2023 - 2024 NBA changes

[Digby]

2 minutes ago, PrimalCookie said:

Remember when the Bucks had to can their cream alternates because they'd blend in with the court and mess up the CGI sponsors? I guess that problem got fixed, because otherwise there's about to be a lot of players disappearing into the green (or black, or purple, or blue, etc) screen.

 

I suspect the CGI ads have been jettisoned. Celtics have a beige-ish City jersey this year, and I don't think I've seen those ads present on national broadcasts so far this year. Of course, there are more IRL ads on the court instead, which I guess was the inevitable monkey's paw solution.

[VDizzle12]

So each team is only guaranteed two home games in the tournament correct? Seems like a big waste of time and money. 

[fouhy12]

Imagine being the guy in charge of calibrating the cameras for this game lol

[SSmith48]

14 minutes ago, Cujo said:

The NBA is really wasting their time with this tournament. Players don't care. Fans don't care. Yawn.

Their mistake is that they are trying to emulate things like the Champions League. Nobody really cares about this because there’s nothing different. It’s the same teams in the same season, just with extra steps that don’t really mean anything. The NBA Cup will always be secondary to the Finals. 
 

As for the courts, nothing really needs to be said outside of I can’t imagine any of those looking even remotely good. There’s a reason that courts aren’t treated like how Boise State treats their blue turf. It just doesn’t look natural.

[PrimalCookie]

The courts that work the best are the ones that are two-tone monochrome. Grizzlies, Mavericks, Jazz, Timberwolves, Hawks, Cavaliers, Nets, and Raptors. Cavs are by far the best because that one could probably pass for a normal court

[Cujo]

19 minutes ago, spartacat_12 said:

I can't wait to see the reaction when we see the first team raise an "NBA Cup Champions" banner to the rafters. It'll be even better if it ends up being a non-playoff team.

 

[projectjohn]

NBA design has been getting progressively worse for 10 years now, give or take, as they chase Gen Z's curious tastes and Adam Silver's European soccer leagues fetish, so I was prepared for something bad here, but goodness gracious. Something's going to have to reach a tipping point soon, I hope.

[projectjohn]

35 minutes ago, the admiral said:

So we're doing 2006 concepts in real life. Baseball jerseys with filled-in plackets can't be far behind.

These certainly look like they were designed by a 12 year old in MS paint.

[The_Admiral]

27 minutes ago, JELKK said:

Wasn't the NBA's entire reasoning for not having fully paint covered courts back in the day was that they just thought it wouldn't be aesthetically pleasing on TV?

It was bad enough when the Rockets filled in the entire three-point arc! This is deranged!

[The_Admiral]

36 minutes ago, SFGiants58 said:

This may just be me, but I really think this “NBA turning point” was the 2011 lockout. That’s when the “weird” started, for lack of a better term.

I think this is correct. 2012, the turning point at which more people had smartphones than didn't, was the beginning of a lot of weirdness beyond the NBA, but certainly including it.

[PurpleRain]

58 minutes ago, pelicanfan said:

 

The Pelicans' voodoo logo is actually super cool. Shame the city uniforms are so minimalist.

[SFGiants58]

1 minute ago, the admiral said:

I think this is correct. 2012, the turning point at which more people had smartphones than didn't, was the beginning of a lot of weirdness beyond the NBA, but certainly including it.

Also, the resulting CBA helped produce a lot of stuff that contributed to the strangeness (e.g., salary cap expansion, the eventual Durant-to-Warriors unpleasantness, and the increased emphasis on analytics). Then the Warriors got good and everybody tried copying them to limited success.

[Digby]

Just now, PurpleRain said:

The Pelicans' voodoo logo is actually super cool. Shame the city uniforms are so minimalist.

 

The ESPN piece called it a "skelican" which I love. That's an example of where some of this NBA "innovation" I think is actually fun and different, these tertiary looks that aren't just the base uniform in a third colorway but actually a clever, alternate brand. The problem (beyond these hideous courts) is that we're getting 2% cool, thoughtful alternate and 98% greedy excess of thrown spaghetti against the wall.

[The_Admiral]

  

25 minutes ago, Digby said:

The other factor is the push to turn sport into Streaming TV Content, with the actual tickets to games becoming so expensive that it's only really tenable as an expense-account thing for city socialites. There's been no real consequence for that.

 

I said one time that going to an NBA game was becoming more like attending a performance of Hamilton than a sporting event and people got mad at me. If it wasn't true a year or two ago, it has to be true by now.

[SFGiants58]

4 minutes ago, the admiral said:

  

 

I said one time that going to an NBA game was becoming more like attending a performance of Hamilton than a sporting event and people got mad at me. If it wasn't true a year or two ago, it has to be true by now.

It’s been true a hell of a lot longer than that. Also, the Hamilton analogy is much more on-point that you’d think, as far as it comes to the messaging. The only other musical that’d be similar is Bad Cinderella, but nobody saw that one outside of Slime Tutorials.

[Toodles1980]

27 minutes ago, SSmith48 said:

Their mistake is that they are trying to emulate things like the Champions League. Nobody really cares about this because there’s nothing different. It’s the same teams in the same season, just with extra steps that don’t really mean anything. The NBA Cup will always be secondary to the Finals. 
 

As for the courts, nothing really needs to be said outside of I can’t imagine any of those looking even remotely good. There’s a reason that courts aren’t treated like how Boise State treats their blue turf. It just doesn’t look natural.

This is less Champions League and more Carabao Cup. Maybe some day some mediocre team with no hope of winning the actual title will win it, and be excited, but for teams with actual title hopes? Meh, they’ll treat it like a midseason game. 

[bushy]

Would be nice if the city jerseys were locked to this tournament and never to be seen throughout the rest of the season.

[PurpleRain]

6 minutes ago, Digby said:

 

The ESPN piece called it a "skelican" which I love. That's an example of where some of this NBA "innovation" I think is actually fun and different, these tertiary looks that aren't just the base uniform in a third colorway but actually a clever, alternate brand. The problem (beyond these hideous courts) is that we're getting 2% cool, thoughtful alternate and 98% greedy excess of thrown spaghetti against the wall.

It's also stupid that they're not wearing them for their games around Halloween because they haven't even officially announced them yet.

[bbush24]

45 minutes ago, Digby said:

 

It helps that they're consistently contending now whereas they had 3 years of contention and 25 years of mostly sucking in the years prior to the Tatum era. It also helps that the Patriots suck now and the Red Sox have withdrawn themselves from relevance. I can't tell you how often I used to ask bartenders if they'd put the Celtics game on the TV in the 2010s and it was like asking them to turn on The Biography Channel. 

 

 

Man, Boston fans are so spoiled lol. From 2010-2016 the Celtics made the playoffs every year but once and made it to the conference finals twice. 

[SSmith48]

12 minutes ago, Toodles1980 said:

This is less Champions League and more Carabao Cup. Maybe some day some mediocre team with no hope of winning the actual title will win it, and be excited, but for teams with actual title hopes? Meh, they’ll treat it like a midseason game. 

Even so, the Carabao Cup still includes other leagues outside of the Premier League. It has the purpose of crowning the best team in the top 4 flights of English soccer/football. The In-Season Tournament has no other involvement from other leagues, and really has no purpose. If it's to crown the best NBA team, well there's a playoffs for that. Lower-tier teams think it a big deal? perhaps, but at the same time, the way that fan reactions are trending, it really won't matter. It's a low-stakes tournament that simply disrupts the flow of the season. There's no real reason to win it than to just have an asterisk next your name that may end up meaning a whole lot of nothing down the road IMO.