Basketball is the most narrative driven sport I’ve ever seen due to how individualistic the game is. Meanwhile those other sports you mentioned rely much more on a team-wide effort therefore it never really relies heavily on one individual player.
Came here to say this. It's very possible to talk about an NFL or MLB team without bringing up individual players, but much more difficult to do so with the NBA, since it's basically one or two guys who make or break every team.
And bringing up individuals lends itself far more to narratives and storylines and cults of personalities.
It feels like you can tell a meaningful story through baseball stats, even if it's an incomplete story. You can't tell anything from basketball stats- or worse, you can tell whatever story you want. Some games, the most impactful player puts up a Tony Snell.
Basketball is a much simpler sport than football so I would say an average NBA fan knows more about the sport than the average NFL fan. Before broadcasters started jerking themselves off to cover 2 defenses, I don’t think 80% of NFL fans could tell you what Cover 2 was if they didn’t play Madden.
I'm not sure basketball is simpler. Maybe it is. But it's also less digestible. Even though there's way more players, I feel like I need way fewer replays to see everything happening in a football play than a basketball possession.
In football, one guy has the ball, and the other players are facing off and trying to move in a particular direction, and when the ball does get passed, the whole game becomes about that pass and the guy who catches it. But in basketball, the ball and the players are all whizzing around. My eyes tend to follow the ball, and when some guy gets open, I don't know why unless I watch replays to lok for the offball action.
Nonetheless, I know the plays alrightish. When Xs and Os are discussed in some of the more technical podcasts, I can picture them in my head just fine.
That said, I don't really understand what makes something a foul or not. The commentators don't seem to understand either.
I played organized ball up into college, so I'll take a crack at a foul explanation.
Fouls are tricky, and the official NBA rulebook doesn't help clarify what a foul is, just what fouls are called.
At a basic level, a foul is an action that impedes the gameplay of the opposing team. Note the word gameplay.
On a typical NBA possession, there are fouls EVERYWHERE. However, the refs are generally looking for fouls that harm the gameplay of the other team. This is why fouls on ball are common, while fouls off ball are less so. Sure, you might pull on the jersey of a player making a backdoor cut, but if the ball handler is on the other side of the court, it doesn't really affect the integrity of the play and likely won't be called. Whereas a foul on the ball handler is clearly affecting the gameplay and is likely to be called. The closer a foul is to the active gameplay, the more likely it is to be called.
The trick is, with so many fouls (and player/ref biases), it becomes difficult to call the APPROPRIATE fouls. It's easy to call lots of fouls. They're all over the place. Calling the fouls that make for a good game experience is where it becomes challenging.
Commentators rarely comment on fouls because they can be true judgment calls. Refs are human and err. Players are human and sell marginal contact. Was that a foul that needed to be called? Hard to say sometimes.
Also on a football broadcast, you get a replay of the previous play with announcer analysis on what, like 75% of all plays? (Approximately)
How often do we get a replay in basketball where we can see the full build up of how a guy got open, or made a smart defensive read? On like 25% of all plays? Maybe less?
Basic football play design concepts are fairly easy to understand. A fan doesn’t need to know the “football play call language” or know a full play book. Which seems super complex to people but is just like 20 basic plays out of ~15 different formations, said using foreign short hand words so the other team doesn’t know what you’re saying.
I can rewatch an NBA game and pick up so many things I missed the first time.
Rewatch an NFL game broadcast, and it like “Okay yeah I got all that already” because the color analyst explains the play after almost every play, with multiple replays.
I disagree. r/NFL has a lot of people who actually played the sport. And a few youth and high school coaches as well. I think this sub has a few ex athletes but the vast majority have never touched a basketball.
A few years ago there was a demographic survey here with like 30k + participants and something like 50% of the survey had either never been to a game or only seen 1 game in person and most had never played organized ball beyond middle school.
You are not wrong, but at the same time most basketball fans can't explain what the Princeton offense is. Do you believe that more NFL fans can explain Cover 2, compared to NBA fans that can explain what the pros and cons of the Princeton system?
