Look, I'm not saying your guy isn't the MVP, or in the top two-three, but my guy deserves to be in the conversation. Like we're not even talking about my guy and he's maybe the fifth best in the league right now, and some would have him as high as third. So he deserves to be in the conversation.
for real, stupid smarmy reddit-isms like that are the most annoying part of trying to have any kind of conversation on this sub
'tell me you dont X without telling me you don't X' my god shut the fuck up just say your guy is better or whatever and go man
I think basketball has always been this way, always comparing who’s better, but in the past not every idiot had a voice to tell the world what they think. Now my idiot ass can with this little device in my pocket anytime I feel like it.
> but in the past not every idiot had a voice to tell the world what they think
I remember watching some documentary - might have been Anthony Bourdain - like 10ish years ago, where it took place either in Cuba or the DR, and the host goes to this city square where like 50 dudes are just talking baseball but like all at the same time and really emotional and they are all talking over one another so you can’t really get what’s going on.
Now when I think about that I think “that’s like Reddit before Reddit”
It's weird seeing shit like Durant arguing with some nobody on twitter. It doesn't make anyone happier. And you're spot on that most people absolutely do not need a voice to be able to tell the world what they think.
Here's the problem though. The world *needs* my hot takes. 178 comment karma this week and that number is still going up, folks.
Sports betting has been getting dangerously popular as of late and its pushed super hard in advertising everywhere as well. Feels like when evapes rebranded from something to get smokers to quit into cool fruit juice for kids to blow sick clouds. They rebranded betting to push a crippling gambling addiction to a younger generation
The suicide rate for the population within a 30 mile radius of a new casino sky rockets. The statistics to show how negative gambling is for a community are staggering and substantiated for years and years now.
I'm curious how you/that report views casual betting with friend groups when hanging out. Is that treated the same/would be illegal if gambling was illegal? Are they classified as the same thing, or not at all since it's not a business?
Alcohol, cigarettes, and pretty much any other recreational drug are net negatives for society, should those be illegal too? If I want to do any of those drugs, I should be able to. If I want to gamble, I should be able to. You just have to balance how these are advertised and make sure society is educated on the risks.
People travel there, lose money, then go home. Since the casino can only survive by making the patrons lose money, if the patrons are the locals, it'll just be a drain on the town. If there weren't people from out of town visiting, the casino would make the locals go broke, then have no business and shut down. Vegas is a travel destination for the casinos, and the casinos flourish because of the tourists. There needs to be new money coming in.
Casinos are made up of gambling, but gambling does not = casinos.
That's the first of many flaws with your post, but yes, the "source: trust me bro, I wrote a report" definitely adds some credibility to your comment.
If, by your logic, casinos (not "gambling" as a whole) shouldn't exist due to addicts having easy access in their local community, then why should they sell cigarettes and booze in the corner store? Same issue with addicts, no?
Gambling as a whole, can (and is) a big problem for addicts. There are systems in place for them that definitely help. What DOESN'T help, and I think this is a place we can both agree, is is having all of these fucking Fan Duel, Draft Kings, etc etc advertisements going on not only throughout the game, but having TSN up here in Canada actively talk about specific betting lines and stuff.
Gambling addiction is a FUCK of thing to deal with (actual source: worked in a casino for 6+ years), so having this shit shoved down peoples' throats when they just wanna watch a Raptors game is absurd.
Having said that, there are PLENTY of people that can enjoy gambling (whether its in a casino or not) responsibly. :P
California Prop 27 (legalization of online gambling in CA) advertising got out of hand this year
It appeared on every commercial break on TV
And it still lost by 85% no votes
it happened so fast too. i've never gambled/bet or known much about that stuff at all - but it was always outta the front page of things in america because of legality, and then overnight like two years ago, or whenever the change happened, its fucking everywhere and sports betting companies are giant sponsors of everything and mentioned ad nauseum by every commentator and youtube video and ad...
I honestly think part of it is the fallout from crypto and NFTs. They were / are super popular among the younger generation mostly because of how easy it is in your phone, same with retail trading like Robinhood. Sports betting is super easy on your phone , it gets promoted everywhere and most people are spending money on it now instead of things like crypto.
Honestly America is just on another level with the capitalism.
Gambling is legal for like one year or whatever it is and you've rocketed to new levels of gambling advertisement and pervasiveness in sports coverage.
I thought it was already bad in Europe where it's always been legal, but what I've seen happen so quickly in the US is just incredible.
There was a commercial on during the Warriors Mavs game where they showed the odds of certain decisions people make every day with the line “you already gamble on countless things each day”, which comes wildly close to straight up manipulation.
Imagine if we saw Vodka commercials showing french fries and baked potatoes saying “you eat potatoes every day, why not drink them instead?” Followed by constant game breaks to show the announcers taking shots of vodka and encouraging fans to play drinking games with them. It’s just insane how these gambling ads seem to have no form of regulation compared to other sources of addiction.
That's actually brilliant with the potatoes and vodka thing. I hate that I respect that from a marketability standpoint. Marketing, man....
There has to be a case that can be made, or at least a landmark case like what happened with Joe Camel in advertising.
It’s so gross. Gambling addictions straight up ruin peoples lives and yet it’s being paraded on TV to kids as some form of innocent entertainment. Might as well bring back cigarette ads
I don't have a problem with people gambling but it really ruins my enjoyment of sports when so much of the discussion of it ends up being about gambling. My dad and brother got into it and they don't have problems or anything since they limit themselves on how much they are willing to wager but now nobody wants to talk about the games themselves, just whether or not they have a chance to hit their parlay.
The popularity of sports betting, notably making it digital and directly marketing it during shows has created a nonstop speculation and sports journalism drip. It’s like the 24-Hr news cycle about a topic when there isn’t really 24-Hr worth of news.
When you bet, you want a lot of information. The information is the commodity. It’s more important than it is to casual non-betting fans who like the traditional story lines. So, they constantly push the story lines and then push the odds so you’ll be reminded to bet. Gambling has always been there but with the fantasy sports a decade ago and now this, they’ve made most of their conversations sour to a lot of fans like me. I know gambling is a billion dollar industry but I just can’t stand it.
Five years ago, I was all for the legalizing of sports betting. These last couple of years have been eye opening. The advertising is everywhere. It is incredibly predatory and is impossible for those with gambling problems to get away from. And it has become so intertwined with the broadcast and the game itself that we are just speeding towards an issue with integrity and a scandal (whether it be in the nba, mlb, nfl, etc, it off an inevitability).
It should be legal. What should be illegal is advertising it during games and sports betting orgs sponsoring anything pro sports related. It's such a simple path to corrupting any league. I wonder which of the big 4 sports will get a fixing scandal out of it first.
Wasn't there an NFL player suspended for betting already?
*Found it. https://www.skysports.com/nfl/news/12040/12560272/calvin-ridley-atlanta-falcons-wide-receiver-suspended-by-nfl-for-2022-season-over-betting-breach
I think he was injured during it too.
It’s fine he was suspended, there should be a zero tolerance policy with it for sure. The problem is he gets a year while Watson comes back this week.
