Bill Simmons on Adam Silver: “This is the most important decision of his career”
He definitely got the punchline right: whatever the NBA does under Adam Silver will be motivated by greed.
Yep if they were to shorten the season they’d try to make up for it by going to soccer style jersey ads and a whole bunch of other bullshit. And I bet it wouldn’t even make much of a difference. Guys will still find reasons to sit and guys will still get injured and the product will just have become even crappier on top of it.
How is soccer jersey sponsors worse than the shit we see in the NBA?
For European soccer the advertisement is literally front and center over the team logo, it can get much worse than a jersey patch lol
The team logo is on the chest not the front of shirt.
Ill take a shirt logo over being bombarded with 20 time outs to show ads.
American fans don’t vote with their wallets or their actual votes, so none of that will change. There’s a reason European fans don’t have races or soccer games interrupted with dozens of ads, it’s because they demand it.
Like, Americans are paying subscriptions to watch broadcasts with maximum ads showing their publicly owned and run college teams play sports. Only in America!
They only reason that the NBA jerseys aren’t full of ads already is that the owners are also fans and grew up without it. That won’t last forever.
I’m sorry but European soccer has its own massive collection of warts too. UEFA arguably clears every American sporting body in greed and corruption.
Yes, and there isn’t parity or salary caps or large stadiums, but I’d lose all of that to never see a team move again and have shorter broadcasts with less ads.
Part of college sports’ success is that you have fans going to the same place for decades. You have traditional experiences in many of these stadiums still. The seasons are shorter and for basketball, the games are shorter too.
Given Adam Silver’s track record, we’ll get both massive sponsor logos on jerseys and 20 time outs worth of ads.
This argument comes up all the time, and I’m generally always in the same camp as you. People say soccer needs ads because of the lack of timeouts and stoppages, but the opposite never seems to be true. There’s no reason tv timeouts need to exist. Give me more game action at the expense of ads on the jerseys. Getting a taste of that at the Paris Olympics reminded me of how it could be.
It isn’t it’s just different. And who would want both?
That or expansion and the fees that come with it to subsidize the initial loss of, say, 10 less games per team (So 300 less games before we add in the games from 2 or 3 expansion teams)
And i really don’t think 10 games less would change much in terms of watchability, honestly .
Yeah it would need to be more drastic but I think it’s way less likely, something like 50-60 games would be much better IMO
Ditch conferences and divisions. Every team plays one away game and one home game against every other team in the league. 58 games.
I don’t know about that. Simmons is absolutely right in one sense. The eyes of the country have finally diverted from the NFL. What’s the first story we hear? Utah Jazz are losing on purpose to keep a protected draft pick. But, don’t despair! It’s only a third of the league doing a version of this! Please tune in!
Simmons podcasted the idea of the NBA cup and a play-in tournament for the playoffs before these gimmicks actually became something. He has dedicated two episodes of this pod this week to bashing Silver over tanking and the quality of the regular season entertainment product. I am nearly certain the league listens to him and takes him seriously.
People spend hundreds of dollars to go to these games. I used to actually buy league pass. I don’t anymore because 5 teams are losing on purpose and every night some contender is “resting” stars for the playoffs. It’s insane. This league has some of the most talented athletes in the world, but everywhere you look guys/teams/franchises are refusing to compete.
Jersey ads aren’t just a soccer thing, EuroLeague has ads too
It’s interesting whats sacrilege in the states vs Europe and vice versa. Like relocation is a death sentence for teams over there, but ads on shirts is the norm and its the opposite here.
NBA started as a business, it doesn’t exist for any other means. For a lot of other leagues, they started out as a sports competition and ramped up into a business eventually.
But the NBA did not. The first dynasty of the NBA even moved to Los Angeles because they weren’t making any money in Minny.
If you look over NBA history, they make moves to make things fair for the team’s competition or greedy for the NBA/teams as a whole.
The play ins were the last thing established to improve things just for the fans, with no greed or competitive factor involved. But I’m sure you can argue it.
I think the play ins were created just to generate extra playoff games for extra revenue. Any benefit to the fans is a bonus.
The play-in definitely had competitive factor and greed. It was meant to curb the outright tanking, and to keep fringe playoff teams in the mix, to compete for a playoff spot. It also added in revenue for 4 extra games to be played in between the regular season and play-offs.
lmao this is nonsense. every league started both as a business & a sport.
& every league has plenty of relocations & teams that fold. shit, baseball went thru shit 100 years ago literally, this isnt new. this entire comment is hogwash
What I mean by that, is that some sports leagues across the world started as high level amateur competition and ramped up into professional sports like we recognise them today.
NBA started as a business endevour by a bunch of Hockey arena owners.
Compare that to like, Manchester United which started as part of a Railway company’s like internal football league. Like how many business do a Softball competition with other departments or other competing businesses. That’s what Man U started as.
Very different history compared to most sports. Comments aren’t hogwash because you’ve not understood what was said.
