20 Things Casual NBA Fans Don't Know

Good teams can win games, but great teams can beat the spread. Woo! They won it! Yeah! Do you really know NBA basketball, or are you a casual fan that only watches highlights? Welcome, everybody, to the Hot Pop Boys. David and Andrew here. We got a long list for you today, 20 things that the casual fan does not understand about the NBA. I mean, it's a big debate right now. Are you a casual? Are you a hooper hooper expert? Are you somewhere in between? I mean, Andrew, we are by no means Tex Winters, okay? But we have been following the NBA for about 20 years, and we came up with a list of 20 things that I think differentiate a casual's understanding of NBA basketball from somebody more in the middle or more expert. All right, so let us know what you think about this list in the comments down below, and let's get into it. Point number one, durability is a talent. I think that sometimes people get caught up in the highlights, right? LeBron, he doesn't have a lot of smooth moves. He plays a little bit like a football player. His durability is a talent, and that's one of the reasons why he has all the records. I mean, he's been the main contributor on his team for almost 20 years. That's crazy. That deserves GOAT status in some way alone. Right, just because it is true. I'll tell you this, guys. To be fair, his moves don't look cool. But, you know, it really goes to, like, your discipline and how you prioritize things. If you look at these A1 talents like John Wall, James Harden, they're not aging that gracefully because I don't feel like they're prioritizing the things you need to do to stay playing well deep into your 30s and potentially even your early 40s. And here's a player that really needs to think about how to avoid and recover from injuries correctly is Zion, because Zion is a Hall of Fame talent. I think we all agree. But if he can't play games, he's not going to be great. And obviously, AD, he's getting more of his heavy injuries in the middle of his career. I'll say this, guys. I've read two things. Number one, that most players who underperform a major contract, there's usually a major injury involved. So anytime people say somebody's washed, usually it is due to injury. You know why? Because when you are practicing to get better at basketball, both from the IQ, a rep, and just, like, a skills perspective, you can't take long breaks. I mean, like, literally, that would be like a bodybuilder sitting out of a bodybuilder competition and not lifting for, like, a year and then getting back into it. It's very, very difficult. That's why what Klay Thompson's doing is pretty impressive. Yeah. The best ability is availability. Point number two, the game is a lot more advanced, more skilled, and players overall are more athletic and better trained than they were in eras before. I mean, I will spot everybody before we get into the slander of Magic Johnson and Larry Bird. Oh, my gosh, the slander. People hate it. I'll say this. Probably back then, players had a lot less money, so they were more, like, I guess trying to, like, rip each other's throats out. But let me tell you this, guys. If Zion, the healthy Zion, Andrew, was back in, like, 1982, he would be averaging 45 points a game. Yeah. For me, I overall try to stay away from the whole Luka versus Larry Bird one-on-one or MJ versus blah-blah-blah one-on-one because they just play in different generations of basketball, guys. Every single athletic record has been broken over the past 30 years, so people are faster. That's a fact. I think MJ would still be very dominant in today's league, but he'd have to make some tweaks and shoot more threes. And not only this, Andrew, if Anthony Edwards was transported back to 1986, I think he would be a dominant player. Guys, it's fine. We give them their flowers. Larry Bird is great, but just don't say that he would beat Luka one-on-one. Oh, my God. I don't think it'd be true. People saying Bob Cousy is the top three point guard of all time. Come on, guys, listen. The BMW E46 from, like, 1993 is an amazing classic car, and the resale value is through the roof. It ain't got all the features of the 2023 models. Guys, point number three, there are actually a lot of good players who could compete in the NBA, but they're not going to find a roster spot, and that's too bad. Right. I think a lot of times the casual fans, they see somebody's summer mixtape, or they see somebody hooping, hooping, even against NBA comp, and they're like, oh, how come Isaiah Briscoe's not in the league? How come, like, a street baller, somebody like Frank Nitti is not in the league? And it's just like, yo, guys, the NBA is, like, it's really about, like, defense, too, like, and schematics and all this stuff, and can you remember the plays? Are you a good locker room influence? I mean, a lot of these guys that are great street ballers