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The NBA is particularly embarrassing. The players don't even try to hide their feet shuffling and routinely take five-step layups (I remember when "the Jordan layup" was a jibe for the (illegal) three-step layup). The whole culture around the NBA is bling, showboating, loud, celebrity-driven. There is no honor. Iso plays are considered the mark of a great player, instead of teamwork and making the extra pass.
That said, the NBA is still about winning. The game has adjusted massively over the last twenty years with the analytics revolution. Height matters but not to the same extent. Big men are only valuable if they can also hit a three. Mr. Process himself is not a bad three point shot, and Wemby at 7-4 shoots threes like he is Reggie Miller.
Basketball as a sport is great. Pickup games can be fun even with a range of talent. It doesn't take an entire field like soccer or football. Half-court games mean 20 players can simultaneously play on a single court.
Winning a Championship, and nothing else matters. Which leads to a bad regular season product, because the regular season isn't set up to really reward winning in the regular season with better odds to win the championship.
I think it's just obvious that it's easier to shoot 3s when you're taller. There's no other way to make sense of Joel Embiid being a good three point shooter.
It's probably the best sport that can be played at any number of people. 1 on 1, 2 on 2, 3 on 3 all work. Though to be honest, as a kid we came up with indoor 1v1 baseball rules. It's just a matter of creativity and determination.
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IMO when rules change to allow what everyone over 30 knows as a travel then every player has to adopt to those rules. If you limited your moves to what use to legal then your just not going to be as good of player as guys playing within the full new rule set. Honestly a bit like MLB in the steroid era. They were tacitly legal so if you weren’t on steroids you weren’t going to be a good player or at a minimum worse than you would be.
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It's called a gather step, bruh. You uncs who grew up watching plumbers and electricians in the NBA wouldn't understand.
Once in a while in spaces like /r/nba there will be a thread mass-complaining about the state of carries and travels in the NBA, not realizing that since fans like them will provide the NBA with eyeballs and money no matter what, the NBA has little incentive to improve on that front.
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