I’ve written a lot about the NBA’s style-of-play controversies recently, from tracing the way analytics reshaped the use of the 3-pointer to whether such a heavy focus on deep shooting even makes sense anymore from an efficiency standpoint. But amidst all of these worried conversations surrounding the league’s product and popularity, it seldom gets mentioned that the biggest issue might be the nature of basketball itself.
Intuitively, we know that the better team, stocked with superior players, wins more often in hoops than in, say, baseball or hockey. But this truism — as borne out in the data — is at the heart of many NBA problems, creating a cascading sequence of side-effects that cuts against the league’s core entertainment quality.
