By Marilyn Dubinski | Pounding The Rock (PtR), 2025-06-09 23:51:06
由生成式人工智能翻译，译文内容可能不准确或不完整，以原文为准。
季中锦标赛是一场盛事，而总决赛却感觉像一场普通比赛。这本该反过来。
NBA有一个宣传问题，而且完全是咎由自取。NBA总决赛G1是一场扣人心弦的比赛，其中又出现了 泰瑞斯·哈利伯顿 (Tyrese Haliburton) 一个不可思议的绝杀，但问题是：如果你只是看到比赛的一个随机片段，你根本不会知道你正在观看的是总决赛。中场没有奖杯标识，任何地方都没有“NBA Finals”的标志……甚至ESPN的记分牌上都没有提及总决赛。唯一的迹象是记录台偶尔出现的数字弹窗。
NBA总决赛看起来就像一月份的常规赛。ESPN和NBA必须做得更好。https://t.co/Amlv4uCHrY
— Awful Announcing (@ awfulannouncing) June 6, 2025
在“听到”G1后的批评声之后，NBA和ESPN在G2中，在雷霆队的主场上用了一些相当敷衍的数字化拉里·奥布莱恩奖杯作为回应。它们不仅小巧、故障频出，而且位置不佳，更不用说它们对现场沉浸在气氛中的球迷来说毫无作用。
现在，在ABC的ESPN直播中，NBA总决赛（数字）奖杯开始在步行者队对阵雷霆队G2的场地上显示了。 https://t.co/aroKp9PNY pic.twitter.com/Cdpssa5Rvc
— Awful Announcing (@ awfulannouncing) June 9, 2025
说实话，如果马刺队进入了这次总决赛，我可能会觉得被冒犯了。有些人可能还记得在2000年代，中场有一个巨大的拉里·奥布莱恩奖杯。你毫无疑问地知道你正在看什么，而且现场气氛也与那一刻完美匹配。
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NBAE 图片社/通过盖蒂图片社
到了2014年，NBA移除了那个粘贴式的奖杯标识，因为它被认为很滑，存在安全隐患，但你仍然知道这是总决赛，因为球场两侧有巨大的、草书体的“The Finals”标志。虽然不完全一样，但它仍然给现场营造了一种独特的气场，使其区别于常规赛和季后赛的其他阶段。
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这个标识所占的表面积肯定足够小，不至于太滑，但不知何故，在2022年NBA总决赛之后，它也消失了。 亚当·萧华 (Adam Silver) 终于在上周末回应了批评声，并暗示他们将研究未来的改进措施，但他的措辞并没有给人带来多少信心。
“也许有办法解决，”萧华在俄克拉荷马县青少年俱乐部 (Boys & Girls Clubs of Oklahoma County) 举行的一次 NBA 关怀行动 (NBA Cares) 慈善活动中告诉一小群记者，“老实说，在（社交媒体上）看到它之前，我并没有太多考虑过这件事。我对某些事情也怀旧。而且，我认为对于一个媒体驱动的文化来说，无论是人们观看直播，还是在社交媒体上看到那些图像，当你回顾精彩集锦时，如果能看到奖杯标志或其他表明这是特殊事件的标识，那将是件好事，它会让那些集锦脱颖而出。所以，我们会研究的。”
他那句“我并没有太多考虑过”正是问题所在，尤其是当你考虑到他在他那个几乎毫无意义的心血项目——季中锦标赛上投入了多少时间、精力和金钱。特殊的球衣和全新的球场（有些简直是视觉污染），以及中场巨大的奖杯，从宣传角度来看，这些都让总决赛相形见绌，尽管并非所有人都支持它。以下是萧华对这种呈现方式差异的解释：
联盟总裁亚当·萧华 (Adam Silver) 周五表示：“我们有机会提前做好充分规划，为杯赛冠军赛设计一块特定的中立场地，各队也设计自己的杯赛场地。” “而且，在场地喷漆等方面，这确实需要大量时间来打造新场地。”
这说得通，但问题是：球员们也抱怨喷漆的地板有多滑。这难道不是安全隐患吗？如果不是，那么在两支总决赛球队的球场上留出一块空白区域，喷漆并密封“The Finals”或奖杯图案，然后到下个赛季更换那部分地板，这又有什么难的呢？正如我今天早上在广播里听到 布莱恩·斯卡拉布莱恩 (Brian Scalalabrine) 建议的那样，他们可以出售或装裱那部分地板，而更换的成本对球队或NBA来说微不足道——肯定远低于那些整个锦标赛球场。
另一个选择是让锦标赛球场可以在季中锦标赛和拉里·奥布莱恩奖杯之间转换，而且不一定需要每支球队都这样做。即使联盟等到全明星周末之后才大致确定哪些球队有可能进入总决赛，那也留下了充足的时间来对锦标赛球场进行调整，以适应总决赛。（有些可能不太美观，但至少比现在什么都没有要强。）
萧华在同一次采访中表示，他的目标是让球队的市场规模变得无关紧要，我相信马刺球迷会对此表示赞赏，因为在他们王朝时期表现出色时，他们基本上受到了 大卫·斯特恩 (David Stern) 的斥责。从某种意义上说，这个目标正在实现，本赛季肯定会诞生连续第7个不同的冠军——并非所有这些冠军都来自大市场球队——但雷霆对阵步行者的G1是自1988年以来观看人数最少的总决赛，除了那些尴尬的、没有球迷的疫情期间总决赛。
显然，要让大市场球迷收看中小城市球队的比赛，还有很长的路要走，但NBA至少可以做出妥协，让他们感觉正在观看的是 *真正 *的NBA总决赛。我们拭目以待步行者队主场的G3和G4以及当他们不可避免地回到雷霆队主场的G5是否会有任何改进，但目前，它感觉就像任何一场普通比赛。
点击查看原文：The NBA needs to get its priorities straight
The NBA needs to get its priorities straight
The In-Season Tournament is a spectacle while the Finals feels like an ordinary game. It should be the other way around.
