Steve Kerr: “We need to play fewer games. We need to take 10 games off the schedule. The modern game with the pace and the space I think it would be a more competitive and healthier league if we played fewer games
Imo, the solution is coach’s should be going 12+ deep in their benches. Similar to how European soccer managers manage their players minutes by relying on depth.
Then cut pre-season by a week and the offseason by a week and you should be able to remove nearly all of the b2bs
I agree. Go deeper in your rotation and stop chasing individual stats as much.
I think OKC has proven it to be a valid strategy under Mark Daigneault and Sam Presti.
Is it hard to scout, draft and develop players to fit in? Of course. But it’s a skill issue if front offices can’t utilize their resources properly
OKC has proven this to be a valid strategy b/c their 8th-10th guys can start on most teams in the league lol
Only because of internal player development and drafting. it’s not like our 8-10th guys are superstars who signed in free agency because they love OKC so much and we have an abundance of stardom . Nobody would know who Isaiah Joe and Ajay Mitchell are if they weren’t busting teams ass every night
Nobody would know who Isaiah Joe is? Lol, yall ain’t draft him.
But I will say, OKC is elite when it comes to player development! And as a Philadelphia Sports sufferer (less the Eagles), I can only imagine what its like to have an elite front office and ownership that cares.
Bryan Colangelo’s front office was elite. Also his collars are perfectly normal. Find a new slant
Kerr is suggesting this for health reasons and OKC has also proven to have difficulty with their style of play, regardless of how much they dig into the bench. SGA, Ajay, Jdub, Chet, IHart, Wiggins, Dort, and Caruso have all missed over 10 games (excluding Joe who has missed 9).
Yes, it’s incredibly they have put together a roster that can weather that injury issue. Yes, they play a defensive pace of basketball that leaves you more prone to injury. But Kerr’s point was to alleviate injuries and it doesn’t get ‘fixed’ by playing deeper into your bench.
TBH, as a physical therapist for ortho/sports, I doubt a 72 games would fix it either.
The number games will still be an issue, but I think adding more rest days and less travel days will help immensely. On average, there is one day rest between NBA games. The 24⁄25 season had some teams with 18 back-to-back games, but that average is 12-14. If you can reduce the number of games, and increase the rest time between games then bodies should be able to recover better for the long season.
The Celtics this year too. Joe Mazulla is out here putting Ron Harper at the 12th spot on the bench on KD.
I’ve written about it before, but I think teams are absolutely going to be moving towards utilizing and developing more of their roster. The overall skill level across the board is higher than it’s ever been, yet coaches are still only utilizing 8 guys. In my opinion, the next great inefficiency that’s going to be tackled by NBA teams after the 3 is going to be roster usage/player development
Casual NBA fan, but wouldn’t this lead to fans being disappointed cause the chances of seeing your team’s star player(s) are diminished?
You can play them less minutes but still start your stars. Okc generally does this very effectively. Have your rotation guys get more minutes in the middle section of the game. Bring back stars for a stretch in the 3rd and to finish out the 4th.
They’re already sitting these games out sometimes when healthy so it’s been a problem for a while now
Generally speaking, No. They’d in theory play all 82 games still, instead of average 30-35 minutes per game they’d instead average 25-30 minutes per game. Reducing their play by 5 minutes per game is 410 minutes over the course of the season. That’s 8.54 games worth of minutes they’re suddenly not playing. That should do enough to reduce the “wear and tear” on them and the need to sit out of games.
It also very likely helps teams develop the younger players on their team because now they’d actually get more minutes.
Wear and tear doesn’t accumulate linearly like a videogame. It’s the lack of time to recover between games, travel, and practices that hurt way more than +/- 2-5 min per game over the course of 8 months.
2 games in 3 nights at home when you can be in your own bed 2 hours after a game and a whole day of recovery after vs 2 games in 3 nights when you have a 7pm game in California followed by a 3.5 hour flight for a what feels like a 4pm game in Milwaukee not 48 hours later feel a lot different.
Minutes on the court don’t matter as much as hours of missed recovery time.
That’s fine and all if both coaches have a handshake agreement to play their bench fodder.
It’s a tight game. The opposing team decides to ride their starters to close out the game. What is your team supposed to do? Keep the 3rd stringers in?
