NBA BASKETBALL
The Next Face(s) of the NBA
Who’s next?
I have always been a fan of parity in sports. Maybe it harkens back to being solely a fan of small market teams. I have been an avid Memphis Grizzlies and Tennessee Titans fan since their inceptions, so I tend to relate to underdog stories. The first ever NBA Finals series I remember paying attention to was the Iverson-led Philadelphia 76ers vs the 3-peat Lakers in the early 2000s. I wanted AI and the hodgepodge of scrappy 76ers to overtake the reigning champs. Philadelphia came up short in the series losing 4–1 to the Lakers but this shaped some of the ways I view sports today. I have always wanted a mix of guys getting their opportunities to reach the podium and hoist the trophy.
As the trio of LeBron, KD, and Steph enter the twilight of their careers there has been an inordinate amount of discourse discussing who will take their respective places atop Basketball’s current Mt. Rushmore. I mentioned the current top 3 guys of this era, but LeBron has inarguably been the single driving force behind NBA viewership for years. A majority of the talk around new faces of the league revolves around who will be the next singular superstar replacing King James on the throne as many would refer to the current age of basketball as the “LeBron” era. Sometimes, I cringe when I hear the “next face of the league” talk simply because of one question. Why does there have to be one face?
As we transition into an age where we have several new and existing superstars in the conversation of being the singular face of the league (Jokic, Luka, Embiid, Giannis, SGA, Tatum, Ja, Anthony Edwards, to name a few), I think it would be best for the league to market all of these guys as faces of this new NBA generation. However, I think the task of putting multiple guys on this stage poses a challenge for the NBA.
In the social media era, it has become increasingly clear that millennials and Gen Zers alike believe less is more in popular culture when considering the consumption of content. People won’t say that or agree but actions speak louder than words. Just observe people’s cyber behaviors. People favor short, aggregated, click-bait material more than the alternative long-form, nuanced-filled content. A lot of kids don’t watch full games, just the highlights. We don’t always see the whole podcast episode, but we definitely saw the viral snippet on our social media timeline. Content is packaged and delivered in a way that is the most bite-sized, most impactful, and most efficient nowadays. That is one of the ways you get the most engagement online. Content creators have to cater to the shortened attention span of audiences. It’s the brutally honest truth of where we are in society.
When we merge sports into this conversation of content consumption and viewership it seems as if “big media” wants to make these things easy to debate and talk about. That’s why a lot of NFL discourse on big television networks is focused on the quarterback position. Is it easier to argue about “which QB has the most to prove” or “which 3rd down defensive package is best constructed to stop the opposition?” Fan engagement drives ratings and fans usually gravitate to the most surface-level, novice topics when discussing sports. The average fan doesn’t care for analytics, deep analysis, and extra context when discussing sports.
To tie all this together, I think that merely having the singular face of the league conversation shows that it’s easier to follow one or two guys than it is to follow several guys through their career archs. It’s all about making sports and sports discourse more consumable and digestible to viewers. Fans don’t want several guys on the pedestal; they want that one singular player garnering all the attention and the spotlight. Who wants to apply all of this extra bandwidth (fan-width) to get to know all these new ascending talents and personalities? People simply do not want to nor have the time to talk about all of them. It’s just way easier to debate about the one or two guys that battle to sit atop the throne rather than the other six or seven other talents that deserve that right to be in the conversation, as well.
There needs to be a balance of power in the NBA superstar conversation. I don’t feel like the league should be looking for one single guy to sit atop the pedestal. NBA marketing professionals should try to rebrand the product in a way that is more inclusive of other worthy superstars getting their just due. I humbly believe there are ample benefits that come with engaging fans in different markets across the world by thrusting several superstars into the spotlight concurrently but, it will be a challenge to do so. I think the league can battle through these challenges in an effort to bring forth an overall better product for us all to get excited about.
