The NBA’s rollercoaster ratings ride has sparked endless debates, with fans and experts pointing fingers at everything from load management to an over-reliance on three-pointers. Current commissioner Adam Silver insists these dips are just bumps in the road. Amid this turbulence, former NBA star John Salley shared a 35-year-old vision from David Stern. Which not only boosted the NBA but played a huge role in the WNBA and NFL’s success too.

Salley believes today’s problem isn’t about the NBA losing its charm—it’s because viewers’ attention span is now at “the length of a TikTok video.” Is this the reason NBA’s viewership going down? Then how WNB and NFL is raising? “Because everybody, every league has benefited from the marketing of the NBA. David Stern did such an unbelievable job,” Salley claimed during Really No Really Podcast.

And then he revealed the Stern’s vision. “One time we were getting our second championship ring, and David Stern wasn’t there because he was in China with Utah and another team promoting it throughout China,” he recalled.

And it wasn’t just a casual visit, either. Stern’s efforts paid off big time. “When China watches a game, which they used to watch the Houston Rockets because of Yao Ming, it was 300 million people. So our ratings, you really can’t quantify what’s going on in China, but there’s 300 million people.”

However, the league’s struggles are real. This season, opening-night games on ESPN saw a steep 42% drop in viewership compared to last year, with a 30% dip the following day. Still, Silver might not be far off when he calls these temporary slumps. The Lakers-Warriors Christmas matchup drew 7.76 million viewers, making it the most-watched regular-season game in five years.

And the hits kept coming. The Knicks-Spurs Christmas opener delivered 4.91 million viewers, the highest in 13 years. With an average of 5.25 million viewers per Christmas game, the NBA proved it can still light up screens.

Adam Silver can do something like David Stern?

Frustrated with today’s NBA, Shaquille O’Neal hasn’t held back his criticism. “Everybody’s running the same plays, at the damn top of the key, dribble hand off,” he vented on The Big Podcast. Shaq even shared a story about a coach pushing his team to attempt 50 three-pointers in a game. “Viewership will continue to go down unless we switch things back up,” he warned, making it clear he believes the league has gotten way too predictable.

Magic Johnson also joined the conversation, bringing up the lack of rivalries that once made the league so intense. “That’s what it’s got to get back to … the number of viewerships are going down, and these guys better wake up,” he said. And, of course, he tackled the elephant in the room—load management. “You got to play. We took pride in playing 82 games,” he added, calling out players sitting games without injuries.

But NBA Commissioner Adam Silver sees it differently. Speaking at the Paley Center Summit, he dismissed the idea that the three-point era is hurting viewership. “I don’t think it has anything to do with the 3-point shot,” he argued, instead pointing to external distractions like other big events taking fans’ attention away.

For instance, this year’s early-season games faced a heavy hitter: the World Series featuring the Dodgers and Yankees. “They brought in a big audience,” Silver noted.

With those distractions fading, the big question remains—can the NBA bounce back, or should Silver take a page from David Stern’s visionary playbook?