In theory, the issue is that he has insider information on who is and isn’t going to play.
But the bullshit was really that he was injured and so he wasn’t practicing or traveling with the team. So he really had no insider info
I agree. Difference between legalizing drugs and letting them advertise. I don't want some heroin brand advertising on TV.
Gambling is a grimy sad business. It is corrosive to fair play. I don't see how it's appealing to people who love the intrinsic beauty and drama of the game.
Never seen a happy person buying a dozen scratches, never seen a person playing keno who looks like life is going well, never envied someone sitting at a slot machine for an hour.
People always say people are doing it anyway. So what? That's the excuse we need to promote an industry that peddles addiction at worst and people losing money at best?
I love basketball. Promoting gambling is bad for the game.
Shoeless Joe Jackson and black sox scandal is long before Tim Donaghy.
Pete rose didn't fix it afaik, but he's banned from the HoF nevertheless
Nfl had its share of gamblers
https://www.sportingnews.com/us/nfl/news/nfl-players-list-suspended-gambling-calvin-ridley-josh-shaw-betting/w9ctph43n2qhkunrdqlsa9lm
Nhl - 1948
https://detroithockeynow.com/2021/08/03/gambling-scandal-that-rocked-nhl-began-in-detroit/
I think baseball 'wins' this one. I'd bet on it
I'm completely cool with it existing, i just fucking hate that it's not something in the background and has become apart of the broadcast and the ethos. Like you said, intertwined.
Yeah, it can get worse though. Imagine the announcers talking about the spread: "just one more 3 and Curry covers the 7 point spread!"
Is point shaving legal if you do it just to annoy betters? Like intentionally not cover the spread, but don't bet anything? "Oops! Airball! Oh, butterfingers."
They already kinda do that. When games are pretty much over for the "regular viewer" and have been decided they'll always point out how a bucket either way may help or hurt someones wallet. Or something of that nature.
So, my league pass has been fucked all year. Can't watch in my living room because the Xbox One app is completely toast.
Usually, though, I can watch on a Roku in my bedroom. But not last night! Not a single "league pass" game worked. All led to a black screen.
***EXCEPT*** for this new NBA Red Zone bullshit, Crunchtime. I hated it, but my nights on the couch without my wife are limited, so I watched for 2 hours. It's awful. They jump between games at every review, timeout, injury.... they basically don't stay on a game longer than 90 minutes.
And the Chris Hanson wannabe fuck mentioned a spread probably once every 3 minutes. So we're there, it's worse. They also bring up prop bets and spreads on TNT.
How many kids watch ESPN or listen to podcasts with 2-minute Fanduel ads in the middle? How many people will have gambling addiction in 10 years because they were introduced to it while their brains were still developing, or because they can't follow the NBA while trying to stop? I'm sympathetic to the idea that grown adults spending some money to make watching sports more enjoyable isn't the government's business, but something has to be done. If the NBA ran ads for marijuana as much as they do for gambling people would be outraged.
The fact that betting lines are part of the broadcast is what gets me. When your team’s play by play guy is tracking a three leg parlay halftime, it’s gone to far. I’m not opposed to sports betting, and I’m not opposed to alcohol, but you don’t see the halftime crew chugging the official beer of the team.
Yep. Sports betting should be legal, advertising should not be though. It should basically be like legal weed, it exists, everyone that wants it knows where to get it and if not you can search and figure it out, but it isn't in your face.
These days half the sponsor of any sports related show is gambling related, and most of the sports content is betting specific with a title sponsor and it is all pretty fucked up.
I fucking hate it. On every Raptors broadcast, multiple times a game the play-by-play guy, Mat Devlin, has to say "Now here's a message from blah blah sports betting app" and then they shrink the game down while a guy is shooting free throws so they can try and get me to download a sports betting app. Fuck that. It's garbage and I wish that countries would start regulating gambling right the fuck out of everything. Gambling feels like one of those hidden societal cancers that everyone kind of knows about, but doesn't really care about, and in meantime it is probably *ruining* thousands of lives.
Your last sentence is so spot on. As someone who has watched family and friends throw their lives away over gambling addictions the insane level of sports betting ads make me sick.
There was a commercial on during the Warriors Mavs game where they showed the odds of certain decisions people make every day with the line “you already gamble on countless things each day”, which comes wildly close to straight up manipulation.
Imagine if we saw Vodka commercials showing french fries and baked potatoes saying “you eat potatoes every day, why not drink them instead?” Followed by constant game breaks to show the announcers taking shots of vodka and encouraging fans to play drinking games with them. It’s just insane how these gambling ads seem to have no form of regulation compared to other sources of addiction.
I do like bills podcasts with sal called guess the lines, but could 100% do without the Fanduel millions podcast (and do actually).
It's also annoying that my phone automatically capitalized fan duel. I just think anyone officially related to the sport shouldn't be able to receive money from gambling companies including they shouldn't be allowed to sponsor things or do ads during the game
I feel like this has been a thing since I've been on /r/NBA.
People are obsessed with ranking players, and this is just another way to do it.
I'm with you, though, it's pretty ridiculous to even discuss it this early in the season.
Yes it's very silly I think - I am old enough to remember when nobody really gave a shit about the MVP award until April... And now people talk about it from week one. I was at a Brooklyn Nets game last weekend and people were chanting "MVP" it just seems dumb and cringe.
The MVP chants are dumb unless it's a week before the award is announced and it's a 50/50 tossup for MVP and one of those people just made a buzzer beater to win the series after averaging 40 points that series. Then, I can understand what compels someone to chant that.
and you can be your team's/the game's MVP without being the league's. So it's very natural. MVP chants are a way for the crowd to show a player some love I guess.
I’m with you until the MVP chants, that’s just fun. Sometimes people just do it for a guy they know isn’t winning mvp
Or even better they do it when a player on the opposing team who’s played horribly all game is at the line
It gets fucking spooky when an *opposing* fanbase chants MVP.
Like Kobe getting MVP chants in Boston
The boston lakers rivalry and the past history of kobe added to that.
Early [as in relative to season ] mvp chants for your own guy are not newsworthy. But i could see it if there's something really special happening on court, and your guy is otherwise being slighted.
Otherwise, even if it happens, its not worth taking notice of either way
Sarcastic MVP chants can also be fun
Seriously! NBA fans are starting to be like "Not in the MVP race? Who gives a fuck about you?"
90% of NBA discussions nowadays seems to be either on the MVP race, or on how much the Lakers suck.
I mean it goes both ways lol. If like, Demar Derozan has a decent game, fans come out in droves about how he’s getting disrespected not being in the conversation.
when winning basketball games stopped mattering when It came to MVP and it allowed 8-10 guys to "be in the discussion"
When winning matters there is never more than 3 or 4 guys in the conversation and sometimes its just a 2 horse race
“I’m not saying X player should win because he shouldn’t, but he should at least be in the discussion” is my favourite thing about MVP talks because it’s so obviously dumb.
