How do NBA players feel about the issues that impact their sport and their livelihoods? We asked them — again.
The Athletic’s annual anonymous player poll is back, and it’s more comprehensive than ever. Our writers fanned out and spoke with 158 players. That’s over one-third of the league, with players from all 30 teams represented.
From early March through mid-April, we asked their opinions about the league’s best and worst organizations, the most underrated players, the impact of the league’s gambling partnerships, the 3-point revolution — and much more.
We’ve granted anonymity to give the players the freedom to answer honestly, without fear of reprisals from opponents, teammates or fans. Some players declined to answer certain questions, and as you’ll see from the results below, we’re providing full transparency on the number of respondents to each topic.
(Editor’s note: In some cases, combined percentages of all answers to a question will not add up to 100 percent, because individual percentages have been rounded up or down to the nearest tenth of a percentage point.)
It’s no surprise that SGA was the clear winner here.
As we learned last season, when Denver’s Nikola Jokić barely edged Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in our poll (41.8 percent to 36.9 percent) but was the runaway winner in the official MVP vote (79 first-place votes to 15), there appears to be a gap between how players and media members see this debate.
While Jokić was even better this time around, becoming just the third player to average a triple-double for an entire season and doing it spectacularly for the 50-win Nuggets, Gilgeous-Alexander’s massive (two-way) role on the 68-win Thunder was enough to give him the sizable edge here in the players’ eyes. In all likelihood, Gilgeous-Alexander (league-leading 32.6 points per game, along with 6.4 assists, five rebounds, 1.7 steals and one block per game) will win his first MVP. And the majority of players polled, quite clearly, would agree with that outcome.
SGA voters
“You’ve got to go with Shai. It’s the No. 1 team in the West, (and) the way he’s been doing it (has been impressive). He’s taking those young guys to another level.”
“Consistency. He also stands out on a team, which is so great. That’s why he would be the MVP for me this year.”
“He’s efficient. His team plays much better with him on the court. He’s the culture — the culture is kind of based on him — and they’re the best in the league.”
“I love Jokić, but I just feel like Shai deserves it. I thought Shai deserved it last year. Both of them deserve it. I think the benefit of the doubt has to go to Shai. It’s got to.”
“I’ll give it to Shai just because last year, and the past few years, it has been Jokić. But they’re both playing at an incredible level right now. Just passing it along to the next generation, and Shai is the next generation.”
“MVP is the most valuable player on the team, right? Best team, best player.”
Jokić voters
“(It’s) the same thing that’s been the case for the last three MVPs (that Jokić has won). I think he impacts his team to where he fundamentally changes the way they play (and) impacts the game the way he does without another All-Star. I think it’s incredible. The on/offs speak for themselves.” (The Nuggets’ net rating is 19.8 points per 100 possessions higher with Jokić on the floor, versus 11.5 points higher for the Thunder with Gilgeous-Alexander.)
“He’s had better numbers than the last three times he’s won MVP. And if you take him off the floor, his team is not nearly (the same). He just impacts the game at every level — passing, rebounding. People say he’s bad on defense. He’s not bad on defense when he tries. It’s close. Shai’s obviously great. He manipulates the game in the best way in terms of drawing fouls (second in the league among qualified players at 8.8 free-throw attempts per game), scoring, and he’s also on the best team. I think it’s very close.”
“If you look at the stats blindly and you compare the players, I think it would give Jokić the nod no matter what. I’ve never seen anybody make players on his team better when he’s on the floor more than him.”
“He’s averaging a 30-point triple-double. It’s stupid. There’s no way you don’t give it to him.”
“He’s having better numbers than he did (last) year. So, yeah, I’m going with him. I mean, Shai has played at an all-time high level, and (the Thunder) being No. 1 in the West, (but) Jokić’s numbers are ridiculous. He might be going down as one of the best bigs to ever play.”
“Best player in the league.”
The majority of the players we polled said they expect the Celtics to repeat as champs. After all, Boston stormed through last year’s playoffs, returned all of its key players and wound up winning 61 regular-season games this year, all while burying opponents with an avalanche of 3-pointers.
