2025 NBA Offseason News

[O_Gardino]

Hi gang, after a brief hiatus, I'm back and would like to resume posting on the site. Not much has happened with our Suns lately, but I've been mostly reading the posts here each day. I missed you guys!

► Show Spoiler

Welcome back. It has been really quiet around here.

Time for the countdown yet?

Definitely too soon for the countdown, but what if we started counting down to the countdown?

[O_Gardino]

No, wait.

I did the 'math' and we could in fact start the countdown. There are 54 uniform numbers worn in Suns history and only 50 days until the start of the regular season. We are too late to get al the way to Jae Crowder.

[Mori Chu]

No, wait.

I did the 'math' and we could in fact start the countdown. There are 54 uniform numbers worn in Suns history and only 50 days until the start of the regular season. We are too late to get al the way to Jae Crowder.

Let's do it! Who wants to do the honors and make the countdown thread?

[Mori Chu]

Not really sure which thread this fits in, but since its applicable to the entire NBA, I picked here.

So, I recently received an email from YouTube TV saying that they can no longer off NBA League Pass since it is now exclusive to Amazon Prime. I've generally been very pleased with my experience with YouTube TV, though I despise the 15 second skip increment (it's too long,,,make it 10 secs!). Anyway, I do not like watching sports live, preferring to start an NBA game about 1.25 hours after the broadcast starts so that I can skip commercials and dead time, which usually means I've caught up to live just after the game ends. I lot of services don't handle this well: starting to watch a recording before the broadcast has completed. NBA.com's version of league pass supports this, but it's clunky (as is the whole NBA app version of league pass). IIRC, you have to start the stream live and then back up to the beginning, which means I could inadvertently see the mid-game score.

My point here is that I'm concerned about Amazon's ability to provide the same functionality that traditional NBA League Pass providers provided. I generally do not watch Thursday Night Football, so I'm not sure how Prime has handled delayed streaming of live broadcasts, if it even does. Is anyone else concerned about this or have any insight?

I find that the Amazon Prime Video player works pretty well for me, but I have not tried watching live or nearly-live sports on it. So I can't speak to the way it'll behave. I assume they'll leverage their existing Amazon player tech so I suspect it will work better than NBA.com's questionable tech stack.

[Superbone]

Not really sure which thread this fits in, but since its applicable to the entire NBA, I picked here.

So, I recently received an email from YouTube TV saying that they can no longer off NBA League Pass since it is now exclusive to Amazon Prime. I've generally been very pleased with my experience with YouTube TV, though I despise the 15 second skip increment (it's too long,,,make it 10 secs!). Anyway, I do not like watching sports live, preferring to start an NBA game about 1.25 hours after the broadcast starts so that I can skip commercials and dead time, which usually means I've caught up to live just after the game ends. I lot of services don't handle this well: starting to watch a recording before the broadcast has completed. NBA.com's version of league pass supports this, but it's clunky (as is the whole NBA app version of league pass). IIRC, you have to start the stream live and then back up to the beginning, which means I could inadvertently see the mid-game score.

My point here is that I'm concerned about Amazon's ability to provide the same functionality that traditional NBA League Pass providers provided. I generally do not watch Thursday Night Football, so I'm not sure how Prime has handled delayed streaming of live broadcasts, if it even does. Is anyone else concerned about this or have any insight?

I have YouTube TV now but I've never had LP integrated. But I did get a free subscription to LP for much of last season. And previous to that, I had LP for many, many years. I think worst case, you can still use the NBA app to watch LP. I've used that over the last few years and you can turn off scores and I have been able to start games from the beginning after they've started. It wasn't the easiest to navigate though when skipping commercials but at least I could watch games on it. Who knows what kind of navigation Prime will deliver but I would think it would be the same as what they have now. I haven't watched a Prime show for a bit but don't recall having navigation issues.

[Superbone]

Not really sure which thread this fits in, but since its applicable to the entire NBA, I picked here.

So, I recently received an email from YouTube TV saying that they can no longer off NBA League Pass since it is now exclusive to Amazon Prime. I've generally been very pleased with my experience with YouTube TV, though I despise the 15 second skip increment (it's too long,,,make it 10 secs!). Anyway, I do not like watching sports live, preferring to start an NBA game about 1.25 hours after the broadcast starts so that I can skip commercials and dead time, which usually means I've caught up to live just after the game ends. I lot of services don't handle this well: starting to watch a recording before the broadcast has completed. NBA.com's version of league pass supports this, but it's clunky (as is the whole NBA app version of league pass). IIRC, you have to start the stream live and then back up to the beginning, which means I could inadvertently see the mid-game score.

My point here is that I'm concerned about Amazon's ability to provide the same functionality that traditional NBA League Pass providers provided. I generally do not watch Thursday Night Football, so I'm not sure how Prime has handled delayed streaming of live broadcasts, if it even does. Is anyone else concerned about this or have any insight?