Baseball has a fascinating history. But much applies there too, the first baseball leagues were a post-civil war amateur competition. The NBA doesn’t have that in it’s history.
dude basketball was literally created in a gym with a peach basket & a ball that could not bounce. how is that any different than other sports? every league has to start with somethin.. the NBA wasnt the first basketball league, nor was the NFL the first football nor MLB, etc..
youre comparing the EPL to the NBA lmao of course its different. compare the nba to american leagues its all the same.
Which leagues are not making craven greed based decisions all the time? NFL and NHL are adding fans to the season despite major player safety issues.
Nothing says “Los Angeles” like buying a team with 6 trophies in the case already
The play-in increases engagement. More teams technically (but not practically) have a chance at the title. There are more high-stakes games to watch at the end of the year. The 5 and 6 seeds play harder to make sure they don’t fall into the play-in.
But those all seem ancillary to bringing in more revenue. And from a sports competition point of view, making it so 20⁄30 teams move on after the end of the regular season is kind of indefensible.
To me the play-in has made the regular-season even more irrelevant - why should I care about the 82 game regular-season when 2⁄3 of the teams are going to be involved in the playoffs/play-in anyway?
What exactly does anyone expect it will Be motivated by?
Optimally? A sense of stewardship for the sport.
Reasonably? Somewhere between greed and stewardship.
Where are we? Pure greed.
Stewardship leading decision making isn’t going to last long in any institution let alone a business.
Costco would disagree (especially when compared to Target)
Same can be said of greed without stewardship. It’s why I suggested balance as the reasonable approach. I do not think balance ie being achieved currently.
Based on what?
I think the parity of the league, top tier talent across the board, styles of play should be things we value and celebrate
Yeah, you could end almost any sentence with people in a position of power in this country with that lol.
Bro like stern didn’t do that.
The attempt by people on this sub to make Stern out to be some incredible commissioner is bizarre. Silver has been a massive upgrade in almost every way.
In fairness and I’m going to Gag a bit typing this. Adam Silver has done a good job managing all this bullshit. With the owners and players he has a very tough job. And in this multi billion dollar sports media podcast industrial complex where so many people say so much so often he’s done well.
Baffling that people still don’t understand the commissioner is just the owners meat shield. As if Silver is unilaterally calling the shots. Grow up Peter Pan
I see so many parallels with NBA successor and Disney successor. Either way, cut costs, drive revenue, make a shittier product
That’s every sports league forever
*to the detriment of the product
That’s just Capitalism my man
Like every other company?!
Love the nba or not, it’s an awful product in terms of players trying. I see people unironically give advice about “not going to a back to back” because star players won’t play. The NBA created an in season tournament to try to get the players to play for something again. They have a huge problem with tanking. They put 70% of the league in the postseason just so some teams can have a chance. And despite all of the teams in the playoffs, there have been 2 teams ever not a 1-3 seed that have won the finals. You can love basketball and still admit the NBA is a gimmicky bad product that needs fixing
The nature of the sport and the seven game series is what ensure that a higher seed almost always wins. The team that wins four times is usually the better team and that is reflected in the seed
Well said. I love the sport and some games are great, but the league is very broken and something has to change.
it’s an awful product in terms of players trying.
A lot of it has to do with the exhausting schedule and small injuries piling up too. The overuse from AAU ball and just the more athletic players these days needs some change to help them rest their bodies more.
I think more rest goes a long way because I expect my team to lose on a long set of b2b games with very little rest in between. You can kind of predict if a team will do shitty if you look at their last 4-5 games and see how much they are traveling (what time last game ended and next one starts esp on b2bs)
If I attended enough games to choose, I wouldn’t choose a back to back
Do people think the top teams shouldn’t be winning the finals?
No, my point is more that too many teams are in the playoffs and the regular season is too devalued for teams who dont have a chance to win.
They’re already fixing a lot of stuff. The new media deal actually accomplished a ton of what it ostensibly set out to do– the league got a god-tier bag and while superfans are gonna struggle to collect all the games, the average fan can now see NBA games on a variety of the platforms they already have access to. And that’s been a massive win– ratings were up 90% year over year in the first couple months of the season. That’s insane. Other stuff is going be trickier, I’m sure, but it behooves them to figure it out. I’m hopeful they will.
I don’t understand this comment.
It’s a FO/coaching decision to sit on a back to back, it’s actual effort by the teams to bench these guys, who won’t take it easy like they used to in the 80s and 90s. It has nothing to do with the “star players won’t play”.
There’s so much scrutiny and so much data and so much competition today and the players know it, which is why they have to bench the best players instead of telling them to loaf. It isn’t baseball or football, you have to do a lot in this sport, constantly, no standing around or jogging.
This season is think is worse than average for star player injuries, it makes the game attendance thing even worse. It seems like every team has had a star injured and then sat. The Haliburton thing spooked a lot of GMs I think and it making this worse.