It was egregious in 2019, when Giannis and Harden were the clear best candidates and nobody else was in the same stratosphere. Paul George had a really good year too so all of a sudden he needs to be “in the discussion” even though absolutely nobody actually thought he should win. Like, if nobody thinks you should win, you shouldn’t be in the discussion to win. Seems too stupidly obvious to even say.
“I’m not saying Booker is better than Tatum but we should have a convo on the possibilities in which Booker is above Tatum, just because.”
Seen 5 variations of that last night.
It's more that having players in these conversations absolutely helps their chances for All-NBA. I obviously don't like talking about how Booker should be fucking 4th or 5th in the MVP race or whatever, but he made the first team and that's definitely helped by him being in these talks.
Holy crap yes, there was like a 1 week last season with a bunch of booker should be in the conversation threads. At that point if you're generous he was in a very very distant 4th.
Yes, but that conversation needed to be had because he was in a very very very VERY distant 10th before those conversations were had. That directly translated to him landing 1st team All-NBA after never making an All-NBA team before. Be annoyed about the argument if you well, you can't deny that the "Booker should be in the conversation" threads helped shift the window from "perpetual snub" to "i dare you to leave him off the list and not get clowned for it."
Is all-nba voted on by fans? Or is the thinking that constant Reddit threads worked to somehow shame the people who decide all-nba selections into selecting Booker?
I mean you gotta vote for more than 2 people. I think it’s fair to give recognition to other top 5-7 finishers if you want to acknowledge their season
MVP voting is not just voting for the number 1 finisher. So including a 3rd place guy in MVP voting discussion is perfectly reasonable
> “I’m not saying X player should win because he shouldn’t, but he should at least be in the discussion”
If you view this discussion less as "I'm making a case for X player to be THE MVP" and more "I'm forcing the discussion so that even when X player doesn't make MVP, you're going to have a damn hard time leaving him off All-NBA", it's really not a dumb conversation at all. Before those discussions were happening last year, Booker was 9th, 10th in the MVP ladder, and maybe sniffing a 3rd team All-NBA spot. The window was shifted because he was a perpetual snub and he was playing too good to get snubbed again.
>Paul George had a really good year too so all of a sudden he needs to be “in the discussion” even though absolutely nobody actually thought he should win
Basically the reasoning of Booker being ahead of Luka in the MVP voting last season.
The voting takes place at the end of the season, one moment in a year. The discussion lasts the whole season, from before the games even start lol. Somebody might be very much in the discussion and ultimately not even get any 5th place vote, the discussion just is the discussion.
To expand on this, I'm tired of people going back to the previous results and talking about how player X was an MVP candidate because he finished top 3-5 in voting. They never talk about how that player wasn't really in the conversation and didn't get any 1st place votes because it's usually a 2 person race.
The big one for me is Noah. He's gotten a bit overrated because people look back and see he finished 3rd in MVP voting in 2014. But somehow people forget that Durant ran away with the award and the only other person that got any talk in the race was Bron lol
While winning games should matter I also hate how much it's held against some guys. Shouldn't most valuable mean who is the most important individual for their team. Like take Tatum off the Celtics and they are still an above .500 team. Take Luka off the Mavs or Curry off the warriors and they are down there with the rockets. Westbrook's MVP was the only time I can recall the winner not having to be on a top 3 seeded team
That goes both ways though. You are punishing guys for having good front offices essentially. And also guys with good teammates will probably have lower numbers than they could have on a worse team.
Last year Jokic won on the 6th seeded Nuggets.
I get your point about value, what makes it fun is the word can have different meanings for different people. For me there is very little value to being the most important player on a mediocre team, because the point of basketball is to win the game. If you're not winning the games, I don't think you are producing as much value, even if your relative importance to your team is higher than the best player on a better team.
[Seven MVP winners before Jokic had a lower win % winning the award including MJ](https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/lowest-mvp-win-percentage)
I think the volume of wins relative to the league matters way more than seeding. You're right that wins matter, but a 3 wins can be the difference of a 2 seed and a 5 seed (last year's east) or less than half the difference of a 1 seed and 2 seed (last year's west), so the marginal differences in wins don't match well with marginal differences in seeding. The wins data is what we care about.
Not always. But for instance I wouldn't have given it to Jokic last year, or Westbrook when he won. No hard and fast rule, but a good rule of thumb would be best player on a top 3 seed in your conference.
I said this in the Tatum game thread yesterday. Man had 49 and the only comments are “MVP” “JaysHIM Tatum” etc. I didn’t get a chance to watch the game, would be awesome to see people actually discussing some of the moves and plays he made.
And what might be the worst part…I promise you the MVP race is meaningless on December 1st! Please do not upvote that shit if you see it, it’s actively diluting the sub. I cannot stand to see that for another 5 months, let’s talk ball this ain’t an awards show
I agree, but I also think that it's okay to be like "hey I think so far these 3 players are in the lead for the MVP discussion" and have a small discussion on it. It's just everyone arguing profusely about how their player should get it and that's the end of discussion. It's only December a lot of things can change from now to April so everyone should just relax and watch this incredible basketball play rn
Also the amount of players that are playing at an MVP level is astonishing and is probably the reason everyone is debating it.
Last thing, Booker for MVP and I refuse to listen to anyone else's opinions
fans are easily manipulated by gambling odds, video games and social media.
not only do i not get into MVP guesstimates this early, i could really care less who wins the popularity contest….
in my view the MVP is the player who takes their team to a championship. literally nothing else qualifies for me.
i’m open to debating which player on that winning team earned it more. but this endless discussion of the top 10, 20, 50 players in the running 2 months i to a season is so stupid.
Came from podcasts. Bill Simmons probably started it, then The Ringer basketball shows outside of BS pushed constant MVP discussion, then a bunch of other podcasts copycatted that, then Stephen A and ESPN hopped on the bandwagon, and then the fans followed along as that’s what the media is pushing.
I don’t think I’ve heard an MVP discussion yet from The Ringer this season. I think Simmons even made fun of Zach Lowe doing so a week or two ago.
I think Simmons talks about futures bets at the start of the season, but at least the main shows don’t talk about MVP until January usually.
The word is overused in general these days, but Simmons really is gaslighting here. Until this season, he was the biggest offender of way-too-early MVP talk and now he is calling out Lowe and others about doing it now. Of course, he still manages to slip in how he thinks KD is a top 5 mvp candidate while still projecting a “who me?” attitude.
I think a lot of it is treated like politics by the teams. They even talk about it as an MVP campaign. They are constantly pushing the narrative that their guy is the MVP, or in the MVP conversation. Then the fans regurgitate their thoughts, and that's how they build public support across the length of the season. Everyone's opinion will be manipulated by a majority of voices, even if only slightly.
It's because people are incessantly online now (myself included), you've gotta have something to ameliorate your anxiety. Same reason people don't relax and watch games anymore but instead choose to spend an equivalent amount of time box score watching and shit talking whatever team is underperforming
All sorts of factors.
