‘Steph Curry messed it up…’ Shaquille O’Neal REVEALS reason for NBA viewership plummetingS
Shaquille O’Neal and Stephen Curry have shared a special relationship over the course of the baby-faced assassin’s career. Shaq has publicly proclaimed that his favorite modern NBA player is Stephen Curry. However, as NBA viewership continues to slide, Shaq couldn’t help but address his theory for the league’s decline.
The answer, according to him, lies in the way Curry plays basketball. Since entering the league in 2009, Curry’s revolutionary three-point shooting has become the standard for the league’s future. Following the success of the Warriors Dynasty, teams increased their reliance from behind the arc.
Shaquille O’Neal believes this increased three-point dependency without having shooters of Curry’s caliber has caused the shift in viewership.
Shaq believes NBA viewership is down because everyone wants to shoot threes
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— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral)November 7, 2024
O’Neal took to his ‘The Big Podcast with Shaq’ to reveal his theory about the declining NBA viewership. He continued to theorize that the similarity in play style across teams in the league has caused stagnation in the league’s output.
While there may be several other factors contributing to the declining viewership, O’Neal certainly has a point. A decade ago, in the 2013-14 season, the league average three-point attempts per game stood at 21.5, with the young James Harden-led Houston Rockets leading the league with 26.6 attempts.
However, the modern NBA sees teams shooting nearly 37.0 threes on average per game. Teams like the Boston Celtics leading the league with almost 51 attempts per game.
Shaquille O’Neal makes his pick between LeBron James and Stephen Curry for the 2024-25 season
Shaquille O’Neal has made it very clear that Stephen Curry is his favorite player in the league. However, the Big Diesel does have a soft spot for fellow Lakers legend LeBron James. So it was interesting to see which player the Diesel picked for his list of top 50 players in the league.
To start the NBA season, the Inside the NBA crew revealed their picks for the top players in the league, and some surprising decisions were made. O’Neal picked Nikola Jokic, Giannis Antetonkounmpo, and Luka Doncic as his top 3 players in the league, respectively.
However, when it came to rounding out the top 5, Shaq had a tough choice to make between the 36-year-old Stephen Curry and the 39-year-old LeBron James. The Diesel decided to go with his gut and picked Stephen Curry at the fourth spot of LeBron James.
James rounded out the top 5 of Shaq’s list, with other stars like Kevin Durant, Shai Gilgeous Alexander, Anthony Edwards, and Joel Embiid slotting into the top 10.