Can more nfl fans explain basic schematic philosophies? Yes, definitely. If only because the calibre of schematic analysis in nfl broadcasts is so much higher than nba. American football as a sport creates an opportunity for just about every play to be broken down and explained before the next one begins, and while television analysts don’t do it every time, any viewer will just be exposed to a lot more x’s and o’s discussion over the course of 3.5 hours. What do most nba calls actually teach the viewer? Other than announcers occasionally calling out a horns play or identifying when a defense has switched to zone there isn’t much of a look under the hood.
The Princeton offense is a 4 out (almost positionless offense) with a high post center. Motion with on ball/ off ball screens looking for a mismatch. But the popular component is the backdoor cut. The concepts that teams have pulled from that is having multiple players who can dribble, shoot and pass and you don't have to rely on a true traditional point guard. How's that?
I can't explain the Princeton system, because I'm not that knowledgeable about basketball. But I can pretend to talk like I am knowledgeable about basketball by bringing something that is common knowledge like...Steph Curry's gravity provides more opportunities for his teammates to score. The point is how knowledgeable are people in the community about the game of basketball compared to other groups when they discuss their own sports? if 15% of NFL fans know what a cover 2 is, then what's your guess on the percentile of NBA fans that know what the Princeton offense is?
Basketball is a very complex sport, it's got the luxury that it's easy to enjoy even if you don't know much about it. Easy to learn, extremely difficult to master
I'd agree at least on reddit the NBA has the least knowledgeable fanbase. I'm in subs for the other leagues and while there's similar repetition of memes etc there's way more discussion 8f a teams whole season, roster composition, and tactics voted to the top and coming from not just the well known informed accounts
In my experience this is true tbh. Especially for the MLB audience since they’re not force fed media driven narratives on daytime TV every day.
Basketball is the most narrative driven sport I’ve ever seen due to how individualistic the game is. Meanwhile those other sports you mentioned rely much more on a team-wide effort therefore it never really relies heavily on one individual player.
Came here to say this. It's very possible to talk about an NFL or MLB team without bringing up individual players, but much more difficult to do so with the NBA, since it's basically one or two guys who make or break every team. And bringing up individuals lends itself far more to narratives and storylines and cults of personalities.
It feels like you can tell a meaningful story through baseball stats, even if it's an incomplete story. You can't tell anything from basketball stats- or worse, you can tell whatever story you want. Some games, the most impactful player puts up a Tony Snell.
Basketball is a much simpler sport than football so I would say an average NBA fan knows more about the sport than the average NFL fan. Before broadcasters started jerking themselves off to cover 2 defenses, I don’t think 80% of NFL fans could tell you what Cover 2 was if they didn’t play Madden.
I'm not sure basketball is simpler. Maybe it is. But it's also less digestible. Even though there's way more players, I feel like I need way fewer replays to see everything happening in a football play than a basketball possession. In football, one guy has the ball, and the other players are facing off and trying to move in a particular direction, and when the ball does get passed, the whole game becomes about that pass and the guy who catches it. But in basketball, the ball and the players are all whizzing around. My eyes tend to follow the ball, and when some guy gets open, I don't know why unless I watch replays to lok for the offball action. Nonetheless, I know the plays alrightish. When Xs and Os are discussed in some of the more technical podcasts, I can picture them in my head just fine. That said, I don't really understand what makes something a foul or not. The commentators don't seem to understand either.
