I wrote this a few years ago and after watching the Sixers-Knicks game this past Friday night, which was the most exciting regular season NBA game that I have seen in a while, it makes it worth mentioning again.

---

The NBA regular season has become very boring from a fans perspective and if the NBA doesn’t get their head out of their global game, they are going to continually lose fans in this country. The NBA was “Fan-Tastic” throughout the 80′s and 90′s and became the national pastime at a point during the 90′s but has slowly deteriorated in the 2000′s and is not only way behind football but is slowly falling behind baseball again in terms of popularity.  The main reason for this decline is the lack of true star players like Larry, Magic and Michael who have cross over appeal into the mainstream.  Another reason is expansion but not exactly in the terms of expansion that you would think.  I have no problem with the amount of teams in the league because the globalization of the game has brought in more talented players from other countries that has helped counterbalance expansion in terms of the amount of teams in the league.  The quality of the player is probably as more athletic and entertaining than ever, however the sizzle has been lost from the regular season and it is simply due to the scheduling as a result of expansion.

Some people mention that the season is too long which takes a toll on the players and devalues the product. I feel they have a valid point with an 82 game regular season followed by what could be as many as 28 playoff games.  Others mention that the NBA is the only regular season where you can pick 13 of 16 playoff teams prior to the season, seed them, and come close to being right every year. Leaving the only intrigue as to who will be getting the 7 and 8 spots in each conference. This results in not so thrilling Basketball until we get to the last few weeks of April.

It has become so bad that Steve Nash publicly stated that for the Suns to get to over the hump to the NBA Finals they have to take it easier in the early part of the season. The Spurs have already started playing their starting players 30 minutes a game and playing a deeper rotation early in the season to save their players for later in the season. Only two players on the Spurs average over 30 minutes per game; Tony Parker who averages 34.9 and Tim Duncan who averages 33.0. This ranks them 48th and 73rd in the league in minutes played. As a fan paying a decent price for tickets, I would feel cheated paying to see the defending champs and watching their stars playing less than 3/4 of a game. This would be the equivalent of going to a Baseball game to see A-Rod taken out after the 6^th inning of every game.

In essence, I don’t believe there is a need to decrease the amount of games being played in a season.  We all know that will never happen anyway as there is just too much money involved with more games being played in a season.  What needs to happen to improve the product is to cut down on the travel time.  Travel takes more of a toll on the NBA product than anything else.  It’s a physically taxing game already and mixing in 3-4 plane rides a week does not help any.

The schedule needs to be changed which will drastically improve the quality of the product.  This is something that the owners should love also as it will cut down on travel expenses and even increase attendance, TV ratings, etc.

Right now the NBA consists of an even 30 teams in 6 divisions with 5 teams per division.  This makes it very manageable to come up with a fairly balanced schedule:

• Play every team in your division 8 times. (4 teams, 32 games)
• Play every team in your conference 3 times. (10 teams, 30 games)
• Play every team in the other conference 1 time.  (15 teams, 15 games)

This accounts for 77 games so far in the season.

• Make the remaining 5 games wild card games based on the standing finishes from the year before.  The first place finisher from one division would play the division champs from the other 5 divisions, second place finishers play the second place finishers from the other 5 divisions, etc.

So there is your 82 games.  The benefit of this scheduling will help the entire NBA product. By playing more divisional games, you rebuild the classic rivalries and also help foster new rivalries in the NBA.  Right now, there are absolutely no team rivalries that are riveting must see TV in the NBA a la Yankees-Red Sox, Ohio St.-Michigan football, Duke-North Carolina basketball or practically any NFC East division rivalry in the NFL, along with other classics like Bears-Packers.  Right now in the NBA, it’s a total travesty that the Sixers, Celtics and Knicks play each other as many times as they play the Atlanta Hawks or the Milwaukee Bucks, and just 1 or 2 more times per year than the Portland Trailblazers or the Minnesota Timberwolves.  Changing the schedule will help attendance greatly, as not only you build familiar rivalries, but the divisions are so perfectly aligned right now geographically, that you would get opposing fans able to travel more often and get to see their teams in visiting arenas.

The only thing you lose in this scheduling is no guarantee that a team like the Lakers will visit an Eastern Conference team in a given year, however, by visiting every other year it will create even more buzz in that city which can also improve attendance.   The extra 5 wild card games will give the NBA 15-30 more marquee games to market during the year, so if the Celtics and Lakers win their divisions, you still get to see them twice per year, along with all of the divisional rivalries they could market.  This could also help balance the power in the league as the teams that are constantly in the lottery every year get to play each other a few extra times where they have a shot to pick up more wins.

Furthermore, cutting down on travel time will allow players and teams more time to practice during the season to improve their game and decrease the travel costs for ownership.

It’s time to do something about the NBA Regular Season and this seems to me the easiest way to get it done.

To discuss this article, please visit the forum