Brad Stevens has always been on record as a progressive basketball coach. With an appreciation for advanced analytics and statistics, the second-year head coach of the Boston Celtics is in favor of improving the game.
But this new development in improving the flow of games has fans scratching and/or shaking their heads.
Get ready folks, the NBA could be close to implementing fairly drastic changes to the length of quarters to improve the overall flow of the games going forward.
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In a statement released on Tuesday, the NBA announced it will be using the Oct. 19 Boston Celtics-Brooklyn Nets preseason game as a test run for a proposed 44-minute game format. This would imply quarters would be shortened to 11 minutes.
In my opinion, an equally important piece of this test is the reduction of mandatory timeouts. As it stands, there are three mandatory stoppages in gameplay in the second and fourth quarters. This test format will feature just two mandatory timeouts in said quarters.
The game may be four minutes shorter, and people will undoubtedly make complaints about that fact. You don’t often hear anyone complaining that NBA games are too long. It’s that timeouts and free throws ruin the flow of a game, consequently losing the attention of a casual fan.
But two fewer timeouts is something that anyone can get behind, especially that fourth-quarter buzzkiller. I’ll paint a quick picture and you’ll know the feeling.
It’s a tie game with less than a minute to play. The clock is running, you’re on the edge of your seat as the point guard dribbles the ball over half court, looking to set up the offense — and the coach calls a timeout.
You get a slow-motion replay of the game-tying score, probably a shot of the scorer pretending to holster two smoking revolvers, and then a car commercial.
Sure, Russell Westbrook looks cool doing that holster thing. But I would rather be watching the final minute of the game unfold than an ad for a car company’s year-end clearance event.
One fewer timeout in the fourth quarter sounds like the more important piece of this whole deal to me.
As Bleacher Report’s R. Cory Smith points out, shortened game times would effectively reduce the overall wear and tear on the average NBA player’s body. That is, of course, if coaches choose to reduce their player’s minutes in relation to the reduced quarter length.
Jeff Green averaged 34.2 minutes per game last season for the Boston Celtics. He logged more than 40 minutes in 11 games. The 34.2 minutes per game equates to roughly 70 percent of the full 48-minute basketball game.
So if this plan goes through, the questions arise; will coaches look to translate that percentage to the 44-minute format? Will the Boston Celtics starters like Jeff Green drop down to 30 minutes per game, or even less?
That sounds good for the longevity of player’s careers, but what about fans paying $80 for a ticket? Is this new format potentially robbing them of the best experience possible?
What happens to statistics if this goes through? Will guys like LeBron, Durant, Rose be playing 36-38 minute games as if nothing changed? Or will their coaches jump at the chance to cut down on their court time?
Will role players lose their value? Four minutes cut from each game may not sound like a lot to the starters, but what about guys who pitch in 10 minutes per game as their assigned job?
I fully understand this is strictly a test run. But let’s say it continues past the Celtics-Nets game. Say they get decent empirical evidence that this plan benefits the NBA and its fans. Four minutes less per game. As many have pointed out already, that’s seven entire games that the team is responsible for.
It should be interesting to see the box score after the Oct. 19 meeting where the Boston Celtics will play 44 minutes of basketball. You might see one, maybe two guys hit 30 minutes. It may speed up the game by four measly minutes, but I’ll be interested to see how it affects the flow of the game, and I’ll be checking in for reactions afterwards.