Who Will Hoop For The Mean Green?

Also, a little Final Four talk

Photo by Peter Berko on Unsplash

The Mean Green have no basketball team. Rubin Jones, Aaron Scott, Jason Edwards, and CJ Noland are all in the transfer portal. Today Layne Taylor backed out of his commitment to the Mean Green, also.

While Rondel Walker¹ may have confidence, right now it is him and a bunch of question marks and walk-ons that will be suiting up for the new season. This is a terrible way to build a product and build a fanbase. Sure, you can point to the past couple of seasons and the remarkable consistency and ask if the fans showed up in a way that corresponds to that but you can’t expect there to be casual excitement for … no one.

The transfer portal (and NIL) are good, but the current implementation of these freedoms are hurting the product. There have been a few good pieces published about the reaction to the women’s title game surpassing the men’s but Ethan Strauss is the one I liked most:

You know what people don’t really like about the NBA? The Player Empowerment Era. You can argue that fans are being possessive or racist or whatever else. You can assert that free agency is a sacred right. Whatever moral frame you want to put on the situation, the result ended up disillusioning committed fans and confusing casuals.

For awhile, the NBA was praised by media for having the most exciting, social-media dominant offseason. So much drama, so much tension. Look at Twitter! What star might switch teams?!

The issue with playing this out a few too many times is that a lot of stars become something less than a familiar presence. Indeed, they become men without a country. Coming to the Lakers probably raised Anthony Davis’ profile, but James Harden, Kawhi Leonard, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant aren’t widely associated with their current teams.

To the NBA Twitter addict, it’s obvious which guys play for what, but most people aren’t like that. It takes awhile for the public to become aware of who you are and the team you represent. If you change it up too often, a lot of people either lose track of you, lose interest or both. Local NBA ratings aren’t available like they once were, but a standard pattern was that drafted cores got the best viewership; Mercenary units weren’t nearly as followed. Stick around and more people will stick with you. But it takes time.