What’s surprising, perhaps, is how overwhelming Boston’s edge is.
The Thunder produced one of the most dominant regular seasons in recent history, winning 68 games with the MVP front-runner, a top offense and the best defense by a wide margin.
Also interesting: The Cavaliers compiled the East’s best record this season but trailed the Celtics in our polling by a significant margin.
You may be asking why so many players are optimistic about Denver’s chances after the Nuggets fired head coach Michael Malone with less than a week remaining in the regular season. Great question! Because we polled players from March 5 through April 9, the overwhelming majority of players’ responses occurred before Malone was fired.
Voters who chose the Celtics
“Their team chemistry is great. They have a lot of superstars on that team, and they consistently know their roles, and they kind of put their egos aside and just win games.”
“I personally think Boston will pull it out because they’ve been there and they’re more experienced. But I think Cleveland is going to give them a run for their money, for sure. … They look really good.”
Voter who picked the Thunder
“They go 10 men deep. They have a very, very deep roster. They play the right way, and it’s going to be tough to cover all those guys in the playoffs, and they all play defense. … They’re a very tough team. They’ve got a lot of guys who are good at a lot of different things. It’s going to be tough to match up with them.”
Voter who selected the Cavaliers
“Just the way they move the ball, the way they’ve got good players. The whole team is good and aggressive and confident, and every player on their team is shooting the ball at a high level. Pair that with two good guards and a good frontcourt, and it’s a scary team.”
Voter who chose the Warriors
“The way that they’re playing with Jimmy (Butler), it’s a new variable into the game play — and Jimmy’s a good variable. Not only that, Steph (Curry) and those guys have been battle-tested before.”
To quote LeBron James — someone who knows a thing or two about this topic — there is indeed a “weird energy” when it comes to the discussion about which young player will be the next face of the league.
Almost everyone seems to agree that San Antonio’s Victor Wembanyama is the chosen one, but the health scare that ended his season in mid-February seemed to re-spark the discussion about who else might be in the running. Yet as King James discussed with such candor in late February, not long after Minnesota’s Anthony Edwards publicly declared that he has no interest in the honor, this crown is heavier than ever these days.
LeBron on Anthony Edwards’ statement at All-Star that he isn’t striving to become the face of the NBA: “Channing Frye said it … ‘Why do you want to be the face of the league when all the people that cover our game and talk about our game on a day-to-day basis s— on everybody?’” pic.twitter.com/dNHHrzWRiT
— Dave McMenamin (@mcten) February 28, 2025
James’ view is not an isolated one. And with so many players complaining about the negative tone of the conversation that surrounds the game — specifically from high-profile former players who are featured prominently on large television networks — it will be very interesting to see which players truly want this honor (and burden) in the years to come.
“Everybody’s running away from the madness, and I can understand that,” one player said. “Time will tell. I wouldn’t pick anybody right now, because everybody is running away from it.”
Thirty-three players received at least one vote, which is the same number of players who received one vote last year.
This year, Tyrese Haliburton, the Indiana Pacers’ star point guard, received 14.4 percent of the vote after he garnered 3.7 percent last year. Haliburton led the Pacers last season to the East finals, averaged 8.2 assists per game during those playoffs while making 49 percent of his shot attempts and 38 percent of his 3-point tries. Perhaps our respondents think Haliburton got too much credit for that playoff run after Indiana’s first-round opponent last year was missing Giannis Antetokounmpo because of an injury and after Indiana’s second-round opponent, New York, dealt with a bunch of injuries.
Minnesota’s Rudy Gobert and Atlanta’s Trae Young finished first and third, respectively, last year when players were asked to name the league’s most overrated player. They remain top of mind for players. Gobert has won the NBA Defensive Player of the Year award four times, including last year. But there are still skeptics about what he brings.
“I don’t (understand) the Defensive Player of the Year stuff when you don’t guard the people who have the ball most of the time, the ones who are making most of the decisions,” a player who chose Gobert for most overrated said. “I just don’t see it, nor does he strike any fear in me in my heart as a defender.”
