I’m really sick of two things concerning the NBA right now.
First, after watching Charles Barkley go on Conan and listen to him talk about how he enjoys waxing certain parts of his body, he should be banned from all television stations for an indefinite period of time – or at least until he learns how to pronounce “terrible” properly.
Second – and this is the more important issue – is how boring the league’s games are right now. Coaches for teams in solid playoff positions are resting their star players in anticipation of a lengthy championship run, while coaches of the bottom-feeders are resting their bigger guns to “give the youngsters more game experience” (which really means management is not-so-secretly trying to tank it so they can have higher draft position come the summertime). For any serious NBA fan, it’s a perfect time to be distracted by other, more compelling subsections of the sports world. Louisville versus Michigan for the NCAA Men’s Basketball title should be exciting, close playoff races in the NHL has made this week’s slate of upcoming games crucial to many teams – plus, maybe Lindsay Vonn will beat up Tiger with a 9-iron if he fails to win at Augusta this coming weekend.
On the Internet, where casual observers and serious pundits alike have gathered together to express their dismay at these ghost flight tactics employed by certain coaches and general managers, the alienation is heard loud and clear. Even David Stern’s rather toothless attempt to shovel some public ridicule on top of Gregg Popovich when he showed up with his B-Side team to play the Heat in Miami this past November has done nothing to quell the need for change. It’s a topic that rears its ugly head every year at around this time, when the dog days of the season are inescapably upon us, but fortunately for the league and soon-to-be-new-commissioner Adam Silver, the solution is simple: reduce the amount of games each team plays.
Naturally, the NBA might shrink away from this proposal, as it will likely stagnate ticket sales and other related team revenues. However, think of the positives that playing 70 or 72 games instead of 82 would have on the league and its key personnel. Games would matter more in the standings, with good teams having less room to coast to the finish line and bad teams less of a chance to see how far they can fall. Also, playing one less game every two weeks would probably do a world of good for the players, giving them more time to heal and ultimately allowing them to put a better product on the floor for the fans, who then might actually pay to go and see the Hornets or Bobcats on a more regular basis. As a avid hoops junkie, I can safely say that nothing brings NBA enthusiasts to the gates more than an exciting on-the-floor product, superstar presence or not.
While they’re at it, the NBA should consider a radical restructuring of the playoff format, which has also become a huge reason for this April inertia. The divide between the good and the bad in each conference gets more disparate with each passing season – and I’m not even going to start with East versus West power dynamic – I’m sure we’ve all suffered enough. All that being said, I liked what George Karl had to say recently regarding a rejigged playoff format, which would pit the top sixteen teams in the league, regardless of their regular season conference, in an NCAA-style seeding process where the No. 1 overall team would play against the No. 16 team, and so on. After each round, the process would repeat itself in order to reward those with the better records. No more sub-500 teams making it into the playoffs; it would truly be an accurate representation of who should be there in the first place. Only time will tell if such measures will be taken to improve the league, but something definitely needs to be done and fast.
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