Photo credit: Wendell Cruz-USA TODAY Sports
In recent years, the NBA has become a show that runs 365 days a year. Social Media has become a massive boom for the league, giving players and fans alike a platform to comment on league happenings and drop their hot takes on a sea of eager debaters. The discourse has taken on a greater form than First Take and beers with friends during halftime. Even hip-hop artists such as Big K.R.I.T. and Freddie Gibbs have dedicated whole verses to basketball personas and mythology—see “Everytime [feat. Bella Rose]” from K.R.I.T IZ HERE [2019] and “Giannis [feat. Anderson .Pakk]” from Bandana [2019]. The fact is, more than any other sport, the NBA quenches America’s thirst for needless drama and theatrics, and in that sense it’s mutated into something far more culturally significant than a pastime.
The NBA is reality television. Without the player drama, the on-court happenings still satisfies the core tenets of reality tv. A heavily contested game of basketball rivals the suspense of the best plays, films, and television shows. While not every game is a great time, there are still other storylines to watch rather than “will they win or lose;” Will LeBron James reassert himself in the coming season, does Kawhi Leonard have what it takes to make it to the finals again with such stiff competition, and what rookies will distinguish themselves and let fans know who is up next? The basketball content industrial complex is multifaceted however.
The ongoing tale of Ben Simmons exemplifies how the story of a player lives vibrantly in each of these facets. While the 1984 Lakers locker room had just as much of a storyline, the immediacy of information that social media and the 24 hour news cycle allows has pushed it to the forefront. ‘The Fresh Prince’ gets his nickname not only from the city he calls home, but his relation to James. In the waning days of the 2017-18 season, a Joel Embiid-less 76ers team took on the subsequently swept Cleveland Cavaliers for the third seed, culminating in a clashing of the old guard and new class, with both James and Simmons earning triple doubles. Such a game is a prime example of how the narratives pushed by both social and mainstream media are embraced on the court.
Simmons also proves as a good subject to study in terms of “NBA Twitter’s” meme culture; perhaps its greatest export. There are no posts about Simmons that haven’t been met with a red-shirt rookie or jumper jokes. Every player, their fanbases, and their team’s front office, have their quirks and eccentricities placed under a microscope on social media.
2019’s unprecedentedly juicy free agency chose Twitter as its stage. Adrian Wojarnowski, the guy in the chair, the seemingly omnipotent and all-seeing ruler of NBA reporting, has made his mark on basketball history via Twitter. Once 6 p.m. struck on June 30, any fan with a player on the line ravingly refreshed their feeds waiting for the net Woj-bomb to blast their thumb off the screen of their phone.
Now, two months away from tip-off, the league has only just calmed down. Even with everyone, besides Carmelo Anthony, seemingly in position for next year’s new-look NBA, social media still buzzes with excitement, speculation, and anticipation. The truth is, most of it is nonsense and based on nothing, however the conversation stirred lets everyone have their own take, and its undoubtedly added to the NBA’s growing popularity in recent years. In two months, Russell Westbrook reunites with James Harden, James raises the Lakers from the dead, Al Horford turns friends into enemies, Zion Williamson proves himself, and the basketball loving population gets to bicker and bite each others heads off; call it the Shakespeare in the park, while the mainstream media is a full production of Hamlet. All that matters is it’s drama, and its relevance only reinforces its value.