This question yielded a wide variety of answers — 75 players received at least one vote — but we’re going to focus on the top four (3 percent and up) for the sake of this discussion.
The Celtics’ Derrick White, who tied Oklahoma City’s Jalen Williams for the “Underrated” win last year, is the only player in the 2024 top four to maintain that sort of standing here. Given that his summer included an NBA title and an Olympic gold medal with Team USA, it makes sense that he’s considered less underrated than before (ditto for Williams, who was an All-Star for the first time this season and dropped to seventh).
One can expect a similar “Underrated” arc for Cade Cunningham, the Detroit Pistons star whose time in relative obscurity is already a thing of the past. He also earned his first All-Star berth this season, and his role as the driving force behind the Pistons’ turnaround has brought with it a far brighter spotlight. An All-NBA selection is likely the next honor to come his way.
This trend is likely to continue with the Lakers’ Austin Reaves and the Clippers’ Norman Powell, as they have both proved to be potent and reliable pieces on upper-echelon teams. It wasn’t long ago that Reaves was at the center of a great Lakers debate, with some of the team’s key stakeholders believing they wouldn’t be able to truly upgrade the roster without giving him up (Nico Harrison proved otherwise in the Luka Dončić deal). Powell, meanwhile, has taken full advantage of Paul George’s exit to Philadelphia last summer and asserted himself as an All-Star-caliber player.
It makes perfect sense that the Warriors would win this.
Even if they didn’t have a wonderful reputation around the league among players — and they do — there’s an inevitable positivity that comes with any organization that recently had a dynastic run. Yet as one player said of his time there, it goes deeper than that.
“They were first-class,” the player said. “(Warriors coach) Steve (Kerr) came from San Antonio. He knew a lot of the principles. They do a really good job of taking care of the players and the families.”
The third-place Celtics have the results on their side, too, what with last year’s title and an eight-year stretch in which they’ve reached the conference finals six times (and the NBA Finals twice). From there, though, it’s fascinating to see which teams that haven’t reached the NBA’s mountaintop in this era still inspire great respect.
The Thunder, who were the runaway winners of our front-office rankings survey in December, are an impressive second-place finisher. Given the lack of a title and that they play in one of the league’s smallest markets, that’s no small feat. Thunder owner Clay Bennett does the simple things that far too many of his contemporaries seem to struggle with: He empowers the basketball people (chief among them executive vice president and general manager Sam Presti) while keeping a very low profile along the way.
“They’ve drafted incredibly,” one player said of the Thunder. “They let their players play with personality. I’ve talked with a lot of vets who have played for Oklahoma City, and they all have glowing reviews for how they treat vets, too.”
Clippers owner Steve Ballmer is far more visible and involved, but he is also widely known to be a dream boss for executives, coaches and players alike. Not only does he cut massive checks when it comes to infrastructure, staffing and resources, but also his passion is a driving force that seems to resonate with his people and inspire good culture. Their fourth-place finish is a reflection of those truths.
“They take care of everything for players,” one player said. “Everything is just top priority for them.”
Our polling indicates how closely players equate persistent losing to the quality of an organization — and, sometimes, how long it takes for perceptions to change.
The Charlotte Hornets and New Orleans Pelicans are the only teams never to have reached a conference finals. (It gets a bit complicated here. The original Charlotte Hornets, who joined the NBA in 1988-89 as an expansion team, moved to New Orleans before the 2002-03 season and later became known as the Pelicans. Charlotte was awarded a new expansion team that started play during the 2004-05 season; then known as the Bobcats, that franchise adopted the Hornets name beginning with the 2014-15 season. Either way, none of those teams, no matter what their name was, ever advanced beyond the conference semifinals.)
The Washington Wizards have not reached the conference finals since the 1978-79 season, when they were known as the Washington Bullets and were the defending NBA champions.
Washington finished this season with the league’s second-worst record. Charlotte compiled the league’s third-worst record. That recent futility, along with both franchises’ conference finals droughts, must have been on players’ minds.
