At its very core, the NBA is a business, and most of the league’s decisions are made depending on how much profit can be made. The league actively markets and pushes players and policies that turn the business profitable and in the last decade LeBron James, Kevin Durant, and Stephen Curry have been largely the boats the league has ridden. This fact is not lost on Spender Dinwiddie. Having played with LeBron and having played against Steph and KD, he clearly knows their impact on the sport. But he also understands how being the face of the sport comes with a responsibility but it also ensures a certain backing from the league.
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The Mavericks guard, while in a conversation with Theo Pinson on the ‘Run Your Race’ podcast, credited the popularity of a player having a major role in their team, and the league, getting more air time nationally.
Taking the example of Stephen Curry, LeBron James, and Kevin Durant, Pinson and Dinwiddie claimed that the league needs their teams to make the playoffs every season, because of the amount of profit that the three of them generate:
“LeBron, Steph, KD. They done put in so much money in everybody else’s pockets. They pray Kevin Durant, LeBron James, and Steph Curry make the playoffs. Every single year. They need it, that’s must-see TV. And that’s the thing, in a lot of ways, we owe those three. Because they’re so great they put money in everybody’s pockets.”
Dinwiddie further added, that even among the trio, Curry’s monetary impact on the league over the last decade is likely the most substantial.
“Like I said, minimum when I got in the league, and this probably a bigger credit to Steph than even LeBron. Minimum when I got in the league was 500k. This was 2014. minimum now, somewhere around 2 million. What coincided with that timespan? That was Steph’s run. Steph started becoming the guy what 2015? And they loved it.”
The trio of Bron, Steph, and KD are very easily the three best players of the last decade, and their presence and impact in drawing in viewers is a large reason for the NBA seeing record-breaking contracts and salaries given out every year. Without the economic impact that the trio had, as Dinwiddie said, the vet minimum would’ve been closer to $500k and $2m.
Despite dropping ratings, Stephen Curry reigns supreme
When Steph and the Warriors took on the Celtics last month, the NBA was going through a bit of a ratings drop. Viewership was down almost 19% compared to the same time last year, but the Warriors-Celtics game, which was the Dubs’ first nationally televised game this season, drew in a whopping 2.14 million viewers on ESPN.
According to Sports Media Watch, it marked the most viewed game since the opening week of fixtures and saw a 30% rise in viewership compared to the same game last year. While this proves that the demand for Steph is still as high as it was during the Warriors’ peak years, it also effectively shuts down the loudest critics of the new NBA.
Analysts and fans have blamed the increase in the 3-point-friendly offense as the main reason for the league’s declining viewership, but when a Warriors-Celtics game that saw 88 threes attempted drew in 2 million+ viewers, the errors in this argument became clearly visible. Ratings have plummeted, yes, but the 3-pointers are NOT the cause, and Stephen Curry’s rising viewership numbers attest to that.
