The 2024 NBA Cup Final Just Showed Us Everything Wrong With This League

The NBA is in crisis. The league has lost its footing in American culture.

You can tell from the constant Anthony Edwards Christmas Sprite commercials.

See, the NBA tries to trick you into believing they’re relevant by constantly shoving their stars in your face 24/7 but they’re barely keeping their heads above water.

Their ratings are plummeting and the 2024 NBA Cup Final is the perfect example of everything wrong with the league.

Growing up, I’d consume as much basketball as I could every single night.

If it wasn’t the Knicks losing, it was a nationally televised game but either way, I was locked in every night.

I finished my homework by 4 and spent the rest of the day watching ESPN and thinking about hoops.

I don’t watch as much basketball as I used to.

Either my wife wants to watch something else or the kids have a practice or a game or concert or something they always need me to drive them to or they’re all out of time visiting relatives and my girlfriend comes over, I’m just not paying attention to the NBA.

I’m not locked in the way I used to be and you want to know why? The two biggest stars in the NBA Cup Final are foreigners from Greece and Canada. How am I supposed to connect to a Canadian?

Ratings are down because Americans aren’t tuning in to watch some third-world country ball.

If the NBA wants more people to watch then they need more American stars.

Look at NASCAR. Not one immigrant in sight and it’s beloved.

I wouldn’t be shocked if it took the NBA’s spot as one of America’s major sports leagues.

I mean just look at how many 3-pointers the Bucks take compared to the Hendrick Motorsports guys. It’s not even close.

This NBA Cup Final is a failure for the league because I had a dinner date with my wife last night and couldn’t watch it, therefore, no one’s watching it.

When I loved it as a child with no other responsibilities, it was the height of the league and now that I’m busy with brand new, back-breaking responsibilities and bills, a job I hate with a boss I dream of slowly strangling, watching the final breaths escape her soon-to-be corpse—it’s clearly the NBA’s fault I’m not watching.

If Kobe Bryant played in the 2024 NBA Cup Final I’d be glued to the TV.

My wife would have to eat leftovers quietly next to me as I cheered for nonstop contested turn-around midrange jumpers off the side of the rim all night, real, ethical ball.

But nope, the NBA is trying to shove Giannis and his 32.7 points, 11.5 rebounds and 6.1 assists down our throats as if we’re supposed to have any interest in a man with an accent.

Nice try, NBA but I voted to make sure people like Giannis stayed off my street.

I missed the game and that’s the NBA’s fault, not mine or my misunderstanding of my own nostalgia for a time when I was younger and happier and skinnier and my parents weren’t divorced.

Cooper Flagg will surely fix this league. Something about him just connects with me on a personal level.

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