Yep. Injuries and miles will add up but coaches are primarily responsible for keeping up with the usage of their stars
What if going deeper is not really an option? What if someone is going as deep as they can go?
We hear all the time how deep the talent pool is and that’s why we need expansion yada yada yada
If these two way guys are so good, why are we not capping star players at around 28-32 to preserve their bodies from wear and tear?
Pacers and Thunder literally did this last year to the finals.
Pacers players mpg 24-25 regular season: Haliburton 33.6 Siakam 32.7 Turner 30.2 Mathurin 29.8 Nembhard 28.9 Nesmith 24.9 Topppin 19.6
Playoffs mpg: Haliburton 33.6 (reduced by leaving g7 of the finals early though) Siakam 33.5 Nembhard 33.4 Turner 29.3 Nesmith 28.3 Toppin 19.1 Mathurin 17.5 TJM 17.5
Great question. Not sure. As a Thunder fan, I can tell you that OKC has been pretty consistent in using all 18 rostered players under Daigneault. SGA is averaging a career low in mpg since coming to OKC.
The rest of the league should follow suit.
They can’t. Thunder have a bunch of young, underpaid guys providing the depth. Once the salaries adjust they’ll lost them but be able to replace with all of their picks. No other team is in that situation.
OKC is able to have such great roster depth because they only have one super expensive guy on a contract right now in SGA, next year J-Dub and Chet are on their maxes and OKC will start having to make choices, and will probably have to get rid of Isaiah Joe/Wiggins or Hartenstein if there’s a tax level the ownership group is uncomfortable paying. We always talk about the successes but OKC also drafted Poku, and Tre Mann, and JRE. They’re the best organization in the league but expecting a 100% success rate on depth guys is not that repeatable.
Thats a luxury only the best teams in the league can have because half their games are blowouts. Teams in the thick of playoff races can’t afford to sit their stars extra minutes and play back of the bench guys.
Example: if you only look at Curry’s mpg you can see exactly which years they were the #1 seed
Similar to how European soccer managers manage their players minutes by relying on depth.
I mean they sorta have to do that when you only get 3 Subs a game, thats not a good comparison to basketball where you can pretty much sub in and out whenever you want.
You get 3 windows and 5 players subbed.
More notably, you don’t start your best 11 in every game because you know you have to play multiple games a week.
Eg Pedri may start 60 mins in one, come in for the last 20 of another and play a full 90 in an important UCL match
It is load management, yes - but you don’t need to play guys 35-40 mins a game in the regular season.
They do manage match load, but it’s not some kind of great solution. Managers and players complain about match congestion extensively
Managers and players complain about match congestion extensively
Only because every year or two they’re expanding or adding more competitions to the point there is no room on the calendar left. PSG have been competing for basically a year and a half straight. The WC does not need 48 teams. The UCL does not need 36 teams with an 8 round league phase. The MLS does not need best of 3 playoff series. Countries that have two or more domestic cup competitions do not need 2 or more cup competitions.
5 subs
Imo, the solution is coach’s should be going 12+ deep in their benches.
That sounds really nice except for the part where those coaches would get fired immediately for losing games
Agreed with this. And with the remaining b2bs, make those the “mini series” ones where the same teams play back to back, to help reduce travel (the league has already started implementing this more)
Between reduction of minutes, b2bs and travel there shouldn’t be a need to reduce games
I’ll take fewer games if it means games are more meaningful. The NBA cup was a lot of fun because every game meant something.
NBA should follow NFL or Premier League where every match is exciting.
Kerr has been doing this for years already
Cut preseason by a week, shorten the breaks between playoff series by 1 day here or there, stretch 82 games over 14+ extra days
thats the only way this kind of thing is happening so I dont know why they haven’t done a real analysis (who am i kidding, they certainly have in private) on whether it’s feasible.
Whether you want to say money or basketball history/culture, I just don’t see 82 games changing
It’ll also take forever because of all their streaming and TV deals that are all preplanned
They also need the games. Shortening a season is never happening with the new TV deal. Owners want to make their money back and will have to fill those stadiums as much as possible
shortening seasons won’t have any impact on the national TV deal
Broadcasters have less streaming time to recover money from companies who advertise with them. They will resist but whenever the next deal happens this should be accounted for and the season should be cut down
Yup, you can still have the same amount of games on National TV
Yes. But if you remove 1/8th of the total product, you remove 1/8th of the good matchups. This means more filler so the whole is less valuable.
