Adam Silver dismisses Shaquille O'Neal's criticism of NBA's 3-pt obsession impacting league's rating

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver disagrees with Shaquille O'Neal's criticism of the league's 3-point revolution as the reason for low viewership. Silver appeared at the Paley Center for Media‘s International Council Summit on Wednesday and spoke about his thoughts on O'Neal's comments.

The league's commissioner had a different opinion about the viewership numbers they've garnered over the first weeks of the 2024-25 season. Silver also didn't blame the 3-point shot as O'Neal had suggested.

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"I don't think it has anything to do with the 3-point shot," Silver said.

Silver continued by highlighting the several incidents that have hindered the increase of viewership.

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"I think we're just looking at a couple weeks of ratings. There's always some unique things. This year, we were up against the World Series, Dodgers-Yankees, two very attractive teams, they brought in a big audience. You had a presidential election which was commanding ad enormous amount of attention. So, I don't think it has anything whatsoever to do with the style of play on the floor."

Viewership has continued to go down for the league. 1.71 million people watched the Milwaukee Bucks vs. Philadelphia 76ers season opener. The previous year's season opener between the Boston Celtics and New York Knicks had 2.55 million viewers.

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What did the Shaquille O'Neal say about the NBA's viewership?

In the Nov. 7 episode of "The Big Podcast with Shaq," the NBA legend cited the league's reliance on the 3-point shot as the reason for the decrease in viewership. (Start at 29:09)

"I have a theory. It's down because we're looking at the same thing," O'Neal said. "Everybody's running the same plays. At the damn top of the key, dribble handoff."

O'Neal said every team and star player wants to emulate what Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors do behind the arc.

The former LA Lakers star said he doesn't mind Curry and the Warriors. However, he has a problem with every team that follows their strategy. He claims that because there is no variation and the plays are the same, the game is "boring."

He said in his show that playstyles should change to save the league's viewership from going down.

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Although he said he doesn't mind having Curry and the Warriors' style of relying on the 3-pointer, O'Neal said they're the ones to blame.

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