It’s worth noting that these teams’ owners have felt in recent years that something was amiss. In 2023, the Wizards hired a new president of Monumental Basketball, Michael Winger, away from the Clippers, and a new general manager, Will Dawkins, away from the Thunder. Last year, the Hornets hired Jeff Peterson as their new president of basketball operations. Last week, the Pelicans fired executive vice president of basketball operations David Griffin, and the Kings fired general manager Monte McNair and replaced him with Scott Perry.
Some players declined to answer this question because they said they didn’t have enough reliable information to make an informed judgment. As one respondent said, “You don’t really know. You could be a losing program but still be a great organization.”
Another said: “I feel like until you’re there and you go through it, you don’t really know what’s considered a bad organization.”
Consider this Mark Daigneault’s consolation prize. While the Thunder coach is not projected to win the league’s Coach of the Year award, the players made it clear his reputation is on the rise.
“He’s getting them all to buy in to have fun and play together,” one player said of Daigneault, who tied for seventh place in last year’s poll and has led the Thunder to the West’s top seed two years in a row. “They enjoy the game. They have fun with each other. They play for each other. It’s like a group effort, and I think it starts with the coach on down when you see something like that.”
The Heat took a major step backward as a team this season, with Butler’s messy exit from Miami dominating the headlines. But Erik Spoelstra, who won last year’s poll by a small margin over Spurs legend Gregg Popovich and won Olympic gold with Team USA as an assistant coach under Kerr in Paris, still had a strong second-place showing.
“They’re consistently good,” one player said of Spoelstra’s Heat. “They have a culture over there. No matter who’s on their team, he finds ways to win.”
Atkinson, who may well win the COY award, left his post as a Warriors assistant last summer and led the Cavs to an Eastern Conference-best 64-18 mark that was a 16-game improvement from the season prior. The players noticed, giving him a third-place finish that was a significant improvement from his only other showing in the poll (ninth in 2019, when he was head coach of the Brooklyn Nets).
There was no shortage of love for Joe Mazzulla, either, as the third-year Celtics coach finished fourth in the voting.
“There are little things he takes advantage of,” one player said of Mazzulla. “It seems like he thinks about the game very strategically. He takes advantage of every single, tiny, little thing that he can.”
For much of the 2024-25 season, no team performed worse than the Wizards, who compiled a 6-41 record through the end of January, with an inordinate share of blowout losses, before they ran off three consecutive victories in early February. Washington still finished its season with the league’s second-worst record, 18-64, and with a net rating of minus-12.2, one of the worst net ratings in the last several decades.
But context matters here. Washington started a full rebuild before the 2023-24 season, and this season, team officials prioritized being in the running for the best possible draft lottery odds. Brian Keefe played rookies Bub Carrington, Kyshawn George and Alex Sarr and second-year wing Bilal Coulibaly significant minutes, and because of their inexperience, they made a lot of mistakes, especially early. It would be tough for any coach to have won games with that roster and when given the directive to play the team’s youngest players extensively. Washington staged a small turnaround after the trade deadline, going 6-4 over a 10-game stretch, thanks in part to the arrivals of veterans Khris Middleton and Marcus Smart and the growth of the rookies.
As one player said: “Coaches can be held handicap by health and the front office. Nick Nurse is a good coach, but he doesn’t have the players right now.”
Mike Budenholzer finished second to Keefe this year in our polling after Budenholzer’s Phoenix Suns ended their season 36-46, resulting in Budenholzer’s firing.
It’s still worth noting that a majority of the players we polled declined to answer this question. As one of them said: “I’m not answering because I think the coaches are really good now. You could pick one of the bottom-feeders, like (redacted coach from a bad team), but I’ve had (him as a coach), and he’s good and it’s not his fault.”
In the interest of full transparency, we seriously pondered whether to include this question again because the result was so predictable. Renowned tough guy James Johnson, whose proficiency as a mixed martial artist is well known around the league, won by a landslide for the fourth time.