I find that the Amazon Prime Video player works pretty well for me, but I have not tried watching live or nearly-live sports on it. So I can't speak to the way it'll behave. I assume they'll leverage their existing Amazon player tech so I suspect it will work better than NBA.com's questionable tech stack.

And Marty says what I tried to say much more succinctly.

[Carno]

So, I recently received an email from YouTube TV saying that they can no longer off NBA League Pass since it is now exclusive to Amazon Prime...

I have YouTube TV now but I've never had LP integrated. But I did get a free subscription to LP for much of last season. And previous to that, I had LP for many, many years. I think worst case, you can still use the NBA app to watch LP. I've used that over the last few years and you can turn off scores and I have been able to start games from the beginning after they've started. It wasn't the easiest to navigate though when skipping commercials but at least I could watch games on it. Who knows what kind of navigation Prime will deliver but I would think it would be the same as what they have now. I haven't watched a Prime show for a bit but don't recall having navigation issues.

From what I've read, Amazon is taking over the NBA app. The current version was developed by Turner, who basically was in charge of LP, NBA TV, NBA app, but they lost all of that when Amazon outbid them. The apps were not good, at least as compared to mainstream streaming apps like Netflix, Prime Video, etc., or even just run of the mill DVRs. My expectation (and probably the NBA's) is that Amazon can do it better than Turner. But, I'm still concerned that they won't support my use case very well. So, yes, while as I understand it, you can purchase and watch LP through either NBA.com or through Prime Video, Amazon will be doing both. I guess I will have to wait until the season starts to get a trial and see what it looks like.

[Superbone]

So, I recently received an email from YouTube TV saying that they can no longer off NBA League Pass since it is now exclusive to Amazon Prime...

I have YouTube TV now but I've never had LP integrated. But I did get a free subscription to LP for much of last season. And previous to that, I had LP for many, many years. I think worst case, you can still use the NBA app to watch LP. I've used that over the last few years and you can turn off scores and I have been able to start games from the beginning after they've started. It wasn't the easiest to navigate though when skipping commercials but at least I could watch games on it. Who knows what kind of navigation Prime will deliver but I would think it would be the same as what they have now. I haven't watched a Prime show for a bit but don't recall having navigation issues.

From what I've read, Amazon is taking over the NBA app. The current version was developed by Turner, who basically was in charge of LP, NBA TV, NBA app, but they lost all of that when Amazon outbid them. The apps were not good, at least as compared to mainstream streaming apps like Netflix, Prime Video, etc., or even just run of the mill DVRs. My expectation (and probably the NBA's) is that Amazon can do it better than Turner. But, I'm still concerned that they won't support my use case very well. So, yes, while as I understand it, you can purchase and watch LP through either NBA.com or through Prime Video, Amazon will be doing both. I guess I will have to wait until the season starts to get a trial and see what it looks like.

I mean, to me that is a must use case. I do the same and I'm sure many others do as well. Like you said, we'll just have to wait and see but I suspect it will be better than in the past due to the reasons you mentioned.

[ShelC]

Could be a big story here

[Gladiator]

That looks very dodgy. On face value, should be consequences for Kawhi and the Clippers

[virtual9mm]

Could be a big story here

Ooof. The league would have to impose truly unprecedented penalties if this were true. If simple tampering led to lost first round draft picks...

[O_Gardino]

Consequences? In this economy?!

[ShelC]

If Silver had balls he'd hit Ballmer with a $500m fine, take four 1sts from the Clippers and suspend Kawhi for 2 years. But he's more concerned with the league's image so it'll be a $25k fine, two 2nds and 15 games for Kawhi.

[ShelC]

[Mori Chu]

Wow, big news day today. Streameast shutting down? I know it was illegal, but it was a nice resource to have; I pay for NBALP, but sometimes for whatever reason I couldn't get into my account or couldn't get the game up on my screen. Or sometimes they'd have the game but only weird shitty camera angles, like a closeup of Booker, but not the standard zoomed-out side cam that everybody wants and expects (why?!?). So I'd open the game on Streameast and watch it there. I didn't feel bad about it because I was a paying NBALP and Cable TV customer. I'm sad they'll be gone, but understandable that their days were numbered, given the massive amount of piracy they were providing.

[Mori Chu]

Consequences? In this economy?!

They already have to have Bradley Beal. How much more can they suffer?

[Superbone]

Our favorite investigative reporter, Baxter Holmes, weighs in.

Report: Clippers skirted NBA salary cap with Kawhi Leonard payment
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/461 ... rd-payment

[Superbone]

Who is Uncle Dennis? What to know about Kawhi Leonard's adviser Dennis Robertson and his 2019 NBA investigation

https://sports.yahoo.com/nba/article/wh ... 39205.html