are also, like, 6'3", at 6'3", in the NBA. You got to be a knockdown three-point shooter. You got to have defensive IQ, all these other things, and also a lot of teams are going to have that 15th spot on their roster for their two-way player that's a young guy that they're trying to develop from the G League to the NBA and back and forth, so listen, sometimes it's just not the right time. Sometimes they just can't find the right situation, but trust me, there's a lot of guys out there that are talented enough to play in the NBA if given the shots, but just no team is going to build the offense around these guys. Yeah, it's like Mike James, for example, Andrew, he's a hooper hooper. He's incredibly skilled. He might be more skilled than some players who are even, like, all-stars, but at the end of the day, he's, like, 6'0", and he's a volume shooter. Most teams just don't want that and cannot incorporate that in their offense, and even if he was on a team, which I do think he could be, he'd be, like, 14th or 15th man. Why would he want that? He can actually make more money overseas than sitting on the bench for the Nets. Point number four, the game is more positionless and scoring-focused now than ever. I remember CP3 said that he does not think that Steph should be the greatest point guard of all time because he doesn't really consider him a true point guard. Now... Of course CP would say that. Yeah, of course CP, by the way, is hating, by the way, and just being, you know, a human, but the game's just different now. Literally, I would say right now, Andrew, everybody wants players that are 6'7"-6'10", can create advantages and make passes and see the windows once they create that competitive advantage and beat their man. Guys, I know that Steph Curry might not be the floor general or playmaker on the same level that CP is, but by the way, Steph is an amazing passer, and his ability to score draws gravity towards him and allows plays to be made for his teammates. So, when it comes to playmaking and, you know, putting up points on the board and basically contributing to the team, no doubt I think Steph is on that level. I mean, it's gonna be difficult to compare eras, Andrew, where the positions were, like, so strict and concrete, where we're moving now where it's really positionless. Did you guys know that back in the day the point guard's job was to dribble up the ball, pass it to the forward, the forward passes it to the center, and the center shoots the ball? That's it, for the layup, that's it. That was how basketball was played at the time. Point number five, guys. Recency bias due to media, social media, just the impulsive nature of modern life, Andrew, is at a 10 out of 10 right now. Social media, man, you see one highlight one day and you're like, oh, my gosh, the Celtics are gonna sweep the Warriors. And then the next game, you're like, oh, no, the Warriors aren't gonna lose this. Next game, ah, maybe Celtics got it. Next game, no, Warriors aren't going down. One game, Andrew Wiggins been a whole bust his whole life. Next game, Andrew Wiggins, finals MVP over Steph. I'm telling you guys, if Andrew Wiggins were to somehow win finals MVP over Steph Curry, my gosh. All right, point number six. There are four main types of media surrounding the NBA. All right, guys, when you go to the people who do not play the game, you've got the rumor mill guys. That's Brian Windhorst, that's Woj. You got the narrative guys that scream and shout and weave stories, Stephen A. Smith. You've got your clown-informer players, Shaq and Chuck, just hilarious, not super technical. Then you've got your breakdown guys, Draymond, JJ Reddick, Tim Legler, really breaking the down X's and O's. Could be coaches themselves. And then, of course, you've got your analytic nerds on blogs, maybe some YouTube channels where they're just, like, super analyzing, like, you know, picking roles from the left side, a defender within 15 feet, you know, in the third quarter. Yeah, and then you got Gilbert Arenas, who is a mixture between the clowning ex-former player and a technical guy. And you just got to know who you're listening to, guys, because not all these commentators can be considered the same. All right, point number seven. How come everybody only thinks about the head coach? That's like looking at a company C-suite and only analyzing the quality of the CEO, but you're not looking at the CFO, the CEO. Guys, I'm going to tell you this. Udoka, the head coach of the Celtics the year before, was an assistant coach on the Brooklyn Nets. So just to show you how good an assistant coach can be for that team, I mean, it means a lot. It would be a little bit, and I know the casual fans sometimes do this, Andrew, it would be like looking at just the top number one or two or three superstars on a team. But really, if you look at most teams in the NBA, they run anywhere