It’s hard to put my finger on the exact problems but it feels worse than the typical decline of large subs.
This thread posted today in response to the protest shows a lot of what I mean: https://old.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/14cbtjv/who_here_is_in_favor_of_just_replacing_these_shit/
Mob mentality, selfishness, scapegoating, lack of critical thinking… It’s just so toxic compared to where it was even a year ago.
I’m excited at the prospect of building a more positive, welcoming place here to discuss the NBA.
More than the past year imo; I’d say for the last 3 years or so. I largely started avoiding the comments, but then I realized that a league as popular as the NBA would have news coverage anywhere. I then started following The Athletic for my news; that being said, I do miss having good conversation about the NBA with others. I’m hoping that constructive criticism and disagreements can be upheld here, as that was lost on the subreddit years ago.
100%. I’ve been a big contributor to /r/memphisgrizzlies and before all the brigading that came with the Ja drama it was so much better than the general NBA sub. Small communities are where it’s at, as long as people stay active.
The Heat sub usually is either doomers or delusionals.
pretty sure all team subs suffer from that, especially on game day
Very true. Huge doomer here.
don’t suppose you want to be the one to create /c/memphisgrizzlies ? lol
r/nba has been pretty bad as long as I can remember. Every thread has always been low effort jokes like LeSomething.
LeLemmy outta there.
There it is
Agreed, I found it hard to spend a lot of time there because there was a ‘shared knowledge’ of NBA basketball that was so, so uninformed but taken as ‘the way things are’ that all I could do was shake my head.
try being a Grizzlies fan for the past 12 months lol but seriously, you hit the nail on the head
Don’t you mean heazzlies. Free Jammy Mortler
😂
LeMmy
but yeah you’re right. i had joined r/justbasketball for that exact reason
I think it is just literally the usual decline of a large sub. You always get low effort and drama bubbling to the top as the userbase grows.
Reddit itself became too popular and attracted a too casual crowd, and too many of them. I never thought there would be a popular celebrity gossip subreddit, but they have several now.
Yeah, /r/NBA turned into a very tmz style discussion board. I’m not sure how much of that correlates with the rise in social media of players sharing at times too much personal info. But, instead of basketball focused topics it started becoming lot of gossip, and there was no flair for those either to make it easy to curate it out with third party apps or RES.
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Yeah, it just descends into tribalism, and stupid jokes that are tired and old. The only things that get upvotes is drama and hot takes. Kinda sad to be honest.
The mods are largely to blame for what is happening to that place right now. If they stuck to the spirit of the protest by boycotting Reddit while it was closed, then it would only be a little toxic.
But nope, they had to create GDTs and post on other open subs. That put their credibility and sincerity under scrutiny, and the entire blackout pointless. Nobody’s buying their story that they weren’t threatened - everyone’s going to think that was the case and they’re selfish cowards. Any attempt to now close threads for being off topic would come off as them silencing backlash.
MMA was the way to try to do it, since they actually attempted to provide an alternative site for discussion to coincide with the blackout. NBA had absolutely no credibility by not adhering to their own call for action.
I don’t think that tells the full story. It really didn’t seem like there was popular support there for the blackout. The threads about it beforehand, which kept getting deleted, were full of negative comments. I think people were going to criticize it regardless, and the way the mods handled it gives people another thing to make fun of.
If you want actual discussion you need to go to r/nbadiscussion. They have rules that are enforced.
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I went for the Taylor Swift material.
I guess that raises the question, do we want this community here on Lemmy to have rules that are enforced?
just my opinion, but a mix of serious discussion AND memes is fine. /r/nbadiscussion was a bit too earnest and serious, at least for me. I think I actually felt more at home on /r/nbacirclejerk 😅
I’m mostly a nobody but it has been clear to me that most people can’t or don’t have any incentive on starting discussions or threads on r/nba. Over the last few years, the only thing that has appeared on the “hot” sorted posts are memes, robot posts, parody posts, etc.
The worst are those posts that are just attempts to garner upvotes, like statistical analysis of weird things like players going to strip clubs.
Then came r/nbadiscussion and even that wasn’t much better.
In the end, I think it’s just a matter of numbers. Having a discussion on r/nba or any other popular subreddit is like having a discussion in a noisy auditorium filled with thousands of kids, teenagers, adults, old people, trolls, etc.
The most enjoyable interactions I had on Reddit were via smaller niche communities where there were only a few thousand posters, max.
I completely agree with you, this place right here has the potential to become what r/nba was a couple of years ago
It’s because the barrier of entry to accessing Reddit just became lower and lower. Right now you’ll have quality discussions on here because all of us have to go out of our way and be tech literate enough to get on lemmy. I’m a firm believer that the magic of the old internet was because of the technical hurdles you had to cross to get on. It was an effective filter.
I’m a firm believer that the magic of the old internet was because of the technical hurdles you had to cross to get on. It was an effective filter.
Hadn’t really considered that but it’s a great point. And Lemmy definitely provides a hurdle, even if it’s only the perception and not the reality (this really wasn’t that hard)
Way too many online NBA fans aren’t basketball fans. They just watch the NBA because it’s socially unacceptable for men to watch The Bachelor
Way too many posts about someone or some duo breaking some stat records in a very specific and narrow context.
I think the NBA product, specifically the announcers and commentators, fail to feed a more nuanced product to their viewers. Marc Jackson’s “you gotta play harder,” or “you have to want it more than the other guy” just doesn’t build a deep respect for the flow of the game, or the underlying strategies and tactics being gamed out. Baseball is much better in that regard, and I think it has kept the meme dilution away from the game.
Van gundy gives some good breakdowns every now and then and I know some ppl hate her but so does doris
I agree, there are still gems like Breen as well. But the fact that more than half of your national broadcast team is dedicated to lamenting lines such as, “I hate that teams do X now,” or “AD looks unengaged every other game” despite elite defense just allows casuals to parrot the soundbite. You see it all the time on r/NBA, and it’s impossible to have actual discussion beyond that. This goes for “analysts” too, so it’s a multi-front effort to disparage their own product.
I mean it all feeds off the drama. The NBA is the most drama league in all the North American major leagues. So it appeals to story’s and narratives more than play at times. My friend doesn’t watch any games all year and starts telling me how the Lakers will easily win this year. Because of one ESPN vid he watched.
It’s been declining for the past 5-ish years noticably.
God I really hope lemmy takes off
Years ago it was what /r/NBADiscussion was at it’s best. More in depth analysis and people actually caring about the game along with cool things like the 3 point shooting challenge, the playoff mascot art, etc. Now it’s 95% the drama, don’t get me wrong trade season is fun but it feels like most of that sub doesn’t even like to watch basketball.
