NBA: Should the Association Shorten the Season?
The 2014 NBA preseason could become historic in its nature. When the Boston Celtics play the Brooklyn Nets on Sunday, October 19, the game will be 44 minutes in length—four minutes shorter than the normal 48.
This is an experiment by the league, which is considering shortening the length of NBA games.
Tim MacMahon and Dave McMenamin of ESPN report that former MVPs Dirk Nowitzki of the Dallas Mavericks and LeBron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers believe the league is targeting the wrong number. It’s not the minutes that need to decrease.
According to James and Nowitzki, the season should feature less games.
"“I think you don’t need 82 games to determine the best eight in each conference,” Nowitzki said Wednesday. “That could be done a lot quicker, but I always understand that it’s about money, and every missed game means missed money for both parties, for the league, for the owners, for the players. I understand all that, and that’s why I don’t think it’s going to change anytime soon.”"
James chimed in with a similar stance:
"“No. It’s not the minutes, it’s the games,” James said. “The minutes doesn’t mean anything. We can play 50-minute games if we had to. It’s just the games. We all as players think it’s too many games. In our season, 82 games is a lot. But it’s not the minutes. Taking away minutes from the game is not going to shorten the game at all.“Once you go out and play on the floor, it don’t matter if you play 22 minutes — like I may be playing tonight — or you’re playing 40 minutes,” James added. “Once you play, it takes a toll on your body. So it’s not lessening the minutes, I think it’s the games.”"
Both the NBA and NHL currently play 82-game schedules. The NFL has 16 games in 17 weeks. MLB has 162 to round out the big four U.S. sports.
In recent years, All-NBA superstars such as Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant, Rajon Rondo, Derrick Rose, Dwyane Wade and Russell Westbrook have been subject to severe injuries. This string of injuries to some of the game’s biggest stars has spawned talk of the schedule being too taxing on the body.
The question is, should the league shorten the regular season to 82 games? Or is there another route to follow?
The Value of an 82-Game Schedule
In the preliminary quote, Dirk Nowitzki made an interesting point: it doesn’t take 82 games to decide which teams are the best eight in each conference.
Here’s the irony: in 2013-14, Nowitzki’s own Dallas Mavericks only edged out the Phoenix Suns by 1.0 game for the No. 8 seed in the Western Conference.
On the final day of the season, the Memphis Grizzlies beat the Mavericks 106-105 in overtime. It took a pair of Mike Conley free throws with 1.1 seconds left on the clock to determine the outcome.
That game determined which team received the No. 7 and No. 8 seeds in the Western Conference.
Thus, it took all 82 games and an overtime to determine the order of the Top 8 in the Western Conference.
In the game prior, the Grizzlies defeated the Phoenix Suns 97-91. That was game No. 81 of the regular season. Memphis’ win clinched the Western Conference’s final playoff berth and eliminated Phoenix.
On the opposite end of the country, the Atlanta Hawks beat out the New York Knicks by a 1.0-game margin for the No. 8 seed in the Eastern Conference.
This trend continues.
In 2012-13, the No. 7 seed Los Angeles Lakers and No. 8 seed Houston Rockets finished with the same record. It wasn’t until the final day of the season that Los Angeles clinched a playoff berth.
The gap between the No. 7 team in the Western Conference and the No. 10 team that season: 4.0 games.
In 2011-12, the No. 7 Mavericks and No. 8 Utah Jazz finished with the same record. The Houston Rockets were just 2.0 games back and the Phoenix Suns fell just 3.0 games short for the No. 9 and No. 10 seeds.
Since 2010-11, the end-of-the-season gap between the No. 8 and No. 9 seeds in the Western Conference has never been more than 3.0 games.
In other words, it took almost the entire season to determine the best eight teams in the West.
Financial Ramifications
The idea of shortening the season is one with merit, risk and physical reward. It’d be far less taxing on the players, but it’d also result in less revenue generated via both games and the massive renewal of the league’s television deal.
Per MacMahon and McMenamin, LeBron James sees both sides of the coin.
"“It’s something that we definitely will have to sit down and try figure out if that’s the case, that may happen,” James said. “Obviously I don’t know the numbers right off the top of my head, but that would create less revenue. We all know that without even seeing the books that less games, less concession stands and less selling of tickets and all of that.“But at the end of the day, we want to protect the prize and the prize is the players,” James said. “We have to continue to promote the game, and if guys are being injured because there are so many games, we can’t promote it at a high level.”"
He makes some excellent points. Most notably: less revenue.
Lowering the season from the current 82-game model to a 66-game model, as suggested, would have negative financial effects. That schedule would lead to teams having 33 home games instead of 41.
Less home games means less revenue for the owners. Less revenue for the owners means significantly less money for the players.
At a time in which James and the NBA Player’s Association are fighting for bigger player contracts—an appropriate fight given the present limit on max contracts—this would be counterproductive.
If the season is cut by roughly 20 percent, one can assume that the owners would attempt to make the same alterations to the players’ contracts.
Thus, it’s unlikely that this system would ever implemented.
According to ESPN, the lowest average home game attendance in 2013-14 belonged to the Milwaukee Bucks at 13,487 tickets sold. In 2011-12, a season with a 66-game schedule due to the lockout, the lowest number was the then New Jersey Nets’ 13,961, per ESPN.