Remarkably, a 38-year-old who barely plays (84 combined minutes in the past two seasons for Indiana) continues to strike so much fear in his counterparts. And truth be told, his job security with the Pacers is directly tied to his ability to play the part of enforcer whenever that skill set might be needed.
While Johnson’s tough guy reign is fascinating, there’s another revelation worth highlighting this year: The Pistons’ Isaiah Stewart — “Beef Stew,” as they call him — has surpassed Houston Rockets big man Steven Adams as the second-most intimidating player in the Association. This distinction is a longtime coming for Stewart, who infamously chased LeBron James all over the floor on Nov. 21, 2021, and even received a vote based entirely on that day.
“Big dog in Detroit who went crazy on LeBron,” as one player described him.
Stewart has had no shortage of dust-ups since then. Earlier this season, on Nov. 29, he had a verbal back-and-forth with Johnson (who received a technical foul from the bench) before getting ejected for a Flagrant 2 shove of Thomas Bryant later in the game. A few months later, on March 30, Stewart was at the center of the Pistons-Wolves fight in Minnesota that resulted in seven ejections (including him).
A fight breaks out in Minnesota between the Timberwolves and Pistons:
— The Athletic NBA (@TheAthleticNBA) March 31, 2025
Adams, who looks like a stunt double for Jason Momoa, had always finished significantly ahead of everyone but Johnson in the previous three polls (last year, Adams had 16.8 percent of the votes, and Stewart was third with 6.4 percent). Results aside, the leaguewide respect for his toughness remains.
“He is stronger than you could ever possibly believe,” one player said of Adams. “You can deal with crazy when it comes to skirmishes and stuff, but he has this calm demeanor about him that he doesn’t say much or do much. But he just would overpower you and squish you with his thumb. You kind of have to worry about the quiet ones. Those are ones that you have to keep your eye out for.”
One of the biggest criticisms about the NBA game these days is the lack of variety in the way teams play. The 3-point shot sits at the heart of that debate.
Emphasizing 3s and layups is not a new trend, but the trend continues to accelerate. Nine teams in NBA history have attempted at least 3,400 treys in a single season — and four of those teams did so this season: the Celtics, Warriors, Bulls and Cavaliers.
The midrange shot and post-up play are increasingly endangered skill sets.
A plurality of players (38.3 percent) we spoke with responded that analytics are bad for the game. Another 33.1 percent said analytics’ impact is somewhere in the middle, depending on how they’re used.
Players who say analytics have been bad for the game
“The game is art. It’s like telling a painter you have to include the numbers with your imagination. It hurts your creativity. This is art. It’s painting on a canvas. You might tell somebody the 3-point shot and the layup is the best shot in the game, but sometimes the best shot in the game is the in-between shot. In my opinion, it’s not white or black. I think creativity is about gray areas. That’s what creativity is.”
“It’s taken the art out of the game. It’s robotic. Fans don’t want to watch that.”
“Now it’s doing more harm than good. Now it’s determining too much. Nobody is watching the game anymore. They are just looking at stats and determining if a player is good or not.’’
“Bad because it’s taking away parts of people’s games. Some of us really (were) middle guys (in college), and you get here and they tell you not to shoot those. So now you’ve got to change your whole game up.”
“Terrible. Analytics make people fit into a box and play a certain way. It’s why we shoot so many (darn) 3s.”
Players who say analytics’ impact is mixed
“There’s a middle ground. I think some of it (is) good, but I think it’s gone too far now. And it takes away from the feel of the game.”
“To a certain extent, they definitely can show you things that you probably haven’t seen before. But I think to a certain extent as well, you’ve got to have an understanding of the flow of the game and just the way basketball’s played. I think sometimes it kind of messes up the game. … I feel like when you’re just playing the right way, it all figures itself out.”
Players who say analytics have had a positive impact
“(It) helps you figure out where a player is good and not good. Helps you push a player to where he is weak. It’s a player’s job to get better or not get better.”
