On another note, in the Silver presser pre-game, he discussed the appeal of having games start early (ie Game 1 of the Semi-Finals) so they could air prime time in Europe.
The NBA pays significantly more in salary ($4.8B) than MLB ($3.4B), despite having a salary cap. The average NBA team will pay about $161M this year, compared with about $114M for the average MLB team, and taking into account how many more MLB players there are, the average NBA player makes far more than the average MLB player (it looks like the average NBA player makes just over double what the average MLB player makes, but I haven't dug too deeply). Additionally, it looks like NBA teams are worth on average 50% more than MLB teams - I have no doubt that if there were no salary cap and no max contracts, teams like the Lakers, Clippers, Warriors, Knicks etc would have payrolls north of $300M.
Doing a neutral site event takes the crowd element out of it, which gives it a weird energy (had an NCAA tournament vibe to it I guess)Just finished watching on tape delay.
Game badly needed a "Beat LA" chant to counter the Lakers' home crowd.
Turns out things don't work out for the Pacers quite as well when they shoot 24% from 3 as opposed to when they shoot 48% from 3. I'm sure nobody else has observed this.
Prelude to the LeBron ownership group in Vegas. I know we are all Celtics fans but I appreciate greatness and I've appreciated this man for two full freakin decades! He looks like he could do another 2-3 at a high level if he wanted. I want to see a team in this city like yesterday though.
Sign me up for LeBron Player/Part Owner of the Vegas franchise if it means he'd be leaving the Lakers in the dust.
Yes ratings were strong (not available for yesterdays game yet). I believe 20-30% higher than comparable games a year ago (granted, the matchups were largely designed at the beginning to ensure growth).
I don't think there were comparable games a year ago as the semifinal and final games had the entire day to themselves, the only games scheduled in the league those days.
Comparison may have just been for the first round Friday games, or against last year season to date. Either way, the league is spinning it as a win, unsurprisingly, with games rating higher than normal early season games.
I feel like the spaced out nature of the tournament makes it very difficult for fans to digest, especially those of us who aren’t as familiar with European soccer. Feel like they need to figure out a way to make it a 2 week event or something, which is probably logistically impossible.
when's the last time an NBA player has been suspended for PEDs?
I remember Deandre Ayton and John Collins both suspended for PEDs in 2019, can't think of any since then.
George Karl said the NBA was rampant with PEDs a decade ago in his book Furious George.
I hate the PED acquisitions of any professional athlete. Everyone uses supplements of varying strengths. If you aren't, you aren't playing professional sports. Is LeBron using some type of supplementation or doping? Yeah probably.....and who is he competing against every night? Guys who use some type of supplementation or doping.
While I understand and appreciate the logic that pros need to even the playing field against other pros, I really wish the league would crack down on it -- there are college kids using to try and make the league, and high school kids using to try and get into major college programs. Almost all of these kids are damaging their long-term health for little to no gain.
Isn't this an argument that lebron is just doing it to be at a fair playing level with everyone else?
Doing what though? If whatever the players are doing isn't illegal, banned or regulated than who are we to judge something we have zero information on? This isn't like McGwire and Bonds in their steroid years....I remember those threads here demanding "proof" because without evidence we don't know for sure (LOL yeah ok).
Well, anabolic steroids are class III. And that’s what people are talking about, right?
I mean if that's what they are talking about I'll be blunt and say that they don't know what they are talking about. As someone said upthread the more likely to be whatever the modern form of blood doping is today along with a supplementation program and not anabolic steroids.
Whatever doping they are doing is many years ahead of the testing.
How is that schedule worse than in years past? If anything the league has eased up on the mandatory 4 games in 5 nights, and 5 in 7 road trips.
Good thing that NBA regular season results are almost meaningless for the top couple seeds.
I would think the chance to get some rest and some practice would be a great break. Look at the first 20 games and figure out what you need to do better. And get the new bench guys some good practice time.
PLI-A-BLE
Not worse for the Celtics, worse for me! Friday was the only game during a week's worth of time, then it's every night, then they go out west and it's impossible to follow those games and not be a zombie. Just when the season seemed to have some flow to it, it's all over the place.
There's a 0% chance more than 5% of the NFL and NBA players are not juicing. The PED science is too good and the money is WAY too much.(especially the NBA) Every player is doing something. There is no way they would be able to do what they are doing without it. Everything is so much more physical and intense.
Before the Group Play draw, each team was placed into a “pot” based on its record from the prior regular season (2022-23). In each conference, one team from each pot was randomly selected into each of the three groups in that conference. Pot 1 had the teams with the three best prior-season records in a conference, Pot 2 had the teams with the fourth- through sixth-best prior-season records in a conference, and so on through Pot 5.
Literally, the "luck of the draw".
There is zero chance Netflix is going to go after [edit - major] sports. Zero. Technically they don't have the right infrastructure fit to do live TV. It would be a huge undertaking to fix their issues with live TV which wouldn't be worth the effort.