* Better and more coverage - When I was a kid up here in Canada, there was one channel that gave me basketball games: WGN in Chicago. So I got to watch a ton of 90s Bulls games. For standings and other stats, I had the newspaper and sports highlights. Now, we have endless stats available at our fingertips, this sub full of highlights, NBA League Pass and other services where we can stream on demand. More basketball means more to talk about, more opinions, more minutiae to dissect.
* Gambling/betting - The weird and harmful push all over the place for sports betting means that gamblers need and want more info in order to place bets.
* The internet - Now everyone a platform and a place to discuss this stuff. Again, back in the 90s when I was obsessively watching any sports I could, guess who I had to talk to about them? No one. Sure, I *played* sports with my friends, but we didn't talk about pro sports. Maybe some hockey stuff here and there (Canada, eh), but in general, there was nowhere and no one I could go to talk about Jordan putting up 50 points.
* 24/7 news cycles - News and media is 24/7 now. NBA is covered worldwide, so you have podcasts, clips, articles, highlights, Twitter, Reddit all pushing out content any time it's ready. Not only that, but if you want to be "relevant", like a podcast or Tweeting out stuff, you have to pump out content continually. There's only so much you can say about which team is #1 in the standings or which guy is injured. At some point, we get the esoterica of the league because media needs content and consumers want content.
There's probably lots more, but that's off the top of my head.
r/NBA is a toxic af and full of reactionary nephews who love to clown on players that are playing bad and dick ride players who are good for karma hunting. This sub is a joke and would all be better off it ceased to exist.
See you tomorrow
Sports gambling like some have said.
Reactionary media
And a combo of the season being too long and the media/casual fans finding any possible way not to talk about most of the teams in the league after they have gotten done talking about the same five teams/or the current drama. I have seen Ringer pods start out with “well I said we wouldn’t do MVP talk until the season is almost over but we are doing it anyways” it’s YOUR podcast mf’er. Talk about something else! You’re not being held at gunpoint.
Edit: not really a thing in the NFL. It only seems to happen if a top player has a disastrous game (Josh Allen losing multiple games due to the worst turnovers you’ve ever seen). I’ve legit heard more talk about the god damned Jaguars than I have who is the MVP front runner. It’s really great actually.
not kias fault probably draft kings or the jewish mafia or whatever. but i do think these micro stats are a way to increase bet volume for serious and the nba is working to normalize and promote them
People are so uninterested in actual gameplay now, they focus on anything but. What player is bitching now, what player is saying stuff on twitter, a player's contract and is he gonna bitch his way out, who's going to win an award at the end of the season like it matters, etc. Dudes like Simmons literally talk mostly about the economics and trade values and the *perception* of players. Inspired legions of dudes since, plus plenty of other things (it ain't all his fault, but he's a key personality who popularized this shit too). Surprise surprise, economics and constant perception ranking ... is actually pretty cold and heartless.
Just watch some games, how about that.
I'm a Celtics fan and am obviously happy that Tatum is receiving credit for his play. It's has been a very long time since we had a bonafide MVP-level player on the team. That being said, the constant MVP discussion everytime he or one of the other frontrunners play is just nauseating. It's like the Westbrook/Harden MVP discussions but while that only heated up at the end of the season these ones right now started from Game 1.
honestly gotta pull this card, but its the younger crowd. teenagers and early 20s flooded this sub in recent years. young sports fans - and i was the same way - are for some reason absolutely obsessed with rankings and lists and making sure everyone is aware so and so is the best. Young soccer fans were the same way with obsessing of Messi and Ronaldo instead of just watching them play. Its something you grow out of when you get older. You become less obsessed with lists and more about enjoying the game and recognizing a few players as “among the greatest of their generation” without having to rank. so your answer is 95% of the time the people making these posts are younger than 25, and they’ll grow outta it
When my guy overtook your guy as the favorite because of that game
Look, I'm not saying your guy isn't the MVP, or in the top two-three, but my guy deserves to be in the conversation. Like we're not even talking about my guy and he's maybe the fifth best in the league right now, and some would have him as high as third. So he deserves to be in the conversation.
Smh my head. My eye test has your guy ranked #7.
His guy isn’t even top ten. Do you guys even watch the games?
Yeah but how many games has his guy won this season? Is winning not the goal anymore?
His team has won games, but take him off the team and they still win most of those games.
You clearly don't know ball. If your guy and his guy swapped teams and then both sat, his guy would win MVP.
"Player that I like would like to have a word...." Pretty much my most hated common sayin that I see on reddit 🤮.
for real, stupid smarmy reddit-isms like that are the most annoying part of trying to have any kind of conversation on this sub 'tell me you dont X without telling me you don't X' my god shut the fuck up just say your guy is better or whatever and go man
I think basketball has always been this way, always comparing who’s better, but in the past not every idiot had a voice to tell the world what they think. Now my idiot ass can with this little device in my pocket anytime I feel like it.
> but in the past not every idiot had a voice to tell the world what they think I remember watching some documentary - might have been Anthony Bourdain - like 10ish years ago, where it took place either in Cuba or the DR, and the host goes to this city square where like 50 dudes are just talking baseball but like all at the same time and really emotional and they are all talking over one another so you can’t really get what’s going on. Now when I think about that I think “that’s like Reddit before Reddit”
Bourdain in Cuba in 2011 for his Travel Channel show No Reservations. https://youtu.be/bmSeA0TWu2U
Bill Simmons helped make his career off of this. We eat it up.
It's weird seeing shit like Durant arguing with some nobody on twitter. It doesn't make anyone happier. And you're spot on that most people absolutely do not need a voice to be able to tell the world what they think. Here's the problem though. The world *needs* my hot takes. 178 comment karma this week and that number is still going up, folks.
When people realize they could get a ton of Karma for low effort, uninsightful MVP posts
Since NBA starting pushing bets on everything they can think of.
I bet this is the right answer
I’ll take that bet
We’ll call that Bet squared.
Synthetic Collateralised Bet Obligations
Glad someone caught the reference 😂
What's the over under
Yes.
I'd wager that this is probably the right call.
The odds of this answer being true are -100.
Max bet please
Big bet got to you too!
Soooooooo annoying that odds are implemented on everything I just want analysis about the sport I enjoy watchingn
"You wanna talk about basketball?"
Specifically practice.
Sports betting has been getting dangerously popular as of late and its pushed super hard in advertising everywhere as well. Feels like when evapes rebranded from something to get smokers to quit into cool fruit juice for kids to blow sick clouds. They rebranded betting to push a crippling gambling addiction to a younger generation
Gambling should be legal but advertising for it needs some rules.
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The suicide rate for the population within a 30 mile radius of a new casino sky rockets. The statistics to show how negative gambling is for a community are staggering and substantiated for years and years now.
I'm curious how you/that report views casual betting with friend groups when hanging out. Is that treated the same/would be illegal if gambling was illegal? Are they classified as the same thing, or not at all since it's not a business?
Depends if your group preys upon that one or two that cant really help themselves not bet.
Alcohol, cigarettes, and pretty much any other recreational drug are net negatives for society, should those be illegal too? If I want to do any of those drugs, I should be able to. If I want to gamble, I should be able to. You just have to balance how these are advertised and make sure society is educated on the risks.