“I think it only enhances the guys. I think it’s just figuring out more efficient ways to score the basketball. At the end of the day, nobody complains about guys scoring too much in this league.”
When Adam Silver floated the idea of 10-minute quarters in the NBA during an interview with Dan Patrick on Jan. 29, it felt very much like a trial balloon topic. It felt like the kind of thing a commissioner might say, in part, to gauge the reaction among key stakeholders and the public. With the NBA on the verge of announcing its involvement in a new European pro league, and with his league being the only one that plays 12-minute quarters, Silver explained why he was curious about the prospect of shortening his game.
“As we get more involved in global basketball, the NBA is the only league that plays 48 minutes, and I am a fan of four, 10-minute quarters,” he said. “I’m not sure that many others are. I mean, putting aside what it means (with NBA) records, and things like that, I think that a two-hour format for a game is more consistent with modern television habits. People in arenas aren’t asking us to shorten the game, but I think as a television program, being two hours — Olympic basketball is two hours, college basketball, of course, is 40 (minutes). … But it’s such a dramatic change to the game. I think something like that would have to be talked more about over time.”
If the vast majority of players have their way, though, this conversation will be over before it has even officially begun.
The ‘no’ crowd
“No. I’m a purist. It would hurt too many (players). A lot of the game is about records. A lot of the conversation about the game, a lot of the content the NBA provides, is about records. That would just shoot all of that in the foot.”
“I think it’s one of the worst ideas ever. It’s like something the NFL would do. We are not the NFL.”
“One of the best parts about our game is that you never feel like you’re out of it. You can come back from 20 down because you have time to do it. That would cut down the amount of comebacks out there.”
“The league’s been like this for so long. Why change it now?”
“F— no.”
“No. I feel like there are too many talented guys in the NBA. The extra two minutes a quarter helps make the rotations a little bit longer.”
“Nah. It’s part of the game. Twelve minutes is what it’s always been. That’s the beauty, especially when you’ve got a game where you want to see a lot of points. Those four extra minutes, two extra minutes, eight extra minutes is always going to help.”
“I only get about five minutes now! We need 14-minute quarters.”
“No. No, no, no, no! I like that he’s open-minded about stuff, but that goes with the integrity of the game. That’s like if the NFL was talking about reducing quarters to 12 minutes. What are we talking about here?”
“Hell no. It would dramatically change roster building, because you play your starters 32, 36 minutes a game, and then your bench becomes guys who are playing four to 10 minutes a game. The job becomes a lot different, and the roster build becomes different. You’re not gonna spend any money on backups. It’s gonna be all in on five guys, and then you’ll have a couple minimums to fill out the roster. … It’s gonna destroy the middle class.”
“I think it’s stupid as f—. It f—s anyone who doesn’t start the game. He needs to fix the All-Star Game.”
The ‘yes’ crowd
“I’d be for that. I think it would allow us to play a better brand of basketball for longer and, along with some other tweaks, would allow our game to look more appealing to the eye of the casual viewer.”
“Less stress on my body, man, and maybe it prolongs my career.”
“I like it because it makes the games shorter, keeps fans engaged.”
“If he wants to make the game shorter, I’m not opposed to it. I don’t mind it. Taking eight minutes off a game isn’t that big of a deal for me.”
“I think the game will be more entertaining, less dead time. You don’t feel like you are milking the clock.”
During the 2023-24 season, league executives received feedback that offensive players were having too many advantages in the way the game was being officiated. The league responded midseason, hoping to bring more balance and provide less of an advantage to offensive players.
“I think Steve Kerr said offensive players were using themselves as projectiles or hunting for fouls, however you want to call it. So, that was a point of emphasis on behalf of the league,” Silver said late that season. “So yes, there was a bit of an adjustment made along the way. But again, the context is two fouls per team per game, and the end result, most importantly, we think is a better game.”
Now, over one full season later, the majority of players we polled said the game remains too slanted toward offense.
“It’s trending toward being balanced, but it’s not there yet,” one player said.