from probably like an eight-man rotation, if you were to average it out with the playoffs. Yeah, guys, and also a lot of the assistant coaches are often the ones spending the most time one-on-one with players. Point number eight. Most people watching NBA games have no idea what's going on other than just seeing a highlight play or like a step-back jumper. I mean, I think this is where playing basketball at a decently high level competitively will give you a perspective of an actual player. Like, when you're getting double teamed at half court, if you've been double teamed at half court, you know what it feels like getting crowded like that. And then you can kind of understand how it might be in the NBA getting crowded by six-foot-seven guys. Yeah, I think for me, even watching the channel Thinking Basketball, it really helped me because, you know, they do try to do some technical analysis, like with the little circles and stuff. I know Kenny Smith does, but it's just not advanced enough for the scheme that the offensive running and especially, obviously, the defensive schemes. Oh, not only that, Andrew, on an ISO possession, there's a lot more technicality that goes into it other than like, did the guy fall down and did I switch the shot? How does Luka get past this guy all the time? David, he's not that fast. Luka is always looking at weight distribution and how much that person can explode off each leg. And he's also looking at the second line of defense, whether there's a big coming over, is he hedging, is he in the drop? So basically, Luka is like thinking about layer one, layer two, layer three already when everybody else obviously only sees layer one. But of course, it's natural for Luka at this point because he has done it thousands and thousands and thousands of times. Also, he uses his off-arm a lot, too. That's something Kyrie Irving does as well. Also, Luka went pro, I believe, at 14 years old. And his dad was a pro player. All right, guys, point number nine, you need both analytics and basketball flow, guys, on the coaching staff for a great team. Yeah, I mean, listen, guys, it's really a combination. And if you look at the Dallas Mavericks, Andrew, this year, that was the only team where if you took the combined analytics of the top eight players that actually played, they were worse than the team they beat. So everybody else, you could have just based it off the analytics whether they were gonna win or not. But the analytics of the Mavericks was a little bit worse than that of the Jazz and the Phoenix Suns, but they were able to defeat them because they had the flow coach, Jason Kidd. Yeah, and I think a lot of people look at Steve Kerr like, oh, is he really an X's and O's and super technical guy? I mean, maybe he is or he isn't, but trust me, people on his coaching staff are because maybe Steve Kerr is more the flow guy just like Phil Jackson was for the Bulls and the Lakers. Yeah, I feel like some people are like Daryl Morey where they're just like analytics, analytics. And then there's flow guys like Kevin McHale where he was just like, just play the game. And it's like, dude, you need both. All right, number 10, talking about analytics, guys, advanced metrics analytics in the three-point shot did not actually ruin the NBA. I'm not convinced. And a lot of people that are casuals or maybe they think they know basketball, they're like, dude, the three-pointers just ruined the NBA. All people do is shoot threes. Well, trust me, you actually don't win championships only shooting threes. Even though, yes, if you hit 33% of your threes, that equals to 50% of your twos. That's why everybody shoots threes now. Because if you look at like the 10 out of 10 analytic run teams like the Houston Rockets during the Moore years, they never really went far. They would end up hitting their ceiling. So it goes to show you, I mean, I think it's a meme. People see what's happening in AAU and middle school games and kids chucking it up from half court. I do agree that the kids have a tendency to mimic like NBA players too early without developing the base fundamentals. But that's just human nature. I will tell you this. If all teams just all shot threes all the time as their offense, other teams would adjust. And then basically it starts to even out so that now the two-pointer is also a worthy shot as well. Anyways, guys, moving on to point number 11. One thing that a lot of people don't know is that a lot of NBA players actually train closely with each other in the off season and they even share trainers. Right, and that's one of the negatives from the old school guys. They're always like, dude, why are all these guys friends? The NBA was better when they wanted to like punch each other in the face when they saw each other out at night. Yeah, I mean, I think that players honestly really want to get better and they enjoy each