17 teams sold at least 700,000 tickets during the 2013-14 regular season. In [the 66-game season of] 2011-12, only one team sold at least 700,000 tickets: the Chicago Bulls
That’s a slight increase, but not enough to make up for potential the financial loss if eight home games were suddenly cut out.
Per ESPN, 17 teams sold at least 700,000 tickets during the 2013-14 regular season. In 2011-12, only one team sold at least 700,000 tickets: the Chicago Bulls, via ESPN.
In total, 21,411,543 tickets were sold in 2013-14, per ESPN’s provided data. Via the same source, 17,656,445 tickets were sold in 2011-12.
That’s a difference of 3,755,098 tickets. You do the math.
The only way to make that number up would be to create a spike in ticket prices that would fly out of many fans’ budget. Seeing as the league’s attendance is already suffering with raised ticket prices, that isn’t a viable option.
Fortunately, there’s another route to take: restructuring the season.
Quantity or Structure?
Regardless of how many minutes are played, an NBA athlete is playing at the highest level possible. This is both physically and mentally draining, and the decreasing the length of the game by four minutes won’t do much to change that.
Truthfully, the issue is not how many games or minutes are played; it’s how often they’re played.
The key to an improved system would be spacing. Fitting 82 games into a regular season that lasts roughly six months requires playing games on consecutive days.
In turn, the question beckons: is this about the number of games being played? Or is it the way the schedules are constructed?
"“I think if there’s some way to find a way to cut out some of the back-to-backs so there aren’t 20-plus of them, I think that’s the bigger issue, not shaving off four minutes in a particular game,” Spoelstra said. “But I’m open to seeing what happens with that.”"
Nowitzki echoed Spoelstra’s sentiments.
"“Honestly, I never was a big fan of back-to-backs even when I was 20 years old,” said Nowitzki, a 36-year-old entering his 17th NBA season. “I think that you should never have to play at the highest level there is two consecutive nights and flying in between. You obviously make it work. We have the best athletes in the world, we feel, but I think it hurts the product some. Last year, some teams get here for the fourth game in five nights and we’ve been sitting here on rest and just blow them out.“I don’t think it’s good for the product, but I also understand that 82 games is where it’s at. It’s a business, and everybody’s got to live with it.”"
It’s hard to argue this point.
When a team is forced to exert a maximum effort for 48 minutes against some of the best professional athletes on the planet, it’s going to wear their body down. To ask players to suit up and play at that same level just one day later is beyond unreasonable.
Per Tom Haberstroh of ESPN Insider, teams play at a significantly lower level coming off of back-to-backs.
"According to a recent study by Jeremias Engelmann, an ESPN contributor and developer of the real plus-minus metric, back-to-backs have a measurable impact on a team’s ability to play up to its abilities.The study looked at 13 seasons’ worth of data and found that teams that play a back-to-back on the road perform 1.5 points per 100 possessions worse than if they had had a rest day in between. It might not seem like much, but a 1.5-point decrease is roughly the equivalent of playing the Dallas Mavericks compared to the Minnesota Timberwolves last season. Said another way, a day of rest equates to half the value of home-court advantage."
The fascinating study can be found by clicking this link.
According to NBA.com, league-leaders Jimmy Butler of the Chicago Bulls and Chandler Parsons, then of the Houston Rockets and now with the Dallas Mavericks, traveled 2.7 miles per game.
Portland Trail Blazers forward Nicolas Batum checked in at a league-high 216.0 total miles traveled for the season. Even league MVP Kevin Durant tallied 202.6 miles for the season.
That isn’t measuring how far a player has to go between games, but how much they move on the court. For perspective, the New York City Marathon is 26.2 miles, per the official New York City Marathon website.
Durant ran roughly eight marathons—7.73 to be exact—in his 81 appearances.
In case you’re unfamiliar, running eight marathons in under six months doesn’t happen very often. Thus, the league must weigh its options and genuinely consider a different setup.
Sticking with Durant, an appropriate thing to do considering he was voted MVP, he averaged 32.0 points per game on a remarkable slash line of .503/.391/.872. His true shooting percentage of .635 is the highest of any player in NBA history to average at least 32.0 points per contest, per Basketball-Reference.com.
Even the greatest scorer of our time suffered a dramatic decline in efficiency during back-to-back games.
Per ESPN, Durant’s field goal percentage dropped from .503 to .463 during back-to-backs. That’s still an excellent mark, but a 40 percent decline in shooting efficiency is massive.
There are other factors besides rest that go into this, and there are players who performed just as well in back-to-backs as they normally do. The reality is, players need time to rest and recover between games.
The NBA clearly knows of the negative impact that back-to-backs have on players and the overall quality of basketball being displayed. It’s why they don’t happen in the playoffs.
The same goes for head coaches who have mere hours to prepare between games.
This money-hungry approach must come to an end.
The NBA clearly knows of the negative impact that back-to-backs have on players and the overall quality of basketball being displayed. It’s why they don’t happen in the playoffs.
So why subject athletes to that in the regular season? Why care for the quality of your product in the postseason, yet ignore the risk in the regular season?
Spoiler alert: it shouldn’t happen.
Extending the length of the season—days, not games played—would be a way to eliminate back-to-backs. It’d give the league more time to promote its brand, its players more time to rest and its owners more time to make money.
Decreasing the league schedule from 82 games to 66 is unlikely, but spacing out the games is manageable, reasonable and the right thing to do for all parties involved.
As the new CBA approaches, this adjustment must be discussed.