I love your attitude and voice. Great piece. Thanks!
I love the NBA, but agree with about 100% of this. I also just enjoyed reading it.
Now, I'd like to share my very best idea ever on how to fix the 3 point problem and make the NBA way, way more interesting: adjust the value of the three point shot periodically. This is an obvious statement but the three pointer is worth 150% of two-pointer, but is nowhere near 150% harder to make. Again, obvious, but it's literally the entire problem. Every few seasons, the NBA should change the value of the shot to better reflect the difficulty of the shot. I'm too lazy to look it up right now, but let's say the 3 pointer is currently shot 25% worse than a 2 pointer. Cool - change the value of the 3 pointer to 2.5 points in that case. Teams will stop relying it on it as much. If the math changes (because guys stop shooting it as much and get worse at it) then you just bump it back up a few years later. Oh, 3 pointers are now made at a clip 40% worse than 2 points? No sweat, going into the 2028 season, it's now worth 2.8 points.
Yes, I realize this will never happen (mainly because people would bitch about having a decimal in their score total), but it's the best idea I've ever had, and I would very much like it to happen. It's a bullet proof idea.
I'd just kill the corner three. Arc goes around at 24' instead of 23'9, and just...disappears in the corners where it currently goes straight at 22'. If you want to space the floor in the corner and take that open shorter jumper, fine, but it's 2 points not 3. That alone would go a long way in changing teams' offensive strategy and shot diet.
I'm trying to shift the Overton Window, BABY (probably a bank shot joke here somewhere), and so by demanding decimals in our points, they'll have to settle for eliminating the corner 3. I'd take it!
BIG FRED TALKIN TO EM 🗣️🔥🔥🔥
How does this league make money? I say this as a fan who watched more playoff basketball than is probably healthy, considering my opinion on the modern product is close to FdB’s, who else is watching? The NBA feels like a bubble waiting to burst right now.
Games turning into ersatz three point shooting contests is the main reason I bailed on the NBA a couple of seasons ago. Boring, predictable play with outcomes rendered boat races by halftime thanks to twenty-plus point leads.
And as you mentioned, the smug stats bros and soap opera culture that surrounds the NBA with commentators and players seemingly more interested in where someone might play (or coach) than where (and how) they're currently playing.
Baseball could be excruciating to watch recently thanks to analytics-driven TTO bullshit, but at least MLB has taken steps to create more exciting games with new rules like the pitch clock, banning the shift, using bigger bases, less pitcher changes, etc. And it seems like teams are figuring out batting average is kind of important, despite what the Big Brain Sports Knowers on Twitter and Reddit tell you.
Yes. Was gonna say this. Becoming more like baseball would actually be a step in the right direction for the NBA because at least MLB made much-needed rule changes.
Yeah, beyond the rule changes (which have helped enormously) it does seem like the MLB is course correcting a bit back towards hitting for average. It's not there yet, but I'm praying the days of guys who hit 30 home runs while batting .200 are numbered
Pitch clock is horrible… but the rest of new rules are ok. I liked baseball being a longer game.