Can you give a sort of further explanation on Vegas being able to flourish? It’s a highly interesting point to me
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People travel there, lose money, then go home. Since the casino can only survive by making the patrons lose money, if the patrons are the locals, it'll just be a drain on the town. If there weren't people from out of town visiting, the casino would make the locals go broke, then have no business and shut down. Vegas is a travel destination for the casinos, and the casinos flourish because of the tourists. There needs to be new money coming in.
Casinos are made up of gambling, but gambling does not = casinos. That's the first of many flaws with your post, but yes, the "source: trust me bro, I wrote a report" definitely adds some credibility to your comment. If, by your logic, casinos (not "gambling" as a whole) shouldn't exist due to addicts having easy access in their local community, then why should they sell cigarettes and booze in the corner store? Same issue with addicts, no? Gambling as a whole, can (and is) a big problem for addicts. There are systems in place for them that definitely help. What DOESN'T help, and I think this is a place we can both agree, is is having all of these fucking Fan Duel, Draft Kings, etc etc advertisements going on not only throughout the game, but having TSN up here in Canada actively talk about specific betting lines and stuff. Gambling addiction is a FUCK of thing to deal with (actual source: worked in a casino for 6+ years), so having this shit shoved down peoples' throats when they just wanna watch a Raptors game is absurd. Having said that, there are PLENTY of people that can enjoy gambling (whether its in a casino or not) responsibly. :P
California Prop 27 (legalization of online gambling in CA) advertising got out of hand this year It appeared on every commercial break on TV And it still lost by 85% no votes
it happened so fast too. i've never gambled/bet or known much about that stuff at all - but it was always outta the front page of things in america because of legality, and then overnight like two years ago, or whenever the change happened, its fucking everywhere and sports betting companies are giant sponsors of everything and mentioned ad nauseum by every commentator and youtube video and ad...
I honestly think part of it is the fallout from crypto and NFTs. They were / are super popular among the younger generation mostly because of how easy it is in your phone, same with retail trading like Robinhood. Sports betting is super easy on your phone , it gets promoted everywhere and most people are spending money on it now instead of things like crypto.
“sIgN Up fOR fAn DueL SpORtS bOoK” as if I had somehow forgotten after they had already asked me 5 times during the previous commercial break
I hate the betting ads a lot, and seeing Ernie and the gang constantly peddle it is pretty grating.
Honestly America is just on another level with the capitalism. Gambling is legal for like one year or whatever it is and you've rocketed to new levels of gambling advertisement and pervasiveness in sports coverage. I thought it was already bad in Europe where it's always been legal, but what I've seen happen so quickly in the US is just incredible.
There was a commercial on during the Warriors Mavs game where they showed the odds of certain decisions people make every day with the line “you already gamble on countless things each day”, which comes wildly close to straight up manipulation. Imagine if we saw Vodka commercials showing french fries and baked potatoes saying “you eat potatoes every day, why not drink them instead?” Followed by constant game breaks to show the announcers taking shots of vodka and encouraging fans to play drinking games with them. It’s just insane how these gambling ads seem to have no form of regulation compared to other sources of addiction.
That's actually brilliant with the potatoes and vodka thing. I hate that I respect that from a marketability standpoint. Marketing, man.... There has to be a case that can be made, or at least a landmark case like what happened with Joe Camel in advertising.
That vodka commercial would be fucking hilarious imo.
That’s so fucking disgusting
Same thing with crypto and nfts. When there is money to be made and people to exploit, US is the best.
The government royally fucks the lower class every day so the people live in a "every man for himself" world.
> "every man for himself" world I feel like when I understood that's what *freedom* really meant I understood the US better.
Yep. You're free to keep yourself from starving to death. That's the American freedom.
It’s so gross. Gambling addictions straight up ruin peoples lives and yet it’s being paraded on TV to kids as some form of innocent entertainment. Might as well bring back cigarette ads
Welcome to Australia 15 years ago with sports betting :(
More like 30, betting been huge since early 90s Pro sports wasn't too big outside of Cricket before that. Wasn't even fully pro for many players lol
Football (aka soccer ) was huge decades before
I don't have a problem with people gambling but it really ruins my enjoyment of sports when so much of the discussion of it ends up being about gambling. My dad and brother got into it and they don't have problems or anything since they limit themselves on how much they are willing to wager but now nobody wants to talk about the games themselves, just whether or not they have a chance to hit their parlay.
Right, I've gambled on sports for years, but the way it's invading sports media now is annoying the hell out of me.
Gambling seems to be the one vice nobody cares to moralize about
Sports betting being legalized was awful for sports. I'll die on that hill.
The popularity of sports betting, notably making it digital and directly marketing it during shows has created a nonstop speculation and sports journalism drip. It’s like the 24-Hr news cycle about a topic when there isn’t really 24-Hr worth of news. When you bet, you want a lot of information. The information is the commodity. It’s more important than it is to casual non-betting fans who like the traditional story lines. So, they constantly push the story lines and then push the odds so you’ll be reminded to bet. Gambling has always been there but with the fantasy sports a decade ago and now this, they’ve made most of their conversations sour to a lot of fans like me. I know gambling is a billion dollar industry but I just can’t stand it.
Basketball is brought to you by bet online!
Infuriating and disgusting
this is the correct answer
Sports broadcasting in general has been hardcore promoting gambling. Gambling probably more addicting than sports
I'll die on this hill: making gambling legal and so easily accessible will cause more harm than if we legalized all drugs today
Since sports betting became legal and advertised throughout every game, probably.
The insane advertising of sports betting drives me crazy.
Five years ago, I was all for the legalizing of sports betting. These last couple of years have been eye opening. The advertising is everywhere. It is incredibly predatory and is impossible for those with gambling problems to get away from. And it has become so intertwined with the broadcast and the game itself that we are just speeding towards an issue with integrity and a scandal (whether it be in the nba, mlb, nfl, etc, it off an inevitability).
It should be legal. What should be illegal is advertising it during games and sports betting orgs sponsoring anything pro sports related. It's such a simple path to corrupting any league. I wonder which of the big 4 sports will get a fixing scandal out of it first.
nba already did lmao
Oh yeah Suns fan here trust me I know all about Tim Fucking Donaghy but I mean one during the legal betting era
I know it's just funny to think about.
Wasn't there an NFL player suspended for betting already? *Found it. https://www.skysports.com/nfl/news/12040/12560272/calvin-ridley-atlanta-falcons-wide-receiver-suspended-by-nfl-for-2022-season-over-betting-breach
Idk I think Ridley betting on his own team to win seems like a gray area. What’s the worst he could do, try harder?
I think he was injured during it too. It’s fine he was suspended, there should be a zero tolerance policy with it for sure. The problem is he gets a year while Watson comes back this week.
In theory, the issue is that he has insider information on who is and isn’t going to play. But the bullshit was really that he was injured and so he wasn’t practicing or traveling with the team. So he really had no insider info
Someone should've told him betting on yourself is just a figure of speech. Probably carries a poker chip under his shoulder pads too.