A league where games are so meaningless that you can regularly sit your best players is flawed. A league where your best players constantly get injured is also flawed
It will be impossible to get the players to ever agree to fewer games, to the point that it’s not even worth discussing. Two-thirds of NBA players get single digit or even zero minutes. Why would a majority of the union agree to less money for less opportunities to play? It won’t happen
The nfl has 17 games. Do they make more or less money than the NBA? I’m talking revenue. The players make less because there’s quadruple the amount of players per team, and they’re brain damaged and won’t strike.
The quality of the NBA product is eroding rapidly because players have to cover basically triple the surface area within 3 pointer rates and bigs being able to shoot. You have to eliminate back to backs, and you have to shorten the season to do so. It’s pretty simple. I’d be cool with 60 games even.
Playoffs and careers are being destroyed. It’s difficult to give a shit when great players are on the sidelines so frequently, especially in the biggest moments like playoffs.
It’s not the brain damage it’s that the average nfl career lasts like 1.5 years.
Bingo
NBA players make a lot more money, but there are many fewer NBA players than NFL players and the avg is skewed anyway. The avg career is also much longer - 5 years vs 3 yrs.
They playoffs are not ‘destroyed’, they’re arguably better than ever, when we have a different champion every year and different Finalists nearly every year.
I’ve been watching this league for 30 years, and many other sports. It’s better than it’s ever been on an average Tuesday, there’s so much athleticism, shooting and social media scrutiny. Scoring is way up, there’s a ton of interesting young players.
It’s a lot easier to have a new champion every year when the top players are tearing their acls all the time.
Well, gosh, you’re not wrong. That applies to Giannis and AD and Murray at least.
Tbf this happens in the nfl too. Just this season the patriots made the Super Bowl and laid an egg primarily because their first round opponent had glaring injuries, and then their opponent in the afc championship lost their quarterback in a freak accident the final play of the game before playing them. They just skated by. I agree though we have to shorten the season or the nba isn’t going to make it long term.
That’s revenue out of the owners pockets. That’s 22 games of revenue. If every owner makes \(1 million per home game that's \)10 million already gone. The smart and most easiest way to stop injuries is expand the roster. Then have players on two ways be able to play more than 50 games. They could do more baseball series to negate wear and tear from travel. Example is stay in LA and you would play 2 games against the clippers and two games against the Lakers in conference. That’s a road with less travel and 4 games.
My problem with this logic is I don’t see many banging the drum for more games, which would be the logical conclusion if you think less games would never happen. Fans don’t want to see the guys who are currently planted on the bench. The players are also leaving money on the table by not having a 100 game regular season for example, but nobody wants that.
There are ways for everyone to make more money by playing fewer games, you just need to be ok with the opportunity cost. I might have my numbers wrong but I think the most recent TV deal is around \(7B per year. You could for example reduce games and have the next deal be \)10B per year instead of a potential $11B (making these numbers up) if you stayed at 82 games. You make more money in an absolute sense but less in a relative sense
No one cares about money per game they care about money in absolute terms.
The quality as people have mentioned is the issue, like everyone and I mean everyone with a player above 25 who is a super star goes into the season with “if he’s healthy” question marks prefacing the conversation when we talk about play offs and a final appearance. If injuries are that prevalent then the game has too many games.
It’s so impossible to even have a rational dialogue with people on this subject in this sub. The battle lines have been drawn and no one listens.
People are arguing that they want to see the players play harder. But I’ve been seeing even preseason games get some crazy intense atmosphere lately, so I’d like them to back that assertion up with something. Pace us up, every stat is up, defenses are more active and make more sustained multiple efforts to my eye. But people just repeat it until it’s considered truth.
Similar thing with the injury rates. There are some increases in injuries, but the only thing people will say is the solution is fewer games, but they never increased the number of games. They provide no evidence, and when the NBA conducted a study that didn’t find a connection between games played and injuries, they just say it’s biased because NBA = greed, without breaking down how.
We know players have played 82 game seasons with fewer injuries, more back to backs, and worse travel accommodations and equipment. We do know players push their physique much more now, weight training was barely a thing before the mid 90s in basketball because it was believed to cause injuries.
So potentially there’s something to the weight training players do now contributing, but we really want the answer to that to be more weight training and less basketball?
We know players are coming in more injured than before. So maybe more effort should be put into shutting down the absolute fuckery that is AAU? Never discussed.
We did see in the bubble that players played more games with less rest on a ridiculous ramp up schedule, and had fewer injuries. We also have started to see evidence that air travel in particular is not great for these athletes, another thing that’s changed since earlier eras where teams rode busses more often. So there’s a potential chance that’s related, but that’s never discussed.
Playing fewer games is always treated like it will increase the quality of play. Why? We can see even after like an all star break that players will look a little rusty. Are we sure playing fewer games wouldn’t result in teams being less cohesive and impressive? It certainly would decrease the opportunities coaches have to experiment with lineups. But none of that ever gets discussed.
We see devastating injuries in the first week of the year, even during the off season practices. If we decrease games, more players will play more intense practices, so more players will get hurt without even being seen by fans. Never discussed.