other. And yes, there is probably less aggression off court amongst each other. But yeah, I mean, that is one thing I would say about the current NBA is that maybe people sometimes don't want to beat the other person bad enough. I don't know. So, hey, like you said, we're being fair, guys. We are giving some credence to the other side. Yo, the old school dudes wanted to rip each other's throats more. Way less skilled though. Point number 12. Guys, I heard that a lot of like basketball organizations, like franchises, are like old boys clubs on the back end. So, you know, from the GM to the coaches to the assistants. However, what has been shown to win in recent years has been more of a tech-centric approach. So basically, the NBA teams that are not run like a bro squad, like frat, but more run like an actual, like Google with like hardcore, like employee performance indicators and stuff like that, even for executives, have been shown to go far. So if you look at companies like Google, Apple, Tesla, these are like the greatest companies of the recent memory, right? Of the last like 20 years, right? In America. So it's funny that a lot of NBA teams are going to take on some of that influence. I'm not saying they're tech companies, but they are going to be mimicking some of the structures. And I think, Andrew, that like bro squad on the back end, it used to work when everybody else was running the bro squad. But if somebody's like, you know, firing all the weak employees based on performance and then you're not doing that, then I think you're going to struggle in the modern NBA. The Kings, horrible franchise, very much nepotistic. Yeah. Point number 13, Andrew, you need defensive minded role players who are cheap and outplaying their contracts to sort of fill in the pieces on a championship playoff team. Because obviously, as we know, guys, there is a salary cap and money restrictions do come into play in the NBA. Yeah, and also, let's be honest, a lot of people on a contract year, they end up playing better. And I don't think it's necessarily just the money, but, you know, people always say desperation will make a person play differently than when they're not desperate. But if you look at the last couple champions in the NBA, Andrew, I'm going to take that Lakers, like, bubble chip out of there. The Raptors, they had OG and Inobi on a super cheap contract. The Bucks had super cheap role players who were like doing everything. The Celtics have players like Grant Williams and Derek White, super cheap role players. The only exception, Andrew, is the Warriors because the Warriors have a $340 million payroll. So they go deep into the luxury tax to have, like, essentially ultra-elevated cheap role players. Number 14, there will be more and more ex-players, former players, doing NBA commentary in the future. As you can see now with the rise, I mean, of Richard Jefferson, obviously all these other players are coming back out like after they retire or even while they're still playing like Pat Beverly and being commentators and people are really enjoying it because they often offer some insight that the people who didn't play in the league can't. Yeah, I mean, I think that I'm, for myself, Andrew, I'm super sick of the journalists analyzing the game. They never played, usually super out of shape. And then, you know, as much as I like to see GP, KG, and, you know, Chris Webber clown around with each other, not the most technical breakdowns. I'm not saying that they didn't know it, but they just couldn't say it that way. Point number 15, you can be a great defender, but you can still be good on offense even though you suck in the ISO. So, Andrew, a lot of people, they like to categorize players like, oh, he's a good offensive player, he's a bad offensive player, he's a good defensive player, he's a bad defensive player. At the NBA level, it starts to get really complicated, right? Because people are like, okay, well, he can't score in the ISO at all, but he can finish a lob, he knows when to cut, and he knows how to hit an open corner three and be in that spot. So, what is good at offense? Well, what a lot of people think about when it comes to defense is like, oh, this person always gets beat because, like, he's not fast enough, but they're actually a really good team defender and maybe they have great help defense. It's not all about just staying in front of your guy. I remember J.R. Smith was a great on-ball defender, but probably you wouldn't say the smartest team defender. Draymond is both. He can defend on-ball and he's a great, like, defensive floor general. Right, so I think a lot of people have to understand that there's on-ball and then there's team defense, but most casual fans, obviously, when you're watching the game, all you understand is that matchup right there. You understand Pat Bev clapping and tugging on somebody's shorts. Point