Cleveland Cavaliers’ James Jones: Schedule Length, Not Game Length, The Issue
By Phil Watson
Cleveland Cavaliers guard James Jones, also the secretary-treasurer of the National Basketball Players Association, said that NBA players don’t care about shorter games.
They just want fewer of them.
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Jones told the
that the players’ union would likely fight any attempt to shorten games in the wake of Sunday’s experimental preseason game between the Boston Celtics and Brooklyn Nets.
The game was played with 11-minute quarters instead of the standard 12 and three of the mandatory timeouts—one in the second period and two in the fourth—were omitted.
And while the game clocked in at a bit less than two hours, Jones says the concern the union would have is that the players impacted by shorter games would not be the guys on the upper-end of the salary scale.
Rather, it is the role players and reserves who would find it more difficult to earn a living.
"“The structure of the games, the amounts of minutes that are played are working condition issues for us because it limits how much time our guys actually have to work,” Jones said. “It’s a major concern for us because there is an attempt, or at least an examination, to see whether or not you limit the minutes of the games. And that has a direct impact on players’ opportunities to work and provide for themselves.”"
He’s not wrong.
For those players who average 15 or so minutes a game, four fewer minutes per night would be a big drain on their playing time, and as such, their value.
Four minutes per game doesn’t sound like a lot, but if you were to spread that out over the course of a season, it’s 328 minutes.
A player who averages 15 minutes per game plays 1,230 minutes—give or take—in a season. Subtract that 328 and suddenly we’re talking about a guy who plays less than 1,000 minutes.
It’s going to be hard for a guy like that to justify anything above the minimum salary for his time in the league.
"“If there’s 44 minutes in a game and teams decide to play their starters the same exact way, you limit four minutes a game from a reserve,” Jones said. “I think anytime you start talking about shortening games, extending games, there has to be a thorough conversation between the league and the players.“Limiting minutes has a bigger impact on reserve players.”"
Since there are twice as many reserves in the players’ union than there are starters—based on 15-man rosters and the whole five-players-on-the-floor thing—the players would have the numbers to pick a fight with the NBA over that issue.
Fewer Games, Smaller Paychecks?
That brought Jones to the elephant in the room—the on-going debate over whether an 82-game season constitutes too many games.
It is a position taken recently by stars such as LeBron James and Dirk Nowitzki and supported by Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra.
The arguments most often raised by those in favor of reducing the number of games played in a season is that the risk of injury would be reduced and the quality of play would elevate.
Charlotte Hornets owner Michael Jordan countered those arguments that any reduction in the schedule would have to be accompanied by a reduction in pay.
That’s an argument that Jones addressed—to a degree.
"“I think either way you slice it, there’s an argument on both sides, but realistically this is an issue that won’t be resolved in the media. This is an issue that can’t be resolved with one side just dictating what they think is best for our game.”"
The thinking most often cited regarding the schedule-reduction involves how much revenue would be lost by teams having fewer games for gate revenue, but realistically that is just a small piece of the pie.
The bigger hit would come from television. The NBA just agreed to a nine-year, $24 billion (yes, with a “B”) deal that takes effect in 2016.
Since the schedule length seen most often in the debate is 66 games, we’ll use that for an example.
Shortening the season by 66 games would reduce the inventory the NBA can offer the networks in a season from 1,230 games (82 games multiplied by 30 teams then divided by two since, you know, it takes two teams to tango) to 990 games.
That is a 19.5 percent decrease in the number of games that can be sold to the various networks.
That would make a $24 billion television contract into a $19.32 billion one—still a hefty chunk of change, but a significantly smaller chunk than originally negotiated.
Someone is going to have to eat that $4.68 billion that won’t be coming into the league and if we know the owners, they are not going to blithely eat it all themselves.
No, they will want the players to grab a fork, too.
The Timing
The new television deal takes effect in 2016-17. Either side can opt out of the current collective bargaining agreement before the 2017-18 season.
Call me crazy, but I just have a hunch that the schedule length and which side will hold the fiduciary responsibility for it being reduced will be the key issue the next time the CBA is opened for discussion.