The only thing that is discussed is more games = greed. If you try to frame the conversation in any other way, you’re ignored. There are all these variables but there’s a sizable population that acts like there’s only one. Fewer games = better competition apparently, and questioning that gospel is not to be tolerated.
These are the same people convinced the refs are cheating, and the nba is actively encouraging the refs to do so. No consideration for how hard it is to ref. They just keep repeating, there’s no accountability, even though we know they do rate the referee on their success, and assign games accordingly. And we see how they grade them based on the two minute report, but they say that’s a scam.
They seem to think anything short of firing a ref isn’t being held accountable. But whenever we add new refs, we tend to see they are skitgly less qualified than those that have been around. And if we watch college or other lower division American basketball the refs are clearly worse, doesn’t matter.
It’s all very exasperating because the way it gets framed these conversations can literally never end unless there’s no refs and they play 12 games a year. And at the point, the nba ceased to exist, so what was the point in appeasing these people?
What they should do is expand the roster. Let every team carry 2 more players, so that when the stars go down, there’s more players available that can step in and hold down the fort for a few weeks.
This obsession with making the season shorter is so funny to me cause all I hear is how much better the nba is now than in previous eras. But I couldn’t imagine wanting to see less of prime Kobe, LeBron, KD, Curry, Duncan etc
They should just lengthen the season’s window allowing them to fit the same amount of games within a larger window letting them get rid of all road back to backs and 4-5 game weeks. They’re just scared of the NFL and MLB but given that the league is moving away from RSNs and cable and more towards digital based specialty providers like Peacock, Amazon and League Pass they should stop caring about what the other leagues are doing so much and focus on what’s best for their product.
Shorten the pre-season, add an extra month to the NBA calendar and they should be able to keep the same inventory without wearing down their players.
It’s all about the media deals they signed just last year. Streaming platforms and broadcasters bought a set number of games in a fixed window. How is the NBA supposed to change the schedule without drastically altering the deals?
They can’t right now. But would their broadcast partners be OK with them reducing the inventory available to broadcast?
It would need to be hammered out during the next big network licensing negotiations. The current status quo isn’t great between open tanking and load management making less and less games desirable.
Lowering inventory might cause broadcast and advertising partners to pay less and leave arenas with more empty dates. So while it might barely impact their deals with Disney, Amazon and NBC it would still affect everything else.
Regardless of how they handle new scheduling and season length however if they still end up doing road back to backs with a lower inventory or longer calendar window then we know the League isn’t serious about solving this problem and would have no one to blame but themselves at that point.
The current national TV deal started this season and runs until 35-36. I don’t think less games will happen any time soon. The most that might happen is less pre-season and spread it out more.
At the end of the day I have only ever heard media people and fans campaigning for less games. Every time they poll players they overwhelmingly want to keep 82. We also know owners definitely want 82, at least the majority of them. So the two groups that would have to agree both don’t want it.
Honestly can we get rid of pre season games and just start the season 2-3 weeks earlier
No they should definitely care about what the NFL is doing because they can’t compete with them at all. The NBA finals usually has less viewers that your average Thursday Night Football game
Well, we’re seeing an uptick in soft-tissue injuries that may be traceable to the increase in pace and distance covered by NBA players. The intent behind shorter seasons is to compensate for that, so stars stay healthier and in theory have less reason to sit games, which in turn should make it so fans are more likely to get their money’s worth when they buy a ticket to see their favorite team.
I think the logic is pretty clear. It’s just a matter of whether the NBA is willing to risk short-term profits for some gain that are difficult to predict/project at this point.
I don’t think this should be viewed in a vacuum. The path to the NBA is much different than it was pre-2000.
Youth athletes are getting injured at astronomical rates across the board. This includes basketball, where high school seasons are now followed by almost year-round AAU slates that sometimes consist of players playing 4 games a day. When high-level players aren’t on AAU, they’re doing specialized training where they stop/start, jump and cut for hours on end hoping they get a chance to play in college or professionally.
I would guess NBA players are coming into the league with much more wear and tear than they have historically, which probably makes Silver and the owners very uncomfortable with the idea of changing the season. Why should the NBA alone have to deal with the cost of ridiculous wear and tear on youth athletes without firm evidence that the 82 game season is the issue?
The game is completely different, everyone knows it, its not possible to play all 82 40+ minutes a game, we see players get injured more and more and its not because they are soft, the game is harder, more taxing on the body. We reached a point where we have to worry about which superstar will have season ending injuries, or which one will miss a month of 2.
There’s no correlation in this at ALL lmao
They need to make the season longer then so they can stretch out some things reducing b2b / 3 in 5 / 5 in 7. If you can get some more rest between the season it can counter the increased athleticism which wasn’t an issue in the past. You know AAU ball isn’t going anywhere, but this is one thing they can control. They’ll probably need to stretch it for 2 more teams anyway.
I don’t think it’s about wanting to see less of the players and more about the overall health of the players which I think we can agree has gone down for some reason.
I don’t know if it’s them playing AAU ball from such a young age or what but missing out on so many marquee players should be concerning.
