To add to what you quoted from the same article:
"Ratings are only a fraction of the NBA's audience
Armchair TV ratings experts often cast aside the nuances of an inherently flawed metric that is increasingly under fire (i.e., the exclusion of regional network simulcasts, and Nielsen only began including out-of-home viewership — an expected double-digit numbers increase — in October, when sports bars were mired in a pandemic), they also ignore the fact that TV ratings account for a fraction of the NBA's media consumption.
The NBA reaches a billion people in more than 215 countries across the world, and roughly three quarters of its viewers are outside the U.S., boosted by the popularity of Antetokounmpo, Embiid, Nikola Jokic, Luka Doncic, four of the top six vote-getters in the MVP race. Global viewers on League Pass for the playoffs are up 18% from last year and 24% from 2019, per the NBA. None of them are included in Nielsen ratings.
Neither is the majority of the NBA's 56 million Instagram followers, an audience that generated 6.55 billion views and counts about twice the following of the NFL, NHL and MLB combined. The league is approaching 9 billion lifetime views on YouTube — again, almost as many as the three other major American sports leagues combined. Nearly 70% of the NBA's social media followers are outside the U.S."
It's interesting that the NBA's ratings are such a hot topic among a certain group of people. It's almost as though they have a vested interest in NBA ratings going in a certain direction.