Well it would be better than now where you never know if you go to a game whether certain guys are gonna rest or not
But it does on the local TV deals that all these teams have
Most aren’t filling their stadiums and demand would go up with smaller supply
I’m not well versed on the structure of those deals but could they possibly reduce the number of games when expansion teams are added?
Say go down to 75-80 games when the next 2 teams are added to reduce the impact on the overall number of games. This would help address the league revenue decline I see as the biggest obstacle for the league voluntarily reducing the games played.
You could do that and get the same or maybe even a few less games overall.
Or you could not do that and get 60+ extra games from two expansion teams worth of profit-shared revenue across the league.
One option makes more money than the other, easily.
They can reduce the number of games and still have the same amount of games on National TV
Stats also. Basketball is such a stat heavy sport that if they shortened the season there’s the worry all-time records won’t be broken, and that drives so much revenue.
Ok but baseball made changes despite being a stat heavy sport
Yet they still play 162 games a year
Baseball made changes because pitchers were having entire jerk off sessions in-between pitches
damn, im glad im not into baseball I had no idea….
They’ve changed the rules so much the stats are irrelevant every 10 years
The game in general is so different that it makes comparing stats/records to other eras basically pointless.
In formula 1, they changed the point system but when people talk about records they just readjust to one point system, I imagine people would start ‘readjusting’ totals by using their per game average
when you look at nba media and fans these days, I highly doubt people are smart enough to think that way
This just shortens the offseason, limits rest between playoff games/series and drags it out. If the NBA wants to do something about player injuries/missed games, reducing games is the only option. Everything else is bound to fail like we saw with the 65 game rule
Get rid of the all star break. Name the players or whatever because bonuses and shit are tied to it but get rid of the break and spread games out.
I know this probably isn’t how it works, but I’d be curious where the idea of “we play 62 games, but you make 25% less money” would land with the players.
Yeah just suck it up and add a month. Start Oct 1st. Start Sep 15th for all I care. But make sure the product is healthy in June for the playoffs. More rest. More time between games.
These players dont want to shorten their vacations. Football(soccer) is almost being played by other players without break.
It will never happen due to greed (and ticket revenues), but NBA and NHL would both be incredible products with a 60-70 game season.
Same with baseball. Not entirely sure I need 162 games when some of them are during the work day on a Tuesday.
Let’s not talk crazy now
Yeah wtf. I love that I can expect my team to be playing almost every day. Gives me something to watch during the summer while every other American sport is taking a breather
And day games during the week keep me sane at work
While I’m not super into baseball, many of my friends are, so I have lots of fond memories from college of cracking a cold one in our dorm on a random Wednesday afternoon to watch like Mets-Rockies on at 2:00 lol.
That’s why baseball exists though. It’s the ultimate background noise sport
Yeah I’m fine with so many baseball games. It’s a pretty easy sport to follow and not feel like you’re missing anything even as background noise, can’t really do that with basketball
Especially during the work day! Baseball on the radio is great. Just toss that shit on as you work.
I play baseball on the radio as much as the next person, trust me I get it.
But 162, across an entire league, is too many. We’ve got pitchers arms falling off. I’d rather have a healthier, more wild October.
Pitchers arms are falling off by design they are sacrificed to up spin rate and velo.
I have never disagreed with a take more than reducing the amount of baseball games. It’s supposed to be on, in the background, you can count on it every day.
Baseball with 60 games? Thats only 15-20 series a year. Basically playing each team in the your League once, 3 or four from the other League once, and calling it a season.
Not a fan at all.
I do need 162 games of baseball actually
when some of them are during the work day on a Tuesday.
So we need to schedule games based on when YOU can go? I love mid-day games, I work weekends my days off are during the week. Nothing better than going to a mid-week game at noon.
I don’t really watch baseball so I didn’t have an opinion on this but goddamn you’re getting cooked in these replies
You’re not really supposed to watch every baseball game. Baseball games are every day so if you feel like watching a game on any day you can (with a couple off days, but it works for the most part).