Part of the argument is none of these guys play close to 82 games nowadays, so no shortening the season will not make you see less of them.
They are already playing a shortened season, the league just doesn’t lol
How much of kd did we see tho? If he had less games he might have won more and been on the court more? People get hurt way too much. Less games should allow stars to be available more often and seeing them ball out more often.
the easiest change imo, is just change the game from 12 min Q to 10 min Q like how FIBA, Olympics all do. Helps both the fans and the players a simple change yet effective might even help with teams getting blown out
A great suggestion.
But they would have to reduce the number of timeouts, which I struggle to see happening. For me, a live game is almost unwatchable with the amount of time taken NOT playing ball. Games start late, TV timeouts, 75 second timeout taking 3-4 minutes, 4! timeouts PER TEAM in the 4th quarter is a joke, free throws taking forever per shot, refs blowing the whistle like their paid a bonus per blow
I get what you’re saying, but I’m going to need to challenge your point. Can we run some ads while three officials look at this comment for 5 - 10 minutes?
Let them all come in and have a look then review the review
One of my good friends who dislikes basketball says this is why he feels that way. Especially with the end of games. The fouls, the free throws, the time outs. There’s obviously strategy with it, but it’s a massive turn-off for casual fans.
That is actually one of the better suggestions I’ve seen. That might make inflated stats go down a bit too, games stop ending 146-144.
With smaller shot clock resets, they still need to have a lot of possessions so yeah i agree. They can do all their ad revenue with stupid ass reviews / time outs.
How is giving fans less basketball better?
Because it’s better quality basketball
Literally why
Less wear and tear on your body over the course of a season, while still keeping the same amount of games
Are ticket prices going to be 15% off?
Won’t get as many timeouts and then less ad revenue
If anything you can argue that less time means the ad space is more valuable & charge more especially during key games & playoffs
Silver has already floated this idea, and I think he planned to cram more ads in the additional time.
Silver: “Hear me out, more ads, even less game time. Everyone wins”
Fans: “What about us?”
That is actually a very smart change. It will actually be good change as well.
If memory serves, Adam Silver mentioned this once in a press conference
The most important thing in his career already happened. It was allowing gambling with the nba. And he fucked it up
Bingo. What a shameful legacy.
Tanking has been a problem in the NBA way before online sports gambling became a thing
Personally, I don’t want less basketball. I’m fine with 82 games.
Do you want stars to play more games and play harder?
You’re never gonna have guys treating every single game like a game 7. Not unless you do something really stupid like 20 game seasons
The point isn’t that every game is a game 7, it’s that the stars play every game of the season and the product is higher quality. More time off gives them more recovery time and less back to backs. “More basketball” but bad basketball isn’t good for anyone.
I think Bill should cancel 11% of his podcasts, because the remaining podcasts will be a better product
That’s worth it even though he’ll lose 11% of his revenue
He is not risking injury and missing the season for playing back to back pods
Adam Silver in his 11 years as commissioner has made the average value of teams grow 10x its value. I am pretty sure if any lizard person exists he is one but he has been good for the health of the NBA from a valuation aspect.
Adam Silver getting props for doing the minimum. All sports team are exceeding their values, WNBA, MLB, NFL, MLS. Adam did nothing the supply to own a team is so low, people have no choice but to overpay to get a team. Even the TV deal while impressive, again MLS, UFC, MLB, even NHL all got new high deals.
Even the TV deal while impressive, again MLS, UFC, MLB, even NHL all got new high deals.
Nothing like the NBA though. Even the NFL is upset at the money the NBA received from NBC.
Under Stern, in the 30 years he was Commish. 9 different franchises won a title and the only small market champion was the Spurs. A team he openly hated.
Under Silver, in the 13 years he’s been commish. 11 different franchises have won a title, 5 of these are small market teams and he openly praises the success of the small markets too.
Adam is not doing bare minimum. Stern NBA was driven by big markets and everything else fell wayside. Under Silver, NBA is trying to equalize everything for the teams. Even implementing the pretty intense 2nd apron, which kills long term winning. So there’s no 1 team just winning all the titles/making all the Finals.
Silver led NBA is very different. But probably just not in ways you notice.
Other sports teams are not getting nearly the overpay the NBA is getting. MLB owners are about to have a lock out partially cause their values are so ass compared to the NBA and NFL.
For a direct example the wolves sold easily for 1.5 billion and glen taylor even got seller’s remorse since the team was estimated at 2.5B just a few year later. Meanwhile across the street the twins was looking to sell for that same 1.5 billion and couldn’t find a deal. MLB teams are selling at like 4.5X revenue NBA teams are at 12X the scale is completely different
Hyper inflation is very good at making assets look like they are appreciating.
In 2014 when Adam Silver took over, all NBA teams were valued at \(19.0B. Last season, 11 years later, they are valued at \)160.7B. Thats a 19.41% annualized ROI, greatly outperformed inflation, real estate investments, stock market, etc.
Short term profit at the expense of long term stability, yay capitalism!
