\n\tAt first blush, it might seem discouraging to note that the regular season recently concluded with a 2% dip<\/a>, but that number needs some context.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tFirst of all, -2% might as well be a positive single-figure increase, considering the NBA is trying to hold on to its TV audience at a time when there\u2019s far more than 2% erosion to linear TV in general. Also, -2% probably comes as a relief to the league given the ratings in the first half of the season were terrible.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tSo much so that the downturn prompted a lot of hand wringing about the fragile state of the NBA. Enough press people were talking about it, in fact, that Lakers coach JJ Redick, himself a former card-carrying member of the media, noted the volume on this conversation had grown so loud it was probably part of what was fueling the negative perceptions<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tThe bad buzz seemed to reach an apex at the midseason All-Star Game, which was yet another rudderless mess that the league still needs to figure out<\/a> how to fix. But then a funny thing happened: As NBA commissioner Adam Silver noted in an appearance<\/a> on \u201cThe Pat McAfee Show\u201d this week, ratings for the second half of the season surged \u2014 and that makes the -2% a victory.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tWhy the ramp-up? A lot of fingers point to the infamous Luka Doncic trade<\/a> as the prime catalyst, and while it surely reignited dormant interest, it probably doesn\u2019t account entirely for the ratings rebound.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tThere\u2019s a simpler explanation: Just like Major League Baseball has problems drawing interest to its own massive 162-game<\/a> regular season, where hundreds of games don\u2019t have any real impact on the standings, the NBA\u2019s 82-game season has a similar inherent problem.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tThat\u2019s why the NBA Cup in-season tournament<\/a> was added a few years ago, and while I wouldn\u2019t call it a slam dunk, its whole reason for existence is to pump some competitive energy into the season earlier. There are just too many games to garner any emotional investment, but once the season advances enough and competitive narratives truly kick in, the 2024-25 campaign proves fan interest comes roaring back.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tBut now that we\u2019re at the doorstep of the postseason, avoiding another 12% decline rests entirely on how interesting these playoffs can be.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tSEE ALSO: Celtics Sale Proves Media\u2019s New Pot of Gold Lies in Sports Teams as Mega-Brands<\/a><\/p>\n \n\tTo some degree, it can\u2019t be overlooked that the pro U.S. basketball game has certain inherent issues that the heightened stakes on the road to championship don\u2019t really solve: too many lopsided scores in blowout games, too many games descending into three-point shooting contests and too many momentum-killing referee whistles that interrupt the flow late in games.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tStill, all of that can be overcome if interesting narratives emerge early and often in the postseason that transcend the interest of the hardcore b-ball fans and entice the casual viewers who don\u2019t have the patience to track the overlong regular season.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tCertain Broadcasting 101 fundamentals don\u2019t change: There\u2019s no better magnet for attention than star athletes from major markets going head to head. In seasons past, the friendly rivalry<\/a> between the games\u2019 two premier attractions \u2014 the Los Angeles Lakers\u2019 LeBron James and the Golden State Warriors\u2019 Steph Curry \u2014 has been a ratings godsend. It didn\u2019t happen last year, but there\u2019s a very good chance these teams will meet this time in the second round, which will have a halo effect on the rest of the schedule.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tLuckily, the league is awash in stars even below the A+ tier occupied by James and Curry, and the playoffs tends to both mint new ones and elevate budding ones.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \n\tThere\u2019s also a nice parity in skill level among teams across the league that could keep things competitively interesting, as opposed to any one dynastic force looming head and shoulders over the rest, a dynamic that has marked previous NBA eras. And the rights holders<\/a> who just paid roughly triple the cost of the last rights deals should aim to keep it that way.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tThere are at least eight teams in the 2024-25 season with a realistic shot at a championship. Six are in the Western Conference alone, where there\u2019s virtually no difference in the win-loss records<\/a> among the teams seeded third through eighth.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tWhat may be the most intriguing theme of the season is that while conventional wisdom holds that it\u2019s the experienced teams that thrive in a postseason where the style of play intensifies so qualitatively differently it might as well be a different league than the regular season, the teams with the best records \u2014 Cleveland Cavaliers, Oklahoma City Thunder and Houston Rockets \u2014 have rosters that skew very young, which leave them vulnerable to upsets.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tOr not. And therein lies the drama. Much as fan conspiracists on social media spin elaborate tales of predetermined outcomes engineered by conniving referees being manipulated like striped marionettes by the league commissioner, the action on the court is not scripted. Whether the NBA can recover its playoffs mojo is up to the only force mightier than the players or the owners: the capricious whims of the basketball gods.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tNow dig into the related VIP+ subscriber report \u2026<\/p>\n
![\"Read](\"https:\/\/variety.com\/wp-content\/themes\/pmc-variety-2020\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NBA Playoffs tip off this weekend, and what may be just as suspenseful as the scores are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3029,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7,6,11,66,2023],"class_list":{"0":"post-3028","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba-playoffs","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-nba","10":"tag-nba-playoffs","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-sports-rights"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114416695190987144","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3028\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}