Baseball would be fine if they went back to 154, but any less than that wouldn’t be enough. NBA and NHL should go down to like 76.
A few more off days sprinkled in would do wonders.
That’s precisely why we need 162 games
The NHL has no issue with 82 games, no one ever complains about the length of the season. Hell they’re even adding 2 more games
Bro is a Canucks fan, that’s why he thinks the product is bad 😂
When you said greed do you include players too ? Because I’m sure players don’t want to get paid less, so they won’t agree to it too.
Yes. Hockey is primarily driven by ticket/gate revenue (nowhere near the TV money of other sports). So zero chance they’d cut games. The product would be better, but it isn’t as dire as the basketball situation with tanking/resting and a terrible product.
I just don’t see the problem hockey would be solving by moving to fewer games. The NBA is a complete shit show right now and the stars play 30-38 minutes a game compared to first line players in the NHL playing 18-23 minutes a game. That is a significant difference over time. I also think the size of NBA players makes them more prone to injury.
That’s why I switched to EPL. Games matter the whole season long. Watching the 1 an 2 seed face off in the EPL is hugely consequential to the outcome of the season. In the NBA, like last night with OKC and Denver, it hardly matters
You’re kinda forgetting an important part of soccer that holds ownership feet to the fire.
Easy when you don’t have 32 owners hiring one guy to run it all.
Yeah, that OKC v Denver game sure was awful to watch. All I could think of in the closing minutes was how it won’t affect seeding this year.
Soccer players at the top levels are also massively over worked though.
I don’t think the revenue would even take that big of a hit in the short term, and in the long term would perhaps even reap benefits from shortening the season
It will never happen due to greed (and ticket revenues),
The greed belongs to teams like GSW running out a championship roster of 3 38 year olds with 40yr old backups, and refusing to budge their playstyle for young players. Or Lakers and their decrepit core praying for playoffs to start today.
Do you think OKC, SAS, or Boston with their 12-man deep rotations feel the same way? No
Maybe a few rests between playoffs would reduce injury, but the current reg-season schedule is perfectly reasonable.
The bench exists. Stop crying and use it.
OKC can get away with it for now because two of their top 3 players are currently on their rookie deals. Do you really think they’ll have a 12 man rotation when Chet and J-Dub are making maxes and SGA is making the supermax?
Bro is trying his hardest to be edgy
The thing is, you are better off playing your starters normally for 4 games and resting them all completely for 1 game, than you are playing them on reduced minutes for all 5 games. Even if the total minutes played by each is the same.
Why 60-70 games? Let’s just make it 30. 10 games a month.
Why even play at all? Lets just talk about the sport on the internet
Why talk about it at all? Just imagine it in your head
Why Imagine it at all? Just cease to exist or have consciousness. Return to Monke
The problem with this is players, coaches etc want their cake and they want to eat it too. These guys aren’t going to take pay cuts for a shorter season.
And we don’t have to speculate. The annual anonymous survey asked this question to players this year. I don’t remember the exact number but the overwhelming majority said no to cutting salary for less games. I believe it was something like 80%.
Yeah when you can be hurt for 1⁄3 of the season and sit on the bench collecting millions of course you’re going to keep that going. Meanwhile the fans who are paying to attend a game they saved up for to see their favorite player/team can go kick rocks when half the roster is in street clothes.
The nba has a serious problem where the interests of the owners and players are completely at odds with the interests of the fans. We want to see players available for most of the season , and straightforward ways to watch games at home. Instead we get constant load management and sitting out for injuries sustained from extremely long seasons and games spread out across a million different streaming platforms. Something’s gotta give.
I personally find it weird, that ppl see the fault withe the players here, cuz this looks like the issue is that you have to save up to take your family to a basketball game.
Players obviously benefit, as they are paid, but the ownership sets the prices Ind the end. The entire entertainment industry pricing out a sizable portion of the population is a pretty ass development and it’s even worse in the US, then in Europe.
You know, that’s a great point
Trying to get the NBA to shorten its season is never going to happen
But people may be more inclined to not be so angry with load management if live entertainment prices didn’t shoot through the roof since the 90s
I miss the days when I could watch my team on the local channel. Now half the games are blacked out and my local provider app doesn’t even work half the