The NBA has an advertising problem, and it’s entirely of its own making. Game 1 of the NBA Finals was a thriller featuring yet another improbable Tyrese Haliburton game winner, but there was one problem: if you were just shown a random clip of the game, you’d never know you were watching the Finals. No trophy decal at center court, no “NBA Finals” logo anywhere … heck, even the ESPN scorecard didn’t mentions the Finals. The only sign was the occasional digital pop-up on the scorers table.
The NBA Finals look like a regular season game in January. ESPN and the NBA have to do better.https://t.co/Amlv4uCHrY
— Awful Announcing (@ awfulannouncing) June 6, 2025
After “hearing” the backlash after game one, the NBA/ESPN responded with some truly pathetic digital Larry O’Brian trophies on the Thunder’s court in Game 2. Not only were they small and glitchy but also poorly placed, plus it goes without saying that they would have done nothing for the fans soaking up the atmosphere in the arena.
There are now NBA Finals (digital) trophies showing on the court for the ESPN on ABC broadcast of Pacers-Thunder Game 2. https://t.co/aroKp9NPNY pic.twitter.com/Cdpssa5Rvc
— Awful Announcing (@ awfulannouncing) June 9, 2025
I’ll be honest, if the Spurs were in these Finals, I’d be insulted. Some may recall back in the 2000’s, there was a giant Larry O’Brian trophy at center court. There was never any doubt what you were watching, and the atmosphere matched the moment.
NBAE via Getty Images
By 2014, the NBA had removed the stick-on trophy decal because it was deemed slippery and a safety hazard, but you still knew this was the Finals due to the giant, scripted “The Finals” logo on each side of the court. Not quite the same, but it still gave the atmosphere a certain aura that differentiated it from the regular season and rest of the playoffs.
Surely that decal covers little enough surface area that it isn’t too slippery, but for whatever reason, it too went away after the 2022 NBA Finals. Adam Silver finally addressed the backlash over the weekend and implied they will look into future improvements, but his wording didn’t instill a lot of confidence.
“Maybe there’s a way around it,” (Silver) told a small group of reporters during an NBA Cares charity event at the Boys & Girls Clubs of Oklahoma County. “To be honest, I hadn’t thought all that much about it until I (saw) it (on social media). I’m nostalgic, as well, for certain things. And also, I think for a media-driven culture, whether it’s people watching live or seeing those images on social media, it’s nice when you’re looking back on highlights and they stand out because you see that trophy logo or some other indication that it’s a special event. So, we’ll look at it.”
That quote that “he hadn’t thought much about it” is where the problem lies, especially when you consider how much time, effort and money has been put into his mostly-meaningless pet project: the In-Season Tournament. Alternate uniforms and entirely new courts (some serious eye sores) complete with a massive trophy at center court has led to a spectacle that, from an advertising standpoint, puts the Finals to shame, even though not everyone has gotten behind it. Here is Silver’s justification for the difference in representation:
“We have the opportunity to plan well in advance and to design a specific neutral court for a Cup championship game, and the teams design their own Cup courts,” commissioner Adam Silver said Friday. “And it actually takes a significant amount of time to create new courts in terms of how they’re painted, et cetera.”
That makes sense, but here’s the thing: players have also complained about how slippery the painted courts are. Is that not a safety hazard? If not, then what would be so hard about taking a blank space on the two Finals teams’ courts, painting and sealing “The Finals” or trophy on it, then replacing that part of the court by next season? As I heard Brian Scalabrine suggest on the radio this morning, they could then sell or mount that piece of court, and it would be pennies out of the team or NBA’s pocket to replace — certainly much less than those entire tournament courts.
Another option would be to make the tournament courts convertible between the In-Season Tournament and Larry O’Brian trophy, and it doesn’t have to be every team. Even if the league waited until the All-Star break to get a general idea of which teams could reasonably make the finals, that would leave plenty of time to start making adjustments to the tournament courts for the finals. (Some may be an eye sore, but they would be more than nothing at this point.)
Silver said in the same interview that his goal is to make the market size of the teams irrelevant, which I’m sure Spurs fans appreciate after essentially getting scolded by David Stern for being good during their dynastic run. In a way, that goal is being achieved with a guaranteed 7th straight different champion this season — not all of whom have been big markets — but Game 1 of OKC vs. Indiana was the least watched finals game since 1988 outside of the awkward, fan-less COVID Finals.
Obviously, there’s still a ways to go in getting big market fans to tune it to watch heartland teams, but the least the NBA can do is meet them halfway and make it feel like they’re watching THE NBA Finals. We’ll see if there’s any improvement in Indiana for games 3 and 4 and when they inevitably return to OKC for Game 5, but right now, it just feels like any other game.
By Marilyn Dubinski, via Pounding The Rock