Dan Patrick may be best known for his NFL coverage, but he has plenty of love in his heart for the NBA. However, he's recently been struggling to enjoy the sport and believes it's at a point where the league simply needs to win him back.
On Wednesday's edition of his show, Patrick lamented how bad teams have gotten through tanking. He said that the lack of stars playing even when healthy is making it hard to even want to watch games anymore. Patrick said that it's frustrating for fans too when they want to bring their families to games only for the top players to be absent.
“Is Trae Young playing? This is a guy who was averaging 27 and 10. I don’t know. After a while, if they’re not playing, I’m not watching. And you’ve got to win me back,” Patrick said. “And I’m an NBA fan for 60 years, but after a while, you’re like, ‘Who’s playing?’ Imagine you go to the Spurs game. Now, you got treated to Victor Wembanyama. But it’s like no LeBron, no Luka. That might be the one time that you’re gonna go, and you’re gonna take the family to see them.”
But Patrick has also admitted that he just doesn't know what can be done at this point. He pointed out that the regular season of the NBA simply doesn't mean anything to players anymore.
“I don’t know what the commissioner can do. I mean, we’ve been down this road. We’re gonna continue to go down this road. The regular season doesn’t mean anything,” Patrick said.
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The NBA All-Star Game is coming up and there seems to be less interest in it than ever before. The Slam Dunk Contest hasn't been contested by actual NBA stars in years, and the game itself is a glorified scrimmage.
Unless the NBA comes up with some kind of dramatic changes, this could wind up being a truly unmemorable season - and perhaps a sign of things to come.