Halfway through the decade, the NBA has entered a state of turmoil. Despite a new, lucrative TV deal, questions remain about the long-term health of the league. Sagging viewership, uninterested fans and general lack of optimism have put the NBA in the crosshairs. But why? Why has a league that, even recently, felt important on a grand scale, fallen from the public attention? The answer isn't simple, but this series seeks to find it, and along the way attempt to identify some antidotes to the NBA's ailments. Read the first story in the series here.
In a (now infamous) clip from 2023, Brandon Miller states that his “GOAT of basketball is Paul George.” As you would expect, backlash was quick, but, really, how wrong is Miller? For someone his age, George must have seemed god-like. From sending Chris Andersen to the shadow realm to logo 3s, George was appointment viewing.
However, George was more than that. Rob Mahoney from The Ringer said it best when he called George “the platonic ideal of an NBA wing.” There is nothing on the court that George can’t do. The idea of George is the perfect player; a do-it-all offensive assassin that can virtually guard every position. He is what up-and-coming wings like Miller strive to be. George plays with a smooth, effortless, silky style. Above all else, Paul George is cool.
Why would you not want to be like Paul George? Miller and GG Jackson have both named George as a source of inspiration, but I would argue that George paved the way for other stars as well. Jayson Tatum, Franz Wagner and Jalen Williams all owe something to George. His tentacles of influence stretch far and wide and his style of play has been picked up and adopted by young wings across the world. Heck, almost every NBA team has a wing that flashes some sort of similarity to George, whether it be athleticism, positional versatility or ball handling.
It probably isn’t a coincidence that players who don’t fit into that archetype – or any archetype – happen to be among the best in the league. Nikola Jokic, Jalen Brunson, and Giannis Antetokounmpo don’t have direct comparisons, and they are almost impossible to replicate for one reason or another. They should be celebrated for this fact. Any top 10 list will feature players who have distinct aspects to their games. Uninteresting players have the tough task of distinguishing themselves from a field of similar athletes.
Assembly line players lead to an indistinctness to the game. Athletes across the league tend to play similarly, leading to an inherent lack of nuance in the playing style. As a viewer, I find no joy in watching Paul George impersonators. To be clear, this problem extends far beyond Paul George.
The obsession that NBA players must be able to do everything on the court has hurt the product. They are copy-and-paste players in what has become a copy-and-paste league. As the ratings will tell you, there is a lack of interest in a league that holds such anonymity. When everyone is the same, no one is special, and when no one is special the casual viewer will have a difficult time engaging with the product.
Turn on a game, you’ll find that many players move the same, think the same, shoot the same. There is an obsession that NBA players need to be able to do everything on the court. There’s a reason why bigs are now much more capable of putting the ball on the court. From an early age there is an emphasis placed on athletes to be Swiss-Army Knives.
To some degree it’s worked, as the NBA is more talented than ever. The average player now is far better than the average player 30, 15, even 10 years ago, but that doesn’t matter as much to the fan when the product isn’t nearly as interesting.
Let's say you love cheeseburgers (who doesn’t?), and you eat them every once in a while, but now you are forced to eat them three times a day. No matter how good those cheeseburgers are, you will get sick of them. When the same, or similar, thing is repeated it gets old.
No matter how good the Paul George imitators are, they will never be Paul George, just as Steph Curry imitators will never be Steph Curry, or Michael Jordan imitators will never be Michael Jordan. So many young NBA players are Frankensteins of former stars and are simply not as interesting to watch as those who have quirks and nuances in their game.
Teams and front offices often want to draft players who have clear NBA comparisons but that’s foolish. They should be looking for players who break convention because those are the players who end up being the best.
That’s why I find Cooper Flagg to be such an interesting prospect. On the surface, he seems to fall right into this category of mimics, but Flagg is far more than just another Paul George clone. He has similar skills and is just about the same size as George but plays the game in a completely different fashion.
Flagg isn’t obsessed with the 3 (nor should he be as his percentage from deep has been a subpar 33.3), plays well in the paint and picks his spots in the midrange. What stands out above all is his motor. Flagg plays with a visible tenacity that isn’t seen as much these days. Flagg is the consensus No. 1 overall pick right now for not just what he can be but for what he is already.
I have no doubt that Flagg’s floor in the NBA is at least a solid rotational piece (he gives too much effort to be anything less). More than that though, I hope that Flagg symbolizes a sort of shift in how front offices go about business. His overlap with George is substantial but he is his own player — less of a replica, more of an update.
Front offices should look for players like Flagg — those who buck trends. Eccentricities and peculiarities are being seen as negatives, but viewers find those who stand out all that more interesting. Not only are these players good for the franchise to which they belong, but for the league they play in.
