In recent times, there has been a fiery debate going on in today’s NBA. Is the league viewership on a steady decline—and more importantly, why? HOF Shaquille O’Neal has an answer—over-reliance on 3-pointers. While NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has brushed off Shaq’s criticism, attributing any decline to temporary external factors, things took an interesting turn.

Magic Johnson, another NBA legend, recently echoed Shaq’s concerns but added his own twist, leaving Silver with even more to think about. Appearing on Speak, Magic Johnson expressed his frustrations about today’s NBA. Reason? Lack of rivalries.

“The Celtics, Lakers hate each other, disliked each other. So it made for great TV and people tuning in. And now with, I don’t know if it’s a, you, I don’t know what it is now,” he said. “Everybody’s shaking each other’s hand. Uh, everybody like each other. It won’t go at each other like really hard.”

The 5× NBA champ also took aim at the fading intensity between the Eastern and Western conferences. “Even that’s what happened to the All-Star Game. See, we hated the East, right? I’m coming to bust you,” he said.

As per Johnson, this competitive edge is exactly is reason behind NBA’s decreasing viewership. “That’s what it’s got to get back to … the number of viewerships are going down, and these guys better wake up.” That wasn’t all, though.

Magic pointed out another aspect—a heavily debated one, at that. “And also load management. The guy got to play. They got to play. You got to play. We took pride in playing 82 games,” he emphasized.

After the Lakers’ disappointing playoff run last year, he criticized it on X, “The Lakers have nobody but themselves to blame. They wouldn’t have been in the play-in game or finished as a 7th seed this season if they hadn’t lost too many games because of load management.” However, he later said it was more of injuries than load management.

The worrying numbers support Magic and Shaq’s concerns. The NBA saw a steep 42% drop in viewership for ESPN’s first dual game this season compared to last year, with a 30% dip the following day. Yet, while these legends demand urgent changes, Silver seems unfazed.

Adam silver dismisses Johnson and Shaq’s accusation

Shaquille O’Neal expressed his disappointment in an episode of The Big Podcast. According to him, the league has become predictable. “I have a theory. It’s down because we are looking at the same thing. Everybody’s running the same plays, at the damn top of the key, dribble hand off,” he said.

The ‘Big Aristotle’ even recalled a conversation with a coach who wanted his team to throw 50 three-pointers in a single game. “I think viewership will continue to go down unless we switch things back up,” he concluded.

But Adam Silver has a completely different take than Shaquille O’Neal. Speaking at the ‘Paley Center for Media’s International Council Summit,’ he said, “I don’t think it has anything to do with the 3-point shot.” Silver stated. He blamed external distractions for any decline in viewership.

The NBA Commissioner pointed to this season’s early struggles as a prime example. “This year, we were up against the World Series, Dodgers-Yankees, two very attractive teams. They brought in a big audience,” he explained. The series averaged 15.8 million viewers, while the NBA’s season launch competed for attention.

Add the buzz surrounding the presidential election, and Silver believes these outside events created tough competition for the league and in the long run it will increase.