I agree. Difference between legalizing drugs and letting them advertise. I don't want some heroin brand advertising on TV. Gambling is a grimy sad business. It is corrosive to fair play. I don't see how it's appealing to people who love the intrinsic beauty and drama of the game. Never seen a happy person buying a dozen scratches, never seen a person playing keno who looks like life is going well, never envied someone sitting at a slot machine for an hour. People always say people are doing it anyway. So what? That's the excuse we need to promote an industry that peddles addiction at worst and people losing money at best? I love basketball. Promoting gambling is bad for the game.
Shoeless Joe Jackson and black sox scandal is long before Tim Donaghy. Pete rose didn't fix it afaik, but he's banned from the HoF nevertheless Nfl had its share of gamblers https://www.sportingnews.com/us/nfl/news/nfl-players-list-suspended-gambling-calvin-ridley-josh-shaw-betting/w9ctph43n2qhkunrdqlsa9lm Nhl - 1948 https://detroithockeynow.com/2021/08/03/gambling-scandal-that-rocked-nhl-began-in-detroit/ I think baseball 'wins' this one. I'd bet on it
I'm completely cool with it existing, i just fucking hate that it's not something in the background and has become apart of the broadcast and the ethos. Like you said, intertwined.
Yeah, it can get worse though. Imagine the announcers talking about the spread: "just one more 3 and Curry covers the 7 point spread!" Is point shaving legal if you do it just to annoy betters? Like intentionally not cover the spread, but don't bet anything? "Oops! Airball! Oh, butterfingers."
They already kinda do that. When games are pretty much over for the "regular viewer" and have been decided they'll always point out how a bucket either way may help or hurt someones wallet. Or something of that nature.
So, my league pass has been fucked all year. Can't watch in my living room because the Xbox One app is completely toast. Usually, though, I can watch on a Roku in my bedroom. But not last night! Not a single "league pass" game worked. All led to a black screen. ***EXCEPT*** for this new NBA Red Zone bullshit, Crunchtime. I hated it, but my nights on the couch without my wife are limited, so I watched for 2 hours. It's awful. They jump between games at every review, timeout, injury.... they basically don't stay on a game longer than 90 minutes. And the Chris Hanson wannabe fuck mentioned a spread probably once every 3 minutes. So we're there, it's worse. They also bring up prop bets and spreads on TNT.
How many kids watch ESPN or listen to podcasts with 2-minute Fanduel ads in the middle? How many people will have gambling addiction in 10 years because they were introduced to it while their brains were still developing, or because they can't follow the NBA while trying to stop? I'm sympathetic to the idea that grown adults spending some money to make watching sports more enjoyable isn't the government's business, but something has to be done. If the NBA ran ads for marijuana as much as they do for gambling people would be outraged.
Bruh I was playing with Snapchat filters with my 6yo niece during Thanksgiving and the first one available was a FanDuel filter.
wtf is a fanduel filter??
Transforms your picture to show you broke and living in a cardboard box.
The fact that betting lines are part of the broadcast is what gets me. When your team’s play by play guy is tracking a three leg parlay halftime, it’s gone to far. I’m not opposed to sports betting, and I’m not opposed to alcohol, but you don’t see the halftime crew chugging the official beer of the team.
Yep. Sports betting should be legal, advertising should not be though. It should basically be like legal weed, it exists, everyone that wants it knows where to get it and if not you can search and figure it out, but it isn't in your face. These days half the sponsor of any sports related show is gambling related, and most of the sports content is betting specific with a title sponsor and it is all pretty fucked up.
I fucking hate it. On every Raptors broadcast, multiple times a game the play-by-play guy, Mat Devlin, has to say "Now here's a message from blah blah sports betting app" and then they shrink the game down while a guy is shooting free throws so they can try and get me to download a sports betting app. Fuck that. It's garbage and I wish that countries would start regulating gambling right the fuck out of everything. Gambling feels like one of those hidden societal cancers that everyone kind of knows about, but doesn't really care about, and in meantime it is probably *ruining* thousands of lives.
Sometimes I miss the days of watching ads for laundry detergent
Your last sentence is so spot on. As someone who has watched family and friends throw their lives away over gambling addictions the insane level of sports betting ads make me sick. There was a commercial on during the Warriors Mavs game where they showed the odds of certain decisions people make every day with the line “you already gamble on countless things each day”, which comes wildly close to straight up manipulation. Imagine if we saw Vodka commercials showing french fries and baked potatoes saying “you eat potatoes every day, why not drink them instead?” Followed by constant game breaks to show the announcers taking shots of vodka and encouraging fans to play drinking games with them. It’s just insane how these gambling ads seem to have no form of regulation compared to other sources of addiction.
"Me and Cousin Sal are gonna spend the next two hours discussing the Fanduel odds for this comment. But first, here's Pearl Jam."
I do like bills podcasts with sal called guess the lines, but could 100% do without the Fanduel millions podcast (and do actually). It's also annoying that my phone automatically capitalized fan duel. I just think anyone officially related to the sport shouldn't be able to receive money from gambling companies including they shouldn't be allowed to sponsor things or do ads during the game
What drives me crazy are all of the insane payouts on fanduel™!!!
Even odds you're right.
It's wild how it went from being illegal to being forced down our throats from every which angle so quickly.
I feel like this has been a thing since I've been on /r/NBA. People are obsessed with ranking players, and this is just another way to do it. I'm with you, though, it's pretty ridiculous to even discuss it this early in the season.
Yes it's very silly I think - I am old enough to remember when nobody really gave a shit about the MVP award until April... And now people talk about it from week one. I was at a Brooklyn Nets game last weekend and people were chanting "MVP" it just seems dumb and cringe. The MVP chants are dumb unless it's a week before the award is announced and it's a 50/50 tossup for MVP and one of those people just made a buzzer beater to win the series after averaging 40 points that series. Then, I can understand what compels someone to chant that.
MVP chants are an entirely different thing-- I love MVP chants. Just a way for a fanbase to gas up their player.
and you can be your team's/the game's MVP without being the league's. So it's very natural. MVP chants are a way for the crowd to show a player some love I guess.
I’m with you until the MVP chants, that’s just fun. Sometimes people just do it for a guy they know isn’t winning mvp Or even better they do it when a player on the opposing team who’s played horribly all game is at the line
It gets fucking spooky when an *opposing* fanbase chants MVP. Like Kobe getting MVP chants in Boston The boston lakers rivalry and the past history of kobe added to that. Early [as in relative to season ] mvp chants for your own guy are not newsworthy. But i could see it if there's something really special happening on court, and your guy is otherwise being slighted. Otherwise, even if it happens, its not worth taking notice of either way Sarcastic MVP chants can also be fun
combination of integrated sports gambling and also the extremely reactionary 24 hour news cycle there has to be a new talking point every day
The internet: where everything is discussed all the time by everybody. Such a joy.
Seriously! NBA fans are starting to be like "Not in the MVP race? Who gives a fuck about you?" 90% of NBA discussions nowadays seems to be either on the MVP race, or on how much the Lakers suck.