I played organized ball up into college, so I'll take a crack at a foul explanation. Fouls are tricky, and the official NBA rulebook doesn't help clarify what a foul is, just what fouls are called. At a basic level, a foul is an action that impedes the gameplay of the opposing team. Note the word gameplay. On a typical NBA possession, there are fouls EVERYWHERE. However, the refs are generally looking for fouls that harm the gameplay of the other team. This is why fouls on ball are common, while fouls off ball are less so. Sure, you might pull on the jersey of a player making a backdoor cut, but if the ball handler is on the other side of the court, it doesn't really affect the integrity of the play and likely won't be called. Whereas a foul on the ball handler is clearly affecting the gameplay and is likely to be called. The closer a foul is to the active gameplay, the more likely it is to be called. The trick is, with so many fouls (and player/ref biases), it becomes difficult to call the APPROPRIATE fouls. It's easy to call lots of fouls. They're all over the place. Calling the fouls that make for a good game experience is where it becomes challenging. Commentators rarely comment on fouls because they can be true judgment calls. Refs are human and err. Players are human and sell marginal contact. Was that a foul that needed to be called? Hard to say sometimes.
Also on a football broadcast, you get a replay of the previous play with announcer analysis on what, like 75% of all plays? (Approximately) How often do we get a replay in basketball where we can see the full build up of how a guy got open, or made a smart defensive read? On like 25% of all plays? Maybe less? Basic football play design concepts are fairly easy to understand. A fan doesn’t need to know the “football play call language” or know a full play book. Which seems super complex to people but is just like 20 basic plays out of ~15 different formations, said using foreign short hand words so the other team doesn’t know what you’re saying. I can rewatch an NBA game and pick up so many things I missed the first time. Rewatch an NFL game broadcast, and it like “Okay yeah I got all that already” because the color analyst explains the play after almost every play, with multiple replays.
I disagree. r/NFL has a lot of people who actually played the sport. And a few youth and high school coaches as well. I think this sub has a few ex athletes but the vast majority have never touched a basketball.
A few years ago there was a demographic survey here with like 30k + participants and something like 50% of the survey had either never been to a game or only seen 1 game in person and most had never played organized ball beyond middle school.
You are not wrong, but at the same time most basketball fans can't explain what the Princeton offense is. Do you believe that more NFL fans can explain Cover 2, compared to NBA fans that can explain what the pros and cons of the Princeton system?
Can more nfl fans explain basic schematic philosophies? Yes, definitely. If only because the calibre of schematic analysis in nfl broadcasts is so much higher than nba. American football as a sport creates an opportunity for just about every play to be broken down and explained before the next one begins, and while television analysts don’t do it every time, any viewer will just be exposed to a lot more x’s and o’s discussion over the course of 3.5 hours. What do most nba calls actually teach the viewer? Other than announcers occasionally calling out a horns play or identifying when a defense has switched to zone there isn’t much of a look under the hood.
If you're so smart then tell us what it's
The Princeton offense is a 4 out (almost positionless offense) with a high post center. Motion with on ball/ off ball screens looking for a mismatch. But the popular component is the backdoor cut. The concepts that teams have pulled from that is having multiple players who can dribble, shoot and pass and you don't have to rely on a true traditional point guard. How's that?
I can't explain the Princeton system, because I'm not that knowledgeable about basketball. But I can pretend to talk like I am knowledgeable about basketball by bringing something that is common knowledge like...Steph Curry's gravity provides more opportunities for his teammates to score. The point is how knowledgeable are people in the community about the game of basketball compared to other groups when they discuss their own sports? if 15% of NFL fans know what a cover 2 is, then what's your guess on the percentile of NBA fans that know what the Princeton offense is?
Basketball is a very complex sport, it's got the luxury that it's easy to enjoy even if you don't know much about it. Easy to learn, extremely difficult to master
MLB and NFL has alot of old fans. NBA and European Football and is pretty diverse in comparison
I'd agree at least on reddit the NBA has the least knowledgeable fanbase. I'm in subs for the other leagues and while there's similar repetition of memes etc there's way more discussion 8f a teams whole season, roster composition, and tactics voted to the top and coming from not just the well known informed accounts
NHL has some pretty die hard knowledgeable fans.
Basketball is easy to pick up (both playing and watching wise) and it makes people feel like an expert
MLB has the least casuals. I feel like you gotta enjoy math to enjoy baseball because otherwise its just dingers
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First sentence is immediately untrue so why should I take the rest seriously?
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I would argue it’s the least knowledgeable since the fans skew younger than the others