That’s as much about the world around him as it is him. With the move away from cable and towards streaming and the way that movies and tv shows have evolved, live sports became the best thing going. I don’t want to say Silver did nothing but the NBA would have boomed whether he was there or not.
That’s the exact problem is that from a valuation aspect doesn’t equate to an improved viewership aspect. But he’s got no incentive to improve the product because numbers continue to go up
Shortening the season is the dumbest thing ever.
You’re attempting to appeal to people who want less of your product. It’s a non starter and makes no business sense.
There’s value in the fact that not every game is critically important. It’s the nature of having any sort of live event.
I disagree entirely. NFL gets by with 17 games, soccer gets by with 30-38. NBA could get by with 58(1 home and 1 away game per team), or some other number. 82 is completely absurd.
We’d have less injuries, back-to-backs shouldn’t exist. For every game you remove, the remaining games rise in importance. Players would not be in famine mode during the regular season, but would be allowed to work out to prevent injuries. Coaches could gameplan and scheme more during the regular season because they actually have time to practice, which would raise the level of play.
It would also be easier for fans to follow, 82 is just an absurd number that doesn’t fit in with modern sports, but worked in the 50s when people were jogging up and down the court.
Getting rid of 8 games isn’t going to accomplish what you mentioned. Trying to remove 20 games is a nonstarter. It’s just never going to happen.
We already get less product. 1⁄3 of the league is tanking and the other 2⁄3 of the league has guys sitting out 1⁄3 of their games.
I like watching basketball. I get that these people want the season to be shortened because they don’t enjoy the shit anymore and they just hatewatch because they’re parasites, extracting their living off of the sport, but I like it and I don’t like the idea of there being less of it
How does this affect LeBron’s legacy?
No, unironically. Is the season being shortened good for his legacy because it guarantees that nobody will ever sniff the scoring record? Or is it bad for his legacy because people will stop caring about the scoring record when it becomes functionally impossible to reach?
I lean toward bad, honestly.
If they shortened the season we’d just have B.C and A.D in terms of longevity records. We’ll still be able to compare them in terms of PPG/PP36min and things like that.
It means Bronny’s got a shot and Bron is going to go full Lavar after he retires to make sure it happens: Big Bronny Brand. YouTube series. Force his other son to drop out and play in North Korea.
What’s more important for the league? Putting all of their records out of reach or putting a watchable product on the floor?
As everything in life, capitalism destroys. Sooner than later.
Have fun watching 5% of meaningful basketball.
You clearly never grew up in a Communist country.
This has nothing to do with capitalism though.
What major American sports league has reduced the number of games in a season on a permanent basis? I honestly am not sure that’s ever happened and I doubt it will happen here.
Also reducing games does not mean the league will get healthier. Injuries are going happen if you play 40 games or 82 games. Players were already injured during the offseason workouts.
God this discourse is so insufferable.
Everybody is so far up their own asses with ways to “fix” the nba. On the other hand, a ton of us still really enjoy it.
Is it really so hard to step away instead of consuming things you don’t enjoy? For me, it was the NFL and WWE over the last 10-15 or so years. My interest dwindled, I stepped away. I’m not in r/nfl or r/SquaredCircle or my own podcast screaming how everything sucks and that my way is the fix.
We’re gonna get some half baked ‘solution’ that doesn’t even begin to address the make believe problems that almost certainly fucks mid/small markets.
I hope they don’t do anything. Maybe tweak the lottery at most but I don’t see a reason to punish small market teams so extensively for racing to bottom for a chance at draft leverage.
Most of these people complaining aren’t watching Jazz games nor going to Salt Lake City on vacation lol.
I’ve been saying expansion is bad for the league and there’s not enough talent yet get downvoted. I don’t like BS like that but everything he said was right
You could argue that every time they’ve expanded.
Look at the last team expanded, they’ve yet to really have any talent but Kemba play for them. Showcasing that maybe there really isn’t enough good players to go around.
They’ve been screwed in the lottery so many times. Imagine if they ended up with Dwight Howard instead of Okafor. Or AD instead of MKG. Or Wemby instead of Miller.
I’m willing to hear that argument. I just want the Sonics back and I hate when teams move. Not at all excited about a Vegas franchise though.
Why would shortening the season benefit us? Do we really think that 10 less regular season games will lower injuries that much?
Wonder why nobody ever brings this up with baseball who’s season is no doubt about it way to long? Again, I’m completely against shortening the NBA season. I love watching every one of my teams games and these guys trying to shorten the season can go to hell.
They keep saying this
Tanking is fine. The length of games is fine. The length of the season is fine. Expansion is fine.
Stop bitching
I mean is it? Meaningful amount of injuries and rest to the best players and the season through January into ASB is a bit of disaster because of it.
Would it be a disaster if the season shortened 10 games? I definitely think the Regular Season on court product would be better for it.
At the moment people largely know the teams in the Playoffs and that really the Playoffs that are the only thing that count.
Guys use to play 40+ minutes per game. Look at iverson’s prime he was playing 44mpg. Shai is playing 33mpg.
No need to make the games shorter.