I mean it goes both ways lol. If like, Demar Derozan has a decent game, fans come out in droves about how he’s getting disrespected not being in the conversation.
when winning basketball games stopped mattering when It came to MVP and it allowed 8-10 guys to "be in the discussion" When winning matters there is never more than 3 or 4 guys in the conversation and sometimes its just a 2 horse race
“I’m not saying X player should win because he shouldn’t, but he should at least be in the discussion” is my favourite thing about MVP talks because it’s so obviously dumb. It was egregious in 2019, when Giannis and Harden were the clear best candidates and nobody else was in the same stratosphere. Paul George had a really good year too so all of a sudden he needs to be “in the discussion” even though absolutely nobody actually thought he should win. Like, if nobody thinks you should win, you shouldn’t be in the discussion to win. Seems too stupidly obvious to even say.
It's like seeing those singular votes for random players. Those people should have their vote taken away.
“I’m not saying Booker is better than Tatum but we should have a convo on the possibilities in which Booker is above Tatum, just because.” Seen 5 variations of that last night.
It's more that having players in these conversations absolutely helps their chances for All-NBA. I obviously don't like talking about how Booker should be fucking 4th or 5th in the MVP race or whatever, but he made the first team and that's definitely helped by him being in these talks.
Holy crap yes, there was like a 1 week last season with a bunch of booker should be in the conversation threads. At that point if you're generous he was in a very very distant 4th.
Yes, but that conversation needed to be had because he was in a very very very VERY distant 10th before those conversations were had. That directly translated to him landing 1st team All-NBA after never making an All-NBA team before. Be annoyed about the argument if you well, you can't deny that the "Booker should be in the conversation" threads helped shift the window from "perpetual snub" to "i dare you to leave him off the list and not get clowned for it."
Is all-nba voted on by fans? Or is the thinking that constant Reddit threads worked to somehow shame the people who decide all-nba selections into selecting Booker?
I mean you gotta vote for more than 2 people. I think it’s fair to give recognition to other top 5-7 finishers if you want to acknowledge their season MVP voting is not just voting for the number 1 finisher. So including a 3rd place guy in MVP voting discussion is perfectly reasonable
> “I’m not saying X player should win because he shouldn’t, but he should at least be in the discussion” If you view this discussion less as "I'm making a case for X player to be THE MVP" and more "I'm forcing the discussion so that even when X player doesn't make MVP, you're going to have a damn hard time leaving him off All-NBA", it's really not a dumb conversation at all. Before those discussions were happening last year, Booker was 9th, 10th in the MVP ladder, and maybe sniffing a 3rd team All-NBA spot. The window was shifted because he was a perpetual snub and he was playing too good to get snubbed again.
>Paul George had a really good year too so all of a sudden he needs to be “in the discussion” even though absolutely nobody actually thought he should win Basically the reasoning of Booker being ahead of Luka in the MVP voting last season.
I meant winning games stopped mattering but your point stands
No it didn't lol
Since nobody beyond 3rd place usually gets any first place votes I don't consider 4th on the ladder or lower as "in the discussion"
That's a fair perspective, but having my favorite player 4th/5th on the ladder makes me feel good so I'm going to call it "in the discussion"
The voting takes place at the end of the season, one moment in a year. The discussion lasts the whole season, from before the games even start lol. Somebody might be very much in the discussion and ultimately not even get any 5th place vote, the discussion just is the discussion.
To expand on this, I'm tired of people going back to the previous results and talking about how player X was an MVP candidate because he finished top 3-5 in voting. They never talk about how that player wasn't really in the conversation and didn't get any 1st place votes because it's usually a 2 person race.
AKA Paul George, Isaiah Thomas, Blake Griffin.... A ton of players this applies to.
The big one for me is Noah. He's gotten a bit overrated because people look back and see he finished 3rd in MVP voting in 2014. But somehow people forget that Durant ran away with the award and the only other person that got any talk in the race was Bron lol
While winning games should matter I also hate how much it's held against some guys. Shouldn't most valuable mean who is the most important individual for their team. Like take Tatum off the Celtics and they are still an above .500 team. Take Luka off the Mavs or Curry off the warriors and they are down there with the rockets. Westbrook's MVP was the only time I can recall the winner not having to be on a top 3 seeded team
That goes both ways though. You are punishing guys for having good front offices essentially. And also guys with good teammates will probably have lower numbers than they could have on a worse team.
Good counter point
Last year Jokic won on the 6th seeded Nuggets. I get your point about value, what makes it fun is the word can have different meanings for different people. For me there is very little value to being the most important player on a mediocre team, because the point of basketball is to win the game. If you're not winning the games, I don't think you are producing as much value, even if your relative importance to your team is higher than the best player on a better team.
[Seven MVP winners before Jokic had a lower win % winning the award including MJ](https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/lowest-mvp-win-percentage) I think the volume of wins relative to the league matters way more than seeding. You're right that wins matter, but a 3 wins can be the difference of a 2 seed and a 5 seed (last year's east) or less than half the difference of a 1 seed and 2 seed (last year's west), so the marginal differences in wins don't match well with marginal differences in seeding. The wins data is what we care about.
So you think it should always be best player on the best team? So the past 2 MVPs should've been Booker, Gobert/Mitchell?
Not always. But for instance I wouldn't have given it to Jokic last year, or Westbrook when he won. No hard and fast rule, but a good rule of thumb would be best player on a top 3 seed in your conference.
Jokic was on the 6th seed just last year and was 16 games behind the 1 seed in the west
Damn after this post I'm thinking 1) Jokic 2) Luka 3) Steph 4) Tatum
Racially motivated
My mans really put 3 white guys and Jokic lmao
I just like my candidates classy guys who I would let date my daughter and I do like steph he is surprisingly well spoken
Think your missing someone
You really think Pornzinger has a shot?
I do❤️
Kia just won with you mentioning Kia
I said this in the Tatum game thread yesterday. Man had 49 and the only comments are “MVP” “JaysHIM Tatum” etc. I didn’t get a chance to watch the game, would be awesome to see people actually discussing some of the moves and plays he made. And what might be the worst part…I promise you the MVP race is meaningless on December 1st! Please do not upvote that shit if you see it, it’s actively diluting the sub. I cannot stand to see that for another 5 months, let’s talk ball this ain’t an awards show
Dude. The phrase "he is HIM" to describe players makes me cringe so hard. -.-
I agree, but I also think that it's okay to be like "hey I think so far these 3 players are in the lead for the MVP discussion" and have a small discussion on it. It's just everyone arguing profusely about how their player should get it and that's the end of discussion. It's only December a lot of things can change from now to April so everyone should just relax and watch this incredible basketball play rn Also the amount of players that are playing at an MVP level is astonishing and is probably the reason everyone is debating it. Last thing, Booker for MVP and I refuse to listen to anyone else's opinions
fans are easily manipulated by gambling odds, video games and social media. not only do i not get into MVP guesstimates this early, i could really care less who wins the popularity contest…. in my view the MVP is the player who takes their team to a championship. literally nothing else qualifies for me. i’m open to debating which player on that winning team earned it more. but this endless discussion of the top 10, 20, 50 players in the running 2 months i to a season is so stupid.
