OT: have the video games ruined the fans?

[Cman]

Eh, people tend to draw too strong conclusions on that sort of thing, but the 2k style games do get a lot of fans used to instant gratification/radical changes whenever things go wrong, plus the margin of error is far, far higher than in the actual league. 

Wouldn't surprise me if it makes some fans more impatient or contributes to the "why won't Danny make the trade that no other team would ever agree to, but totally makes sense in my imagination??" mindset a few folks have, but it's a major stretch to say it's having any kind of broad impact on fans overall.

The media has fueled this as well. There are so many talking heads out there, all of whom have an opinion, most of whom don't have an *informed* opinion. You listen to these guys spout out with great confidence about how to fix this team, how to fix that team. You start to think. "Hey, I can do it too."

[MarcusStart]

I'm guessing that the success of OKC has ruined fans. OKC got 3 high draft picks and hit on all of them. When a team of stars under the age 26 reaches the finals, everyone sees a 10 year title window and wants to imitate that. They have become the perfect success story of how to build a small market team.

However, Houston's approach to building a team by stockpiling assets and waiting for a superstar trade is also successful. Morey's job being on the line before the Harden trade shows that the Houston way is hard and it's  probably why GM's don't want to take that path. On the other hand, if a GM is tanking then his job security is based on how the team will look like in 3-5 years.

I think tanking is attractive because it promises a better future and younger fans like myself are more willing to wait for that future. I'm told that Boston is not a top free agent destination so a star player is coming from the draft or a trade. I'm personally more comfortable hoping that picks like Smart are going to payoff than hoping that a star like Cousins becomes available and and their team likes our assets.

[Hemingway]

I'm guessing that the success of OKC has ruined fans. OKC got 3 high draft picks and hit on all of them. When a team of stars under the age 26 reaches the finals, everyone sees a 10 year title window and wants to imitate that. They have become the perfect success story of how to build a small market team.

However, Houston's approach to building a team by stockpiling assets and waiting for a superstar trade is also successful. Morey's job being on the line before the Harden trade shows that the Houston way is hard and it's  probably why GM's don't want to take that path. On the other hand, if a GM is tanking then his job security is based on how the team will look like in 3-5 years.

I think tanking is attractive because it promises a better future and younger fans like myself are more willing to wait for that future. I'm told that Boston is not a top free agent destination so a star player is coming from the draft or a trade. I'm personally more comfortable hoping that picks like Smart are going to payoff than hoping that a star like Cousins becomes available and and their team likes our assets.

Yeah because we've never traded for stars before. this board is terrible. You all want to lose lose lose.

[LarBrd33]

Specifically I mean the NBA Live and NBA 2k games where you can play a franchise or dynasty mode and simply simulate your way through losing seasons. Take a look at the realm board hey have a stickied post for a tanking thread but not a playoff thread.

I feel like this idea of lose lose lose, get 3 studs in the draft and then be set for 15 years has never really happened outside of video games.

It feels like a slap in the face to the players coach and overall team to see fans upset because they are winning. I am starting to get the idea that there are a lot of people who post on Cs boards everyday yet haven't watched a game all year.

Video games might be a small contributing factor, but as others have said... the desire to tank has been around for a really long time.  The fanbase was pretty desperate to land Tim Duncan back in 97.

I think in general, the shift can be attributed to the rise of internet culture and the transparency of statistics and player development.   I remember when sports internet culture was first coming up, sites like nbadraft.net starting popping up and there started to a much greater awareness amongst fans of "the future".   Prior to that, I think a lot of fans maybe learned about draft prospects on draft night.  But suddenly, you had people reading scouting reports and getting hyped about players 10-15 picks deep... MONTHS before the actual draft.  That was a big change in fan culture.

I actually think we've seen a couple swings.  When sites like that first started popping up, it was easy for fans to take the scouting reports at face value.  "Oh DaJuan Wagner is the next Allen Iverson... it says so on this website!!... or... "Troy Murphy is the next Larry Bird!!"...   The community was smaller, but the hype may have been even stronger.   Go back to Kedrick Brown's rookie season and see how hyped up Celtic fans were about the kid.   Having access to this kind of info was so new to us and it was easy to get carried away.  Eventually we saw a swing in the other direction where fans started to trust those scouting reports less.   Funny I think right now we have seen a swing pretty far in the opposite direction where many fans assume the scouts are complete idiots and doubt when they claim someone like Joel Embiid or Andrew WIggins is the future... even though the scouts collectively have a pretty impressive track record for spotting future superstar talent.

But undeniably having access to that kind of information and being able to really evaluate how prospects develop has changed how fans look at the game.  I'd argue that the fans are just looking at the game in a similar way to how teams have been looking at it for decades.   There's always been an understanding that mid-tier teams are the worst position to be in.  That superstar talent is found through high draft picks.    That you need superstars to build a contender.    Now the fans understand it too.  You can get away with trading your veteran star for a package of draft picks and young talent, because the fans understand what they are getting.  Whereas, if you traded Patrick Ewing to the Sonics in 1999, the fact that the Knicks were receiving multiple prospects and 1st rounders may have been completely glossed over by some fans who saw it simply as a "superstar" being traded for "nothing".

As for the video game thing.  I think it might impact how patient some hardcore fans are.   A lot of us have played those games.  We've seen how you can rip a team apart, make smart draft choices and free agent signings and build it up in 3-5 years.   But instead of waiting 3-5 years you can sim it in 3-5 hours. 

Philly comes up a lot on this forum and I've made the comment multiple times that I love what Hinkie is doing.   What he's doing is pretty ridiculous, though.  He's essentially running that team exactly how I would if I was playing an NBA sim.   Dumping everyone for draft picks, tanking, trying to draft superstar talent.  Except Hinkie is doing it in real-time.  I think teams have been doing some level of that forever, but Hinkie is the first to be really transparent with it.  The fans for the most part understand what he's doing and embrace it.  Again, part of that might be because of video games, but I think most of that is just today's fan culture greater understanding of what is necessary to build a true contender.