number 16, Andrew. Just like there are three levels of scoring, close, middle, and long range, there are also three layers of offense, the initial defender, the help that comes from help side, and then the relocate and scramble. So, the reason I had to come up with this, Andrew, and I know the three-level score has already been there, but I came up with the three layers because Steph is one of the only players I can think of, Andrew, that got all six. Steph can score from the close, the mid, the long range, Andrew, but he can beat his initial defender. He knows what to do when help side comes, and if he's got to get rid of it, he can relocate or throw up a crazy magic scramble shot that people love. For example, Andrew, I do believe that Kobe Bryant could have done all six, but when it came to the third layer of offense, oftentimes, instead of relocating it, like giving it up and then relocating, he was all about the scramble magic. Right, I mean, I think a lot of players who have the ability, who are taller, more athletic than someone like Steph, they're going to go for the ISO more than trying to relocate. Relocating is definitely something that a kind of like pure shooter or shooting-minded person is going to do. And I think that that actually, my last point, Andrew, is why James Harden is struggling right now, because no longer can he beat people at layer one every single time because he was just so strong and so athletic, but now, Andrew, he doesn't have the mid-range, so he's missing the mid-range on the levels, and then he's missing that third layer of relocation. So Steph got six out of six on my chart, Harden got four out of six, and he's getting old. That's bad news. Point number 17, Andrew, we're talking about deficiencies and people's strengths and pros and cons. It is the job of a coaching staff to figure out how to hide a player's flaws, right? I mean, listen, you have a talent, and the coaching staff and everybody else on the organization is supposed to understand this talent and what they're good and not good at. So, of course, the coaching staff has to figure out a way to hide their flaws so that their flaws don't get exposed constantly. For example, Andrew, the Boston Celtics during this NBA Finals, they are relentlessly trying to hunt Steph. They're trying to get a matchup, an ISO matchup between Jalen and Tatum on Steph in the ISO, right? But the Warriors know this, and Steve Kerr is such a good coach, he knows how they're doing it, and they're basically pre-switching and stuff to prevent it from happening. Andrew, it's sort of like Tom Brady winning all these championships in the NFL. Tom Brady cannot run the ball. But guess what, Andrew, Tampa Bay and the Patriots, they just ran an offense where Tom Brady didn't need to do that. Point number 18, Andrew, tanking due to the draft lottery system is so whack, it needs to be fixed. Oh, man. David, you really hate this, and I think everybody hates to see, like, bad franchises just continue to get number one picks. And it's not just about these small markets and flyover states. I know what some people are going to say, getting number one picks. No, it's nothing against the state and the city. I would say eight out of ten times, these teams that are at the bottom of the NBA rankings, they're poorly run. A poorly run franchise is going to take a great talent's career and hold it back. Yeah. And this is the thing I think that what I like to see about the NBA moving forward is that the organizations have a higher standard now with the Warriors, with the Raptors, maybe the Nets as an organization. But it's like everybody's trying to get better and do better and understand, like, yo, guys, we can't do it the old school way anymore, so we need to update it. Yeah. I mean, I just think that tanking, man, if I got to see more of these great players in cities that nobody wants to go to, man, I don't know, it makes me mad. Andrew, point number 19, overseas and foreign players are probably always going to make between 25 and 35, who knows, maybe even 40% of the NBA. What's going on? Bro, well, there's just so much talent overseas and they're getting way better training and there's a lot of programs and incentives for them to make it this far. I mean, think about it, guys. America is one country, but you have players from potentially all other countries on Earth. And because I think that the NBA right now is such a combination between size and skill, it's not like America can have a monopoly on all the tall people. So, yeah, you're seeing tall people from, like, around the world coming over. Yeah, minus Giannis, I would say most of the most athletic players still come from America, but a lot of the most skilled players like Luka and Jokic are coming from overseas. And I think people have to understand the reason is they are getting schematic play-action coaching much, much, much