There has been a lot of discussion during this NBA season about the overall decline in television ratings across the league and what is contributing to it. Many have spoken publicly about the style of today’s game being a factor in that, critiquing the abundance of 3-pointers throughout the NBA, but Los Angeles Lakers head coach JJ Redick doesn’t believe that is fair.
Redick was recently asked his opinion on the matter and spoke at length, believing people aren’t recognizing the full story when it comes to threes, via Khobi Price of the Southern California News Group:
“I was hoping I wouldn’t have to provide takes anymore. I’ll try to be brief. I said the other night, I don’t think the league is as homogenized as a lot of people make it out to be. There are certain rosters and certain players that because of their skillset, it makes sense to shoot a lot of 3s. What I think gets lost a little bit in the amount of 3-point attempts is what has been taken away, which is a steady decline in long 2s. What, I checked this last year so don’t quote me on this, but what has increased along with 3-point volume is points in the paint. So the 3 has allowed more space for people to actually score at the rim and score in the paint, so that’s the strategy.”
It is true that the other side of the 3-point boom is that coaches are also pushing to attack the paint more as layups and dunks are more efficient than mid-range twos, which is what coaches are pushing against most.
Redick would then go into the ratings themselves, pointing to the overall decline in people paying for cable as a factor and adding that even his own household is strictly streaming:
“In terms of the ratings there’s a lot of probably whys. I would speculate some of it is streaming. Some of it is the fact that in my own household we have YouTube TV and we don’t have Spectrum right now. We have Spectrum wi-fi, but not the Spectrum cable and my family can’t watch Lakers games that aren’t nationally televised. I do have a free account from Spectrum I’m just too lazy to set it up. Clear on that, Spectrum has been very good to me, but my point to that is in my own household I have nine or 10 subscriptions. I lose my password to all of these. I think with the death of cable, people unplugging and then relying on streaming networks, I think it’s not easy to watch an NBA game, to find an NBA game, I think that’s part of it. Maybe that’s a small percentage of it, but that’s certainly a factor in all of this.”
Redick also sounded off on the national media, of which he was a part of as well, for spending too much time critiquing the game and not celebrating the NBA as much as they should while also doubling down on his belief that the league is more talented and skilled today than it has ever been:
“And I’ve told Adam [Silver] this and I’ll say this again: I don’t think we as, and by we I was part of it, we as the sort of national partners have done a good job of storytelling, of celebrating the game. If I’m a casual fan and you tell me every time I turn on the television that the product sucks, well, I’m not going to watch the product. And that’s really what has happened over the last 10 to 15 years. I don’t know why. It’s not funny to me. Nothing is entertaining to me. This game should be celebrated. I’ve watched the league evolve. I’m in this league right now. I can tell you without fact, or with fact, that the league is more talented and not just raw talent. The league is more talented and skilled than it was 18 years ago when I was drafted. That’s a fact. There are more players that are excellent. There are more teams that are excellent. I heard when I played for, I don’t know four or five years, ‘Well, why do we even play the regular season? We know who’s going to be in the finals.’ Well, guess what? We have parity now, and we’re not celebrating parity. We’re not celebrating the fact that the Western Conference is as loaded as it is. We’re playing a Sacramento team tonight that’s incredible, with incredible talent, and they’ve got a losing record (13-14). It’s not because they’re a bad basketball team. I don’t know. We don’t have anybody that’s willing to step up to the fact that this is an awesome game and we should talk about it and celebrate it in a positive way. That doesn’t mean we don’t critique it. We should critique it, but we should celebrate it. Nobody’s doing that, and the people that are have a small niche following on Twitter. And frankly, I would argue as well, that everyone in our ecosystem pays too much attention to what is said on Twitter. And part of this whole ratings discussion is because people on Twitter are talking about it.”
There are a lot of factors at play on all of these subjects and it is easy to try and oversimplify things. Redick understands that there are many different layers to this and the Lakers coach did an excellent job of outlining many things that he feels plays a role.
JJ Redick says Lakers win over Kings was his favorite this season
JJ Redick of course is most focused on getting his Lakers back on track and their win Thursday night over the Sacramento Kings was a good step towards that. Redick even felt that this might be his favorite victory of the year so far.
The Lakers coach pointed to the fact that even though the team didn’t have the best offensive shooting night, their work on the glass and on defense made up for it and they got a lot of contributions from different players across the board.
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