Luka Dončić attained his first triple-double of his Los Angeles Lakers tenure as he led his team to a victory over the Dallas Mavericks last night. The same organization that traded him in a blockbuster transaction earlier this month. Throughout the game, there was a sense of cathartic drama at Crypto.com Arena as Dončić stared down the Mavericks bench after knocking down consecutive three-point shots, a moment that went viral on social media immediately thereafter. Yet Courtney Cox of WEEI in Boston believes that there is more behind this unique instance of a 25-year-old superstar suddenly being traded that benefits the league.
As the NBA prepares to commence new 11-year media rights agreements with The Walt Disney Company, Comcast and Amazon, the league had been experiencing a decline in its national television ratings. Entering the second half, national viewership was down 5% compared to the previous year, and there has also been distinctive criticism about different facets of the game, such as the volume of three-point shots. During her lead on Wednesday’s edition from The Greg Hill Show, Cox pointed out that producer Chris Curtis had floated a similar theory when the trade took place and that she was now concurring with the premise.
“It’s the whole reason that this happened between the Mavericks and the Lakers, so weirdly the fact that there was only the Lakers that were the team that the Mavs talked to, seems like it could be for ratings,” Cox said, “and [it] seems like it could be a Lakers making it all the way this year to help with said ratings.”
Cox acknowledged how Dončić was doing push-ups on the court and that Lakers fans were chanting ‘Thank you’ to Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison for making the trade. Moreover, she drew a comparison to women’s college basketball when Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese were taking the court, and explained that the game was not the same today because people enjoy drama.
“What are we getting right now with the Lakers?,” Cox questioned. “All the drama you could ever ask for when it comes to the NBA.”
Although co-host Jermaine Wiggins believes that Dončić and the Lakers are currently in the honeymoon stage, there have been conversations about the team potentially making a championship run with a roster that also includes LeBron James, Austin Reaves and Rui Hachimura. Curtis does not believe the relationship between the Lakers and Dončić is going to be sustainable long term, but Cox articulated that the team had already secured large consumption in a previous matchup against the Denver Nuggets.
“This is what happened is that the NBA got a shot in the arm at a time they needed it most with their preeminent franchise with a roster that has their biggest star,” Curtis said. “There’s people talking about, ‘Who’s the face of the NBA?’ The face of the NBA is LeBron James until he stops playing. He is the Tiger Woods of the NBA, he has sustained for 20-plus years, he is the [person] that people love or love to hate.”
Ratings for the Lakers-Mavericks showdown are not yet available, but they will be reported at a time when Nielsen Media Research recently expanded its out-of-home coverage to include the entire U.S. contiguous television population. Ratings for NBA games on TNT platforms were down 11% in the first half of the year, according to reporting from Colin Salao of Front Office Sports, as Warner Bros. Discovery is in the midst of its final season with U.S. live game broadcast rights for the league. Tuesday night’s game was presented on TNT and truTV and streaming live on Max, whereas the aforementioned Saturday matchup was available on broadcast television amid widespread cord cutting.
“I just think that there is more to this than just one team wanting to get rid of one because of they got a bit worried about what they were seeing on Twitter and picked the Lakers to send him to,” Cox concluded.
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