NBA 2025-26 Season Thread: THE NY KNICKS ARE CHAMPIONS! BING BONG!
Lettuce NBA!
and lettuce lol @ James Harden
OKC -650 vs Indy in finals per FD
I care as much about Seattle as Teddy did for Don Logan, and I’m already tilting over this Fifth Finals in Franchise History!! crap.
obviously thats an awful result but how much does it even matter? ink is dry on the new TV deal already, everybody got paid
OKC aint going anywhere anytime soon either
next year minn/hou/SA/denver.....the other top teams in the west are small market or not really ratings drivers either
east as well besides knicks with celts probably out of picture
Playoffs have been great. 1st round was amazing with a bunch of awesome matchups, old (minus KD) & new faces of the NBA. Some bonker game winners and comebacks defying the win probably charts.
OKC is a young upcoming team with a likeable superstar and great organic talent. Indy is super fun, play good team basketball and they beat the **** out of giannis, cavs & NYK.
Honestly, there isn't anything to complain about. game should be celebrated and who gives a **** if the traditional ratings will not be as great because the old fat bloke doesn't see lebron or curry in the finals. game is in a good place
There are people who come up with this “orginal” take when any small market teams are in contention for a championship. We all think it’s a really smart insight and that people who concern troll over tv ratings are awesome people
So I love both of these teams, but will an OKC/Pacers finals be the least watched finals in recent NBA history?
Go back to X, bot
Indy metro is bigger than Cleveland metro. Imagine thinking the NBA was unhappy with the Cavs in the Finals all those years.
The modern NBA market is a star league not a team / fan base league. Haliburton can play
Wolves need to punt Gobert and his contract if they want to get anywhere. Total zero on that squad.
Pacers/OKC is a finals casual fans will dgaf about because the stars and the teams aren't very popular, not sure why this is some hot take or people don't like it, not to mention one of the teams is gonna be given like an 83% chance to win
don't think it is that bad for the nba or anything as the $ is flowing but OKC/Indy being the finals that is certainly the first thing that jumps out at you.
Also just the way cultural/entertainment is going, everything is more niche now.
It has nothing to do with the teams or cities involved. The TV ratings will be down because it's not LeBron, Jordan, Steph, or Caitlin Clark playing. Whether it's NYC or Oklahoma or Indiana population watching hardly makes any difference to the bottom line of the NBA
It has nothing to do with the teams or cities involved. The TV ratings will be down because it's not LeBron, Jordan, Steph, or Caitlin Clark playing. Whether it's NYC or Oklahoma or Indiana population watching hardly makes any difference to the bottom line of the NBA
lakers or knicks being in the finals is going to bring in much higher ratings than okc or indy all else being equal
guys also become bigger household stars on those teams...if haliburton was on the lakers or knicks, he would be a bigger star...SGA as well.
issue has been beaten to death but cmon
Again, LeBron played for Cleveland, an even smaller market team.
I think what's going on here is that you are letting other, frankly unintelligent people think for you, listening to Joe Sports Fan and Jim Dirt Bike who in turn are just parroting talking heads on radio/tv.
Again, LeBron played for Cleveland, an even smaller market team.
I think what's going on here is that you are letting other, frankly unintelligent people think for you, listening to Joe Sports Fan and Jim Dirt Bike who in turn are just parroting talking heads on radio/tv.
Don't think this is good analysis for some pretty obvious reasons but do you.
Lakers/Knicks finals with basically any roster would attract far more eyeballs than Pacers/OKC
But yes, you are correct if you have a consensus top 3 player of all time as well as the most polarizing athlete in NBA history who has been relevant for 20 years and every grandma and housewife knows who he is and there is constant talk on every sports platform of "HOW WILL DIS AFFECT HIZ LEGACY" 24/7 then yeah, it won't matter as much what team he plays for. That much is true.
NYC / LA people are just louder, have more $$$ and control media narratives. Professional ladder climbers inevitably wind up there. So it's just a narrative.
Look at it this way: if the Indiana Fever make the WNBA Finals, is that a ratings disaster?
The League is about stars not teams. You can make the argument that Haliburton isn't a star, but then you're just carrying Stephen Smith's water for him because Haliburton isn't a Knick yet.
I never said huge stars don't matter.
I don't particularly care what the ratings are anyway, other than just following a sport so closely you're gonna gauge the popularity of it and how that changes over time. But I'm not a Disney/Comcast scion so doesn't really matter much to me. Whole league is flush beyond what I would've ever imagined either way.
I think bigger issue about the finals is really OKC is just probably gonna dominate. Cle/SAS in 2007, you had LeBron in his first finals vs the dynasty Spurs but it just wasn't competitive enough.
Pacers would have a real chance. Better than the 17% predicted imho.
Also don’t be surprised when Antman becomes a NY Knack in 2029.
Lamar Odom as the 2nd pick in a future draft ain't walking through that door.