Players who said the game is too slanted toward offense
“It’s still overwhelmingly biased to the offensive guys. It’s tough. Nobody wants to see their favorite player getting locked up each and every game. The offense is always going to have that advantage.”
“Way too much to the offense. It’s all to the extreme. You can bump me, and I can’t bump you. That’s what sells tickets. No one wants to come watch Shai go for eight points. I understand it.”
“When was that (that they allowed more physicality)? When did they do that? It’s too much in the favor of the offense. I think it’s soft. This is anonymous, right? I think the league is soft.”
Players who said the game is balanced
“I think it’s fine. I like that there is more physicality allowed. The difficult part is always the foul-baiting with (some players). It’s the same thing with the analytics; you’re always looking for an advantage. There’s a constant fight to get around the rules and get an advantage. That’s the hardest part to get under control.”
“I’d say it’s pretty fair. I think people have just found ways to manipulate the defense. I think it’s all just gamesmanship, just figuring out ways to get calls.”
“I’m a foul baiter myself, but I think it’s in a good spot.”
Players who said the officiating is inconsistent
“I think it’s not even titled toward offense, it’s toward who you’re playing against. I think the physicality only applies to certain players. If you’re not known, OK, you can get hit. But if you’re (going against) Steph or LeBron, you can’t get that physical.”
“Certain players get certain calls. That’s understandable. Kind of the way it works. Steph Curry, LeBron James, Luka Dončić, they are going to get calls.”
“It’s trending in the right direction. They have the hardest job in the world. Refereeing is player-biased, and I really believe that. I think they need to not see faces and names and just make the call.”
It has been almost seven years since the Supreme Court opened the door to legalized sports betting across the country, and the NBA now finds itself deep into this gambling world that comes with massive (financial) perks and problems.
The league partnered with FanDuel and DraftKings as its betting partners in 2021, and several teams have done deals with casinos as well. (The Athletic has a partnership with BetMGM.) With people able to place bets at games or on their phones, and the focus shifting from fandom to financial for so many observers, the athlete experience during games and online has often become toxic along the way. The controversy has extended beyond the court, too.
Last year, then-Toronto Raptors forward Jontay Porter was banned from the league for what the NBA called a “cardinal sin” of betting on games and sharing inside info. Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier has been under federal investigation as well, though the league has cleared him of any wrongdoing.
The player response to this question was so spirited and so diverse that we decided to share all of that perspective in an entirely different piece. You can find it here.
The possibility of shortening the NBA regular season has been mentioned as a way to limit the number of injuries and to make games more meaningful. But the vast majority of players are adamantly opposed to shortening the season if it would also mean cutting their salaries by a corresponding percentage.
These comments sum up players’ arguments:
“I still gotta play 60-something games and get paid less? Hell no.”
“No way. Let’s keep it 82 games. If you’re not ready for it, that’s on you. You have to prepare your body. The league is 82 games, plus playoffs. That’s what separates us.”
“If you take the 82 away, people come in the league and don’t really get to experience it. They call it a big-boy league for a reason. So, trying to shorten the games, or trying to shorten the time of the game, that defeats the whole purpose of working your whole life to make it here.”
“I wish we played 10 less games, but I’m trying to make as much (money) as I can. I can’t even lie to you.”
“Eighty-two games is good. I feel like if we shorten it, it makes it harder on guys that’s trying to get 10 days and bigger opportunities, or two-way guys to get their chance. With the season shorter, it helps more injury-prone type guys. But also, it could derail their season that quick, too, if a couple of injuries happen and they’re out. It’s harder to make up games with the season shorter. So I’m not a fan of it.”
“I don’t think it’s a matter of shortening the season. It’s a matter of the rest time in between. If you said, ‘We’re just going to eliminate all back-to-backs and make the season longer,’ I think that’s something to consider. When people talk about shortening the season, it’s just a reaction to giving people more rest. But when you talk about making the season longer, it’s tough because of football and TV contracts and all that. That’s what it comes down to.”
(Illustration: Will Tullos / The Athletic; top photos: Dylan Buell, Kyle Grillot, Zach Beeker / Getty Images)
