Austin Rivers Says Highlight Culture Absolutely Killed The Game Of Basketball

Austin Rivers went on a passionate rant about how the highlight culture has killed the game of basketball.

Credit: Fadeaway World

Austin Rivers has been around the game of basketball basically his whole life. Son of former player and current NBA head coach Doc Rivers, Austin has seen how the landscape of the game has changed over the years and he isn't too pleased by what he has seen.

In this social media era, players right from a young age, just want to do things for the highlight reels and the focus has shifted from doing the right things to becoming a hit on the internet. Rivers recently went on a passionate rant on how this highlight culture has ruined basketball and it is a must-watch.

"The little things in basketball are forgotten now and they're not appreciated. It's like a trickle effect even to the analytics and numbers and stuff. Certain guys don't get paid what they value in basketball. What kids think are cool. I'm gonna try to make this as sweet as possible because this really does bother me."

"I talk about this all the time. When I played in high school, you only got a mixtape if you were like a top-tier guy. Back then, you had to put in work - consistent work, build a name for yourself - to get a mixtape and it was an honor to have a BallIsLife mixtape. It was an honor to have a Hoopmixtape. We didn't play to have one though, I didn't go into a game doing something to be on Hoopmixtape. I went into the game to win and just be myself, and Hoopmixtape and them were there following me. I didn't ask Hoopmixtape to come follow me. I didn't pay Hoopmixtape a dollar. I didn't pay BallIsLife a dollar. They just followed me because I was that guy. They followed Brad Beal because he was that guy. They followed this guy because he was that guy. That's how it was."

"The landscape has changed now. Parents are paying these people to come to games. Everyone gets a mixtape, everyone looks at the camera now and taps on their head when they dunk on someone. It's all highlight after highlight after highlight and now only kids watch highlights. They don't watch the actual basketball game, the purity of the game. Making a hockey pass, which means making the right pass even though you're not going to get an assist, you're driving to make a play so someone else can make the play to get an assist. Diving on the floor, talking on defense, playing defense at all. Shooting good shots, making the game easy, being efficient with the basketball, scoring off 1 or 2 dribbles rather than 15 dribbles."

"This whole thing - and I only named like 12, there's 50 of them - has been forgotten about in basketball. And you're seeing it with some of these guys that come into the NBA and I can name you names, but I'm not going to. That come into the NBA and have all the talent in the world but they need to be taught basketball, because this is what basketball is now. Highlight culture has absolutely killed the game of basketball"

Rivers said an awful lot right there and it's hard to disagree with him. We have also had other players like Kyle Kuzma come out and speak on how this highlight culture has had a very negative impact on the game and the sad part is, that it won't go away. While the younger Rivers made some waves with this rant, the elder one made bigger ones by talking about LeBron James and Michael Jordan.

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Doc Rivers Says LeBron James Has Had A Greater Career Than Michael Jordan But MJ Is The GOAT

Rivers and his Philadelphia 76ers were on a good run heading into their game against LeBron and the Los Angeles Lakers on Sunday night. Prior to the contest, Rivers was asked about LeBron and he stated that James has had the greatest career of all time. He went on to say though that Jordan is the GOAT which is weird, considering you would assume that having the greatest career would mean you are the greatest.

Fans also reacted to Doc's comments as they were also a bit confused about what he meant here. Whatever the case may be, Doc ended up getting the win when the teams met and that's probably the only thing he really cares about.

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