Less than 82 games starts fucking with records.
Tanking is just a natural reality of the sport and by far the best chance of landing a franchise talent for most teams.
Sarcasm?
No I legit don’t think any of that is a problem. 82 games. 48 minutes. Bring back the Sonics. And when you do, I’m 100% on board with a few seasons of tanking to optimize the chance of landing a franchise talent.
If you want to shorten the season then either you have to slightly reduce players salaries or you need to increase ticket prices to make up for the lost revenue
And even the latter idea probably wouldn’t work because now media companies would be paying the same amount for fewer games which they wouldn’t like
72 games means they could eliminate back-to-backs, so older stars wouldn’t be taking off games to rest, which really sucks for the folks who can only afford 1 game a year, and wait till Curry or LeBron or whoever comes to town - and they sit. There’d be less wear and tear on players bodies and so less injuries. By the time the playoffs arrive, everyone is beat up and an injury waiting to happen. There’d be less travel and more time to rest, or practice. No more scheduled losses, as every game would become a little more important, and no more 5 games in 8 days nonsense. It would improve the product in every way. Number one rule of show business - leave them wanting more!
This is all just theoretical overly optimistic bias. Tons of injuries happen in the first few months of the season as well when there haven’t been that many games played. It’s an unfortunate part of every single sport and can happen at any time.
Older players will find another excuse to sit games, then yall will say even less games.
I will never understand how people want less basketball. Do yall even enjoy the sport?
He already made the most important decision. That was partnering with gambling organizations. He ruined the sport. The rest is just damage control.
You can either have a high volume low margin business model or you have a low volume high margin business model. You cannot have both.
The NBA has chosen the high volume low margin business model. That means not every game will be compelling and entertaining but you get ton of them with one every other day.
If you want the games to be more compelling then you are going to have to reduce the volume of games.
I’m a big advocate of averaging about one game every three days rather than every two days. It gives teams an actual practice day before games and will drastically improve the quality of play not to mention allow stars to play a higher percentage of games.
That requires going down to about 60 games a season. I think ratings per game will go up so I’m not even sure that the league would lose much money in the long term. But it might lose money in the short term and that’s why I don’t think they’ll ever do it.
Pay players per game, with some kind of exceptions for LTIR and sitting with verified injuries. Healthy players won’t sit quietly while there’s money on the table.
Bill giving a shortsighted opinion. The league is a business with a socialist construct. As the league moves towards parity depth becomes more important than star power over the regular season. Meaning Front Officers and Coaches become more important towards development.
Teams will start carving out their own play-styles more and teams will have more identity than just the star player. The league is in a place it has never been before and will continue to grow despite the naysayers who can’t move forward with the league.
They’re not going to shorten the season. If anything, they’ll add more games and space the games out more. Maybe eliminate back to backs. But shortening the season is a ludicrous suggestion because of money.
Adam Silver: “I want more money for less games.”
Media rights holders: “LOL fuck you”
Adam Silver is the Ben Simmons of the NBA.
I’d like to see them cut like half the preseason and also cut down from 82 to 76 - 74ish regular season games or so, but only if that allows them to completely eliminate back to back games from the 2nd half of the season.
Then keep the end of season awards requirement right about where it is now at 65 - 62 games.
I’m okay with the 82 game season. Plus 10 less games is not gonna make injuries suddenly disappear from the sport.
Zion Williamson on Lance Trenary: “This is the most important decision of his career”
The season won’t be shortened unless both the players and owners want to do it and “lose money”
Make an end of season tournament where the shit teams dan duke it out for the draft lmao
Chipmunk Simmons
He nailed it: anything the NBA does under Adam Silver is going to be driven by money.
Responding to one point Bill mentioned: I don’t think we need more international games. At least not outside of the preseason. Maybe if we’re strictly talking about doing an extra game or two in Mexico.
It’s a North American league, and it’s a slippery slope to where meaningful games get played in the UAE and Saudi Arabia purely for $$$. Spanish and Italian soccer has already set a sad precedent for this.
I personally don’t ever think they’ll shorten the season. Bill deep down knows that, no matter what his opinion is on the matter. I also agree with expansion being a bad idea. The Vegas talk to me is because every major sports league will now have a team there, except the NBA. Seattle got a raw deal when they moved to OKC. They had a very good fanbase and had some really good teams in the 90s. I absolutely hate the professional leagues holding teams hostage when it comes to new arenas. Being a Bucks fan we went through it recently before Fiserv Forum was built. Lucky for us, former owner Herb Kohl fronted a ton of money to help the construction. I hate seeing cities lose teams, but if Seattle is a market the league wants, I believe relocating a current franchise may be the best way. Bill did hit the nail on the head when he said you’ll just get two more teams tanking with expanding by two more teams.
The most important decision of his career was allowing MULTIPLE war criminals become owners
Make the season 10% shorter and nba players take 10% pay cut.
Simple.
Players want to play less, they should be payed less as well. Players need to understand they get paid millions cause people PAY millions to see them. WE pay for their stadium that run on $$$ not magic.
