The overall game of basketball has nothing to do with the NBA ratings going down this season.

If you scroll on any social media platform with the ratings topic, you will see many people talking about how every team plays the same way.

But that is simply not true.

Yes, every team shoots a lot of threes, but their playstyles are completely different. This could be hard for casual NBA watchers to understand, and statistics will also show that every team plays different.

The Memphis Grizzlies spend 24.7% of their offensive possessions in transition. They lead the NBA in points with 33.9 transition points.

The Minnesota Timberwolves are the NBA’s worst team in transition with 15.1% and 18.7 transition points.

Other teams are more isolation heavy offenses, like the Boston Celtics, Dallas Mavericks and Los Angeles Clippers. This makes sense when they have powerhouse players like Jayson Tatum, James Harden and Kyrie Irving.

When you think of some of the best offenses in recent years, you’d think of teams like the Golden State Warriors and Denver Nuggets. They have more cut action in their offense whether it’s someone cutting to the rim after setting a screen for Steph Curry or Nikola Jokic throwing alley-oops to Aaron Gordon from the block or free throw line.

In the 2015-2016 season, no team spent more than 20% of the offense in transition, and the closest team to do that was the Houston Rockets at 19%.

This season, 12 teams are in transition more than the Rockets were that season.

So, the people who say teams play the same are wrong.

Nobody wants to see the eighth man on the bench posting up like it’s the 1990s, or teams taking long midrange jump shots the whole game when they could step back a couple feet and shoot three pointers.

I think the main issue with the ratings is the people covering the sport.

The NBA All-Star weekend was just a couple of weeks ago, and on live television, current Golden State Warriors player Draymond Green went on a rant about his league mates and how they should not be playing on Sunday with the best players in the world.

While I do not think he is wrong, I don’t think he should have said that when there are people who are probably not avid NBA fans watching.

You also have shows like Inside The NBA with Shaquille O’Neal and Charles Barkley talking about how unwatchable games are and criticizing players. When you are new to watching the NBA, and your first impression is people talking bad about the production, you are more likely to move away from the game.

Last year, when the Boston Celtics won the championship, people were trying to bring down Jayson Tatum for not winning the Finals MVP when he is one of the best and accomplished players there are in the league.

During the All-Star break, Minnesota Timberwolves player Anthony Edwards said he doesn’t want to be the face of the NBA: that is due to people in the media and fans comparing him to Michael Jordan… a player who was in the league 30 plus years ago.

Nobody wants to be the face of the league because you’re always getting compared and criticized because you don’t play the same way players did in the past which plays into nostalgia.

Many people miss what they saw when they were younger and got accustomed to that version and don’t think anything can be better than that.

Another thing is that you also can’t watch games like that in the past.

When I was younger, you didn’t need multiple different streaming services to watch NBA games.

NBA games are barely on television anymore, and one of the biggest issues is with NBA League Pass. If you’re not at home and want to watch your hometown or favorite team play, you can’t because of blackout restrictions, which leads me to my next point: illegal streaming is taking over.

Due to NBA League Pass having many issues, people choose to stream them which leads the NBA to get less views. With YouTube, you can just watch highlights of games instead of buying five different streaming services for a certain game.

With the 82 game season, there are also too many games. General NBA fans do not care about the Cleveland Cavaliers playing the Washington Wizards on a Tuesday night, and when there is a big match coming up, a player can simply just rest that game.

Philadelphia 76ers player Joel Embiid hasn’t played in Denver in six years.

If the NBA wants their ratings to go up, they need to change the people covering the game, elevate the young stars of the league and make games more affordable.

Cameron Thomas can be reached at 581-2812 or at cathomas8@eiu.edu.