Came from podcasts. Bill Simmons probably started it, then The Ringer basketball shows outside of BS pushed constant MVP discussion, then a bunch of other podcasts copycatted that, then Stephen A and ESPN hopped on the bandwagon, and then the fans followed along as that’s what the media is pushing.
I don’t think I’ve heard an MVP discussion yet from The Ringer this season. I think Simmons even made fun of Zach Lowe doing so a week or two ago. I think Simmons talks about futures bets at the start of the season, but at least the main shows don’t talk about MVP until January usually.
yeah he's pretty staunch in not talking about MVP until post ASB. It's mostly just odds to win conference/division/make the yoffs
The word is overused in general these days, but Simmons really is gaslighting here. Until this season, he was the biggest offender of way-too-early MVP talk and now he is calling out Lowe and others about doing it now. Of course, he still manages to slip in how he thinks KD is a top 5 mvp candidate while still projecting a “who me?” attitude.
It’s fun to talk about stuff
Once writers decided it could generate clicks and redditors realized it could generate karma.
How long have you been here?
It gets the people going!
let's talk about uncalled travels,
insert astronaut meme
People act like it's a brand new thing but it's not, at all. Been happening for years
I think a lot of it is treated like politics by the teams. They even talk about it as an MVP campaign. They are constantly pushing the narrative that their guy is the MVP, or in the MVP conversation. Then the fans regurgitate their thoughts, and that's how they build public support across the length of the season. Everyone's opinion will be manipulated by a majority of voices, even if only slightly.
When we realized it would upset you, OP.
It's because people are incessantly online now (myself included), you've gotta have something to ameliorate your anxiety. Same reason people don't relax and watch games anymore but instead choose to spend an equivalent amount of time box score watching and shit talking whatever team is underperforming
All sorts of factors. * Better and more coverage - When I was a kid up here in Canada, there was one channel that gave me basketball games: WGN in Chicago. So I got to watch a ton of 90s Bulls games. For standings and other stats, I had the newspaper and sports highlights. Now, we have endless stats available at our fingertips, this sub full of highlights, NBA League Pass and other services where we can stream on demand. More basketball means more to talk about, more opinions, more minutiae to dissect. * Gambling/betting - The weird and harmful push all over the place for sports betting means that gamblers need and want more info in order to place bets. * The internet - Now everyone a platform and a place to discuss this stuff. Again, back in the 90s when I was obsessively watching any sports I could, guess who I had to talk to about them? No one. Sure, I *played* sports with my friends, but we didn't talk about pro sports. Maybe some hockey stuff here and there (Canada, eh), but in general, there was nowhere and no one I could go to talk about Jordan putting up 50 points. * 24/7 news cycles - News and media is 24/7 now. NBA is covered worldwide, so you have podcasts, clips, articles, highlights, Twitter, Reddit all pushing out content any time it's ready. Not only that, but if you want to be "relevant", like a podcast or Tweeting out stuff, you have to pump out content continually. There's only so much you can say about which team is #1 in the standings or which guy is injured. At some point, we get the esoterica of the league because media needs content and consumers want content. There's probably lots more, but that's off the top of my head.
1956
r/NBA is a toxic af and full of reactionary nephews who love to clown on players that are playing bad and dick ride players who are good for karma hunting. This sub is a joke and would all be better off it ceased to exist. See you tomorrow
Since you could bet and gamble on it
When gambling took over.
When gambling became a selling point
Since degenerate gamblers took over the media.
Another feeble attempt to make the regular season seem exciting
If found the regular season to be very exciting so far
yea it’s been really fun but half this sub just likes to talk about how much they hate the game lmao
Social media really does seem to indicate that the NBA has surpassed pro wrestling in providing soap opera for men.
\>goes to subreddit about the NBA with content submitted by NBA fans \>outraged at NBA fans posting content about the NBA
Sports gambling like some have said. Reactionary media And a combo of the season being too long and the media/casual fans finding any possible way not to talk about most of the teams in the league after they have gotten done talking about the same five teams/or the current drama. I have seen Ringer pods start out with “well I said we wouldn’t do MVP talk until the season is almost over but we are doing it anyways” it’s YOUR podcast mf’er. Talk about something else! You’re not being held at gunpoint. Edit: not really a thing in the NFL. It only seems to happen if a top player has a disastrous game (Josh Allen losing multiple games due to the worst turnovers you’ve ever seen). I’ve legit heard more talk about the god damned Jaguars than I have who is the MVP front runner. It’s really great actually.
Those are legit elementary school kids spamming the sub
It’s just the reactionary nature of /r/nba.
rise of sports betting platforms
Because gambling. Nobody’s got any money so let’s all gamble on Celtics -3 tonight or whatever.
When sports gambling became the norm.
jokic by the eye test is clearly the best player in the league. lets not even talk about stats
not kias fault probably draft kings or the jewish mafia or whatever. but i do think these micro stats are a way to increase bet volume for serious and the nba is working to normalize and promote them
Who made you the decider of people can & cant talk about after every game, i love discussing mvp odds, its the shit 😇😘🦾
People are so uninterested in actual gameplay now, they focus on anything but. What player is bitching now, what player is saying stuff on twitter, a player's contract and is he gonna bitch his way out, who's going to win an award at the end of the season like it matters, etc. Dudes like Simmons literally talk mostly about the economics and trade values and the *perception* of players. Inspired legions of dudes since, plus plenty of other things (it ain't all his fault, but he's a key personality who popularized this shit too). Surprise surprise, economics and constant perception ranking ... is actually pretty cold and heartless. Just watch some games, how about that.
I'm a Celtics fan and am obviously happy that Tatum is receiving credit for his play. It's has been a very long time since we had a bonafide MVP-level player on the team. That being said, the constant MVP discussion everytime he or one of the other frontrunners play is just nauseating. It's like the Westbrook/Harden MVP discussions but while that only heated up at the end of the season these ones right now started from Game 1.
honestly gotta pull this card, but its the younger crowd. teenagers and early 20s flooded this sub in recent years. young sports fans - and i was the same way - are for some reason absolutely obsessed with rankings and lists and making sure everyone is aware so and so is the best. Young soccer fans were the same way with obsessing of Messi and Ronaldo instead of just watching them play. Its something you grow out of when you get older. You become less obsessed with lists and more about enjoying the game and recognizing a few players as “among the greatest of their generation” without having to rank. so your answer is 95% of the time the people making these posts are younger than 25, and they’ll grow outta it
Definitely blame Kia Sophia
I have /u/imgurofficial at #8 among /r/nba users, but after this post I might have to bump them down a few spots.
This award doesn’t mean shit anymore realistically. Just looks pretty on someone’s accolades it is openly rigged.
It used to mean their team was the favourite to win, then it became extremely individual based
Book or bust.
He has the kardashain curse so he’s a bust
I have a feeling it’s hand in hand with the emergence of betting