From what I can tell, this is the estimated split of the BRI today, and what would be affected by a reduced season 40% central TV deals - NO 10% local TV deals - YES 25% ticket sales - YES 15% sponsorships - NO 10% merchandising/licensing NO
OTOH, playoffs wouldn’t be affected and they are a big part of those views and ticket sales. But let’s take the worst case, -10% in games = -3.5% in BRI.
How much of this can be recovered, considered the lower number of games, with:
I think they make it close to break even. But that would make sense long term, making the product better and hence generating more interest.
It would be a very bold move, though, because current players in particular will only see the risk. only way would be for the owner to promise them a higher percentage of the BRI, if.aome revenue parameters would not be met.
Why is Simmons making excuses for these players? I thought NBA is more athletic? More skilled? They have the best nutrition, chattered flights, the works and yet more injuries. Has he sold his soul?
From promoting sport to promoting betting and gambling
Eliminate back 2 backs.
The obvious thing to do, which is the opposite of what they’ve done, is to let less teams in the playoffs and shorten the postseason. The first round of the playoffs are a waste of everyone’s time. All letting those seeds in (including play-in games) is give the appearance of competition and get some playoff money into the owners pockets. Have 4 and 4 in each conference make the playoffs. Don’t allow clubs that are barely trying to back into the playoffs. People like to crap on the old days of less teams which people equate with less competition but this league is filled with garbage franchises that are just wasting everyone’s time. The regular season used to actually matter.
I stopped watching NBA. Bad product. It could be great but yeh Bill said it, it’s just greed
The entire shortening the season argument is based on keeping players healthy. Is there a stat on when most players get hurt by? It seems everyone who has been injured got injured within 30 games or so at the beginning. What’s the difference if at the end of the season there’s 10 games or not if they didn’t even make it to the halfway point. You have months to recover in the offseason regardless. Unless the stat is more players get injured later in the season then I get the argument. Anyone have that info?
Professional sports rely on cultural buy-in first and foremost to succeed. David Stern understood this and dedicated his tenure to growing a love for the game of basketball.
I remember in the mid-late 00s, it was considered inevitable that the NBA was going to overtake the NFL to become the most popular American sports league.
Something went awry, and the NBA is on a clear downswing with regard to cultural relevance.
It’s probably not just one factor that led to this, but several. Off the top of my head, there’s unfair and poor officiating, over-monetization, load management, and tanking.
“Something went awry, and the NBA is on a clear downswing with regard to cultural relevance.”
The past two seasons were the two highest ever for attendance.
Expand team rosters and officiate the games better. Stop rewarding players whose games is based on drawing fouls. They’re not basketball moves they are moves to take advantage of officiating.
Players throw themselves around and into other people just for points. Stopping rewarding that shit.
Actually penalize fool who regularly do crazy non basketball antics on the court like draymond, bane and beef stew. Allowing shit just because they are known to commit silly shit is the dumbest. Actually protect players
Silver eliminating the draft would have a monumental impact to US professional sports. I hope he has the balls to do it.
That’s nonsense don’t shorten the season. The NBA has been on a steady decline since Adam Silver took over. If anything force contraction or demote undperforming teams to the G League. The league has lost all grit. Stars never swapped teams or sat this much in the past.
Every “lottery” team, plays in a tournament, winner gets top pick. Play the tournament after the NBA finals - this gives teams that need to rebuild more time together & and disincentives tanking because players would lose some of their off season….and best of all for the NBA - more games = more $
Money money money money. How much money do these people need bro they are rolling around in it regardless.
The most important decision is whether and how severely they punish the clippers and Ballmer for buying a star under the table, but ok
Regular season NBA is borderline trash.
Silver keeps saying that the data they have doesn’t support these theories about load management, shortening seasons, back to backs etc… As long as that remains the case, you’re not going to see any drastic changes made off essentially “vibes”. We always think we’re in the season where more players are getting injured than ever, then someone pulls up the stats and it turns out we were wrong.
There’s seemingly more evidence that achilles tears, for example, happen due to already-injured players intentionally overloading the achilles (ex. with a “false step”) to get more burst. Giving someone an extra 24 hours of rest will do nothing to prevent that. It’s either accept the injuries or
I still don’t get why everyone’s got a hard on for shortening the season
Changes won’t be made until revenues decline; and, given the broadcast contracts, that won’t happen any time soon.
As far as expansion- I agree it’s a terrible idea. But “having some hard conversations about relocating existing teams” is unrealistic. The league can’t just force owners to move.
I think they need to fill more seats in the games they have before doing anything else
This is off topic, these analysts have finally realized we’re sick of listening to them yell at each other.
They’ve downshifted to calm/quiet speaking 😂
We say this every year I feel like
I do not think bill Simmons would take less money if someone told him it would make his podcasts better
I understand all the reasons for shortening the season. Regardless, pros have been doing it for how long now? People need to stop crying, this would literally change the history of the NBA and statistics.
The way people talk about the nba you would think the nba is dying .