Too many 3 pointers. The foul baiting is annoying. The stars don’t play enough. Really, LeBron James, Stephen Curry, and Kevin Durant are still the faces of the league?

Those are a small sample of the complaints levied at the NBA throughout the 2024-25 regular season. At the all-star break, national television viewership was down five percent, year over year. Haters, league insiders, Inside the NBA-ers, and more heaved criticism towards the product with great force.

Saturday, April 19 was the first day of the 2025 NBA Playoffs. The final game of the weekend featured the Golden State Warriors defeating the Houston Rockets 95-85 in Texas. Per the NBA, those first two days were the best opening weekend of the playoffs in 25 years.

While Durant and his Phoenix Suns are not in the playoffs, James and the Los Angeles Lakers and Curry and the Warriors are—and up against stiff first-round competition. However, the most-watched game of the playoff opening weekend was Eastern Conference No. 2 seed defending NBA Champion Boston Celtics against No. 7 seed Orlando Magic. Game 1 averaged nearly seven million viewers—better than Celtics vs. Indiana Pacers Game 1 of the 2024 Eastern Conference Finals.

So—what’s the cause of the sudden ratings increase? 

NBA Champions tend to draw more viewers the season after winning. The 2023 defending champion Denver Nuggets recorded the best national television viewership during the regular season according to NBA insider Ethan Strauss. The Nuggets’ Game 7 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves in the second round was Turner Sports’ most-viewed early round contest in the history of its NBA coverage.

But that was the jewel of a largely disappointing 2024 postseason.

While there are some juicy first-round matchups this time around and teams with longtime major NBA fanbases like the Knicks, Celtics, and Lakers primed to make long runs—the No. 1 seeds in the Eastern and Western Conference are the Cleveland Cavaliers and Oklahoma City Thunder respectively.

The Cavs’ 64 regular season win total in 2024-25 is the franchise’s best since James’ first MVP season, and the Thunder are tied for the fifth-most regular-season wins in NBA history with 68. Those are two of the league's smaller markets.

Maybe the league’s younger stars are finally breaking through. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is again featured in an AT&T commercial that will air  throughout the playoffs and is probably going to win the MVP. Anthony Edwards is playing like the future face of the league and is featured on The Shade Room almost as much as he is on NBA.com. Basketball nerds have been waiting for Evan Mobley to become a star and he recently was named Defensive Player of the Year.

It’s typical that injuries drain the juice out of the NBA Playoffs. Last season, Giannis Antetokounmpo did not play a single postseason game and Kawhi Leonard went down with injury after two. The Knicks weren’t even a shell of themselves by Game 7 against the Indiana Pacers whose best player—Tyrese Haliburton—limped his way through the second half of the season and the playoffs.

This year, all 16 teams entered the playoffs relatively healthy. While the first week of the postseason has already resulted in injuries across the severity spectrum to Jayson Tatum, Jimmy Butler, and Damian Lillard, the teams with eyes most closely fixated on the Larry O’Brien trophy throughout the regular season appear to still be in good shape.

The NBA is not without fault when considering the ongoing ratings issues. Inserting hockey intermissions into the All-Star Game was an airball that left a breeze felt across the globe. The second apron is going to result in wealthy players and team owners, but good rosters will be gutted regularly. Also, Game 3 of Knicks vs. Pistons was evidence that the final minutes of games often take way too long to finish. There’s a lot left to clean up.

Still, according to data, the NBA playoffs are off to a good start when it comes to audience interest. Hard to argue against the best viewership numbers since the Y2K era. And while the NFL Draft’s first round ratings outpaced last season’s NBA Finals ratings, the NBA seeing positive early playoff returns in April perhaps bodes well for the league’s continued success in May and June.