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I used to watch both pretty religiously. Now, the NBA in general is becoming more and more of a borefest everyday. The previous NBA season was one of the most uninteresting and predictable seasons in all the major leagues I've ever seen. It was a known fact the day Kevin Durant signed with Golden State that a 3rd straight Cavs/Warriors finals was coming and surprise surprise what did we get? If that wasn't bad enough, the Playoffs were just as pointless. Both teams dominated their way to the Finals with next to no challenges. The other teams involved not only had no shot, they couldn't even muster up a decent showing of their own, almost as if they knew they had no shot and just said "f--- it, we want an early vacation". It got so bad that the talking heads at the big sports media giants decided to turn every topic of the day into Jordan vs LeBron or Warriors vs 90's Bulls.
Contrast that to the run the Nashville Predators made, and the two game 7's Pittsburgh survived in order to win their conference and it's really no wonder that even Charles Barkley was publicly stating he'd rather watch the NHL.
Not nearly as much as I used to. The NBA is shooting itself in the foot. It is the only sport where you know with 95% certainty which 4 teams will be in the Conference Finals before the first tip of the year. Absolutely zero parity.
I've noticed over time that every single avid (not casual) hockey fan I know HATES basketball. I don't know why. But there always seems to be a correlation. I for one am a college basketball guy first and foremost, but I will watch some of the NHL playoffs. I watch zero NBA. I don't know how anybody could look at an NBA playoff game side-by-side with an NHL playoff game and not find the hockey far more engrossing, especially an overtime/close game.
Meh. My Blazers made the playoffs, got swept this year. They're our only home town team in Portland, so you'd think basketball would by default be my favorite sport. But you'd be wrong. It's actually my least favorite. I've been a Blazers fan for 30 years and they really haven't ever brought me much joy. I went to Game 1 of this playoff series, and yeah I do follow them, I check every score, but I don't pay too much attention. I watch maybe 8 games per year anymore, so like 1 in 10 games, sometimes with my dad, maybe I watch parts of another 5 games or something at most.
I just got into hockey this year and I literally think hockey is already my favorite sport. I partially regret never having followed hockey closely before (I watched Stanley Cup playoffs, because they were on TV, and I did enjoy the game but never had a team), but I also am glad for it because I got into the Golden Knights this year and my GF and I will be moving to Vegas in a few years. I also have two aunts and two uncles there, so I would have ended up either awkwardly having two hockey teams or having to ditch my existing team for the Knights possibly. This way, I got kind of lucky, I just hopped aboard with the very first Golden Knights game, dedicated myself to the team and the sport, got the NHL package so I could watch every game, bought a ton of merchandise (easily over $1,000 now), and now hockey is probably my favorite sport.
What is difficult for me is to unwind the sport from my team. In other words, at various times I've always said football is my favorite sport overall because it's exciting, it's hard-hitting, it's fun, but when my 49ers have stunk for quite a few of the last 10 years besides those great but disappointing Super Bowl runs, the sport itself hasn't brought me that much joy. I also think football is for casuals, with all due respect to football fans. I mean, it's great for the guy who has 3 kids, a very demanding job, busy social life, and not much time for fun. You have this TINY season that lasts 16 games, and maybe if you're really lucky a couple of playoff games. If you only watched 8 games -- EIGHT -- you just watched half of the season. It's basically incredibly easy to be a "hardcore" football fan. That totally works for some people, but baseball is overall probably my other favorite sport about even with hockey because my Yankees haven't had a losing record since before my girlfriend was born, they are almost perennial contenders, and they play 162 times per year so they become truly part of my life while they are playing. It also reminds me of summer, my favorite time of the year, and the Yankees have the proudest history of any professional team in North America.
That being said, if I'm being completely honest, I cannot deny that I think hockey is the most exciting sport because there are very few commercial breaks, it's a contact sport, there are 82 games per year to enjoy, a long playoff schedule, and goals MEAN something! That's why I cannot get into the NBA. Why even bother watching the first 3 periods? What is the point of it? If the game is 95-75 going into the fourth quarter, it's a blowout, so you basically would have wasted your time by watching it anyway unless your team is winning. But the average game is going to look much more like 74-67 or 79-73 or 80-78, so why not just turn it on in the fourth quarter and forget the first three? How hard can I cheer for a basket when there are like 50 of them per game? I mean, seriously, let's get real here.
In hockey, it's not at all unusual for the majority of the offense to be in the 1st period, or maybe the 2nd period. If you miss any of the game, you could miss the most exciting scoring plays, or ALL of the scoring. I had that happen once this year, really ticked me off, some game I missed the first 7 minutes and we scored 2 goals, and I swear we didn't score the rest of the game. We may have even lost that game, I can't remember, but it was something like that where I only saw the other team score and missed my own team's goals because I didn't get back home from an errand until a few minutes into the game. That is why hockey demands your attention and why it's so exciting and so much better than basketball. Every second MATTERS, no matter whether it's first period or third. Maybe in basketball, every basket counts, sure, but the players sure have a tendency to go up by 10, let the other team back in it, and have that process repeat itself until most of the time the game is just about equal heading into the fourth.
I have found myself just completely bored by basketball for years now, and it's just hard to get excited like I did in my youth.
I used to watch the NBA Playoffs in the 90s but they have become stale. They drag on, the teams are uninteresting g and have no shot of making the Finals ( Washington v. Toronto, anyone really think Indiana will eliminate the Cavaliers) so I watch hockey.
Now as for basketball, I think the he NBA is fixed anyway, before you bash me just hear me out....
In the 2016 NBA finals, you had the Warriors who won 73 games in the regular season, roared thru the playoffs, meet the Cavaliers in the finals.
The warriors were up 3 games to 1 and became the first team to blow a 3-1 lead in the finals, additionally losing Game 7 at home . It just seemed like the warriors were told to lessen their effort and let LeBron win a title in Cleveland. After the incident in the 2000s with the referee who was on the take for the mob, I gave up on the NBA anyway . The aforementioned 2016 finals, the fact it takes 15 minutes to play the last minute in the 4th quarter. No Interest. I’ll stick with the NHL playoffs, nothing like sudden death overtime
No basketball for me. Playoffs, college, or otherwise. I can walk to the new Bucks arena from my office in under 5 minutes but I doubt I'll ever go to a game. I have however walked the few blocks past it for Milwaukee Admirals games several times.
There's nothing at all quite like OT playoff hockey. It's the most edge-of-seat nerve-wrecking thing in all the 4 major sports leagues. You have no idea when the winning goal is coming or who is going to score it.
The NBA/NFL/MLB playoffs have their exciting moments too, but none of them compare to Overtime Stanley Cup hockey. The haunting stunned silence of a road team winning game 7 in OT is nothing you'll ever hear elsewhere.
There's nothing at all quite like OT playoff hockey. It's the most edge-of-seat nerve-wrecking thing in all the 4 major sports leagues. You have no idea when the winning goal is coming or who is going to score it.
The NBA/NFL/MLB playoffs have their exciting moments too, but none of them compare to Overtime Stanley Cup hockey. The haunting stunned silence of a road team winning game 7 in OT is nothing you'll ever hear elsewhere.
In a 2-1 game, every goal is precious beyond measure.
In a 110-108 game? Not so much. And basketball is working to hard to rival WWE in contact and drama. Meh.
I've been a hockey fan for nearly 60 years and began watching NBA games when the Raptors came into being 23 years ago. It took a while for me to pick up some of the nuances of basketball but I now really enjoy both sports fairly equally.
I'm a lifelong baseball fan too, so April, May, June and October, there's smoke coming from my TV remote.
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