earlier. And guess what, Andrew? They're also playing against adults much, much, much earlier. So, basically, they're receiving more of the training you would need in a pro system. So, even though they cannot do cool dunks, they never spend any of their energy or, like, energy pie slices learning cool dunks. Point number 20. Andrew, the regular season is too boring. Wow. I mean, I think that this is... David, as a casual, I love the regular season. What are you talking about? I mean, I don't know. I don't want to say that this is only just, like, a casual versus, like, hooper-hooper expert thing. I think everybody thinks that it's too boring. I think, at this point, it is a money equation for everybody. But, man, there's too many games. There's a lot of games, and it's not just injuries. I do think injury is playing into it. I think players are playing faster, jumping higher, doing different angles with their knees and ankles more, you know, so increasing injury. So I do think that lowering the games could be better. And also, maybe if you lower the games, people play harder per game. Because 82 games plus the playoffs... And plus, Andrew, you were saying earlier, be honest, you think the All-Star game is whack. Yeah, the All-Star game is whack. But, guys, that's just something. I don't know how to change that other than, I guess, giving more payment incentives. Let me tell you this. The dunk contest and the three-point contest are snooze fests in 2022. No, seriously, you got to build better incentives for the dunk contest and three-point contest and the All-Star game. I get it. All these players are super rich. They don't need to risk injury for an All-Star game, for an exhibition game. That doesn't matter. Okay, I had one last point, bonus point, 21 hidden point, is that nowadays in the NBA, every player is so skilled and good at threes that actually almost every role player one time a season can go off for, like, 30 points. Yeah, you always see a fire stat line. Dude, dude, these guys have a crazy game, but it doesn't mean that they're going to do that all the time because basically every player can shoot so many threes nowadays and the way the game is played, it flows very fast that one game, you're going to get hot. I mean, these are guys who are used to filling it up, you know, during college and throughout their entire high school career. There's no more bums in the NBA. There's no more like, you know, I'm not trying to diss John Crotty, but Peyton Pritchard would work John Crotty one-on-one. Peyton Pritchard, I'm not surprised if he drops, like, 25 one game next year, or if not 30, maybe. You can still hit the step back all day. I mean, long story short, for me, I think I have two major takeaways. One, I think the reason that a lot of people do not understand why, like, certain people don't play or they can't stick in the league, defensive rotations. You have to be able to hit your rotations because those offenses are becoming so, like, crazy and free-flowing. You have to be able to hit your defensive rotations in the given scheme that your coach is telling you to run. Number two, Andrew, I think that at the end of the day, the casual overrates the layer one interaction. You know, Dame Lillard, to me, Andrew, and even Trey Young, arguably, is better at a layer one interaction than Steph is. But Steph's layer two, which is when the help side comes, and layer three, when the broken play and there's a scramble, is better than Dame and Trey. But on a just pure ISO maestro, I might give it to Dame and Trey over Steph. But, like we said, guys, all three levels matter. All three layers matter. Okay, to wrap it up, guys, let us know in the comments down below what you thought of the list. Was this new to you? What did you learn? What did you already know? Maybe you knew everything that we were talking about. Maybe you agree. Maybe you disagree. Maybe you'd like to add on. Yeah, let us know in the comments down below. At the end of the day, listen, if you made it this far and you still want to enjoy the game on a casual level, that's fine. But just know, if you leave a bunch of comments, you will get into a bunch of debates on Instagram. So, really, there's nothing wrong with being a casual fan because sometimes if you look too much into it, I don't know, it can make the game more complicated. Sometimes people just want to think about things simply. I love it. I would love if I was a 5 out of 5. I would give myself like a 3.5 out of 5 understanding right now. But, you know, some people's understanding is like a 1. But they don't know they're at 1. All right, everybody, thank you so much for watching our list of 20 things that the casual fans do not know about the NBA. Hit that like button, click subscribe, and let us know in the comments below what you think again. All right, thank you, everybody. Until next time, we out. Peace!