NBA Released Their Top 10 Most Viewed Players & Top 5 Most Viewed Plays on Social Media, You'll Never Guess Who's Top of The List!
NBA - The Los Angeles Lakers’ LeBron James (3.23B views), Golden State Warriors’ Stephen Curry (2.56B views) and the Lakers’ Luka Dončić (1.82B views) lead the list of the most-viewed players on NBA social and digital platforms during the regular season.
The San Antonio Spurs’ Victor Wembanyama (1.47B views) and Denver Nuggets’ Nikola Jokić (1.20B views) rounded out the top five. The Memphis Grizzlies’ Ja Morant (1.09B views) and Oklahoma City Thunder’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (1.06B views) also received over a billion views each.
Naturally, the NBA isn't entirely clear on how they're calculating these numbers, but it appears their "most viewed NBA players on social media" rankings are simply calculating the number of total views posts featuring a given player received on their official NBA social accounts. Which means these numbers are a bit misleading. If half of @NBA's tweets & Instagram posts are about LeBron James, then of course LeBron James is going to have the most views. If the NBA made it their initiative to shove Franz Wagner down our throats, then Frank Wagner might have cracked the top 10. It would be much more interesting, and maybe more telling to see the average number of views a post featuring a given player received. Unfortunately, this is the set of numbers we're working with.
Earlier this season, a lot was made out of the NBA's, "Who will be the next face of the league?" problem. Personally, I feel like that's more of a problem with the NBA not knowing how to market anyone other than LeBron James, Steph Curry, and Kevin Durant, and less about NBA fans not caring to watch anyone else. If it is a problem, the NBA created it themselves. They had it so easy for so long with three American-born superstars at the top of their game. Why bother marketing anyone else when LeBron James moves the needle just fine on his own? But when you spend over a decade doing just one thing, when that one thing eventually goes away... well... that's how you're left with this "problem". But in an ideal world, the face of the league shouldn't be something that's appointed. It should be something that happens organically.
During the whole "face of the NBA" debate, there was emphasis put on it needing to be American born player. So it's a bit funny how the next two most-viewed American players behind LeBron James and Steph Curry are Ja Morant, and Anthony Edwards. Both players who aren't necessarily making an effort to be the NBA's next great role-models. Ja Morant spent a full calendar year brandishing weapons (real) on Instagram, and is now following it up by brandishing a weapons (imaginary) every time he makes a basket.
Despite his best efforts to demand abortions, Anthony Edwards can't stop having children he desperately does not want. At just 23 years old, he's making a honest run at the United States record for child support payments.
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But at least Ja Morant and Anthony Edwards are compelling personalities whose style of play really pops off the screen. Then you have Jayson Tatum. On paper, Tatum should be the perfect "face of the league". Except for whatever reason, he just doesn't seem to move the needle like that for casual fans outside of Boston. I don't know if it's his face, his style of play, if he's too nice, if people have Boston sports fatigue, or what. It's not that he isn't likable. It's not that he's hatable. He's just right down the middle. He suffers from the most imbalanced talent-to-star power ratio in the NBA. Maybe it's just that he has too good of a team around him. I do tend to view this current iteration of the Boston Celtics the way I viewed the 2003-2004 Detroit Pistons. A perfectly well-rounded basketball team. But a team like that doesn't always lend itself to creating a face-of-the-league-type superstar.
Yet I'm not convinced how much American born players even matter. I don't think about about Luka Doncic's nationality when watching him play for the Lakers. Unless I'm watching him play an international basketball game for Team Slovenia, I'm not thinking about his nationality at all. Maybe a little bit when watching interviews. When there's a language barrier, it does make it harder for a player's personality to shine through. But if Jokic wanted to, he could have NBA fans eating out the palm of his enormous hand. He simply doesn't love basketball the way other's do. That's not a nationality thing. That's just a personal preference for horses. And if Victor Wembanyama stays healthy and continues to do things on a basketball court that people never thought possible, his French accent isn't going to matter in the slightest.
For the record, here were last year's numbers.
Considering LeBron James has allegedly been viewed on social media over 1 billion times more by NBA fans this season than last, I have to assume the NBA added some new social accounts this year. Or are at least doing WAY more posting. I know the league grows year after year, but all we've heard this year is how interest in the NBA is down. Or is at least not growing at the rate they would like. But I suppose with the addition of Luka Doncic, interest in the Lakers has genuinely been up since the trade deadline. I know a lot of people claim to be sick of LeBron James, but personally, I still want to see him play until he's 50. Or as long as humanly possible. Just out of curiosity, I want to see how long LeBron can truly be a valuable asset to an NBA franchise. Most players will retire once they're no longer able to perform at a certain level. But I want to see how long LeBron can give any sort of meaningful minutes to a contending NBA franchise. I have to imagine he's big enough, is a good enough shooter, and a smart enough player that even pushing 50 he could come off the bench and give a team 10 legitimately helpful minutes. If he really wants to go down as the "G.O.A.T.", that's the route he should take. That's something LeBron could hang his hat on that no other player has ever come close to doing before.
The NBA also published their top 5 most viewed plays on social media from the regular season
Every time I see those Ja Morant 360 layups, I can't help but think, "Why the hell do we hype up Michael Jordan's switching-hands layup as the most iconic layup in NBA history?"
That's not even a knock on Michael Jordan. It's just a knock on that specific layup. Michael Jordan has a whole catalog of more impressive layups than that one.
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Why did we land on THAT as the layup that will go down in history forever. Is it just because it was in the Finals? Because Magic Johnson is standing off to the side haphazardly waving an arm 90's defense style? I suppose that's it.
That's all I got. I apologize, I didn't plan on rambling for 1000+ words on the face of the NBA. I thought I'd post a couple graphics, maybe a few highlights, then get out of here. But sometimes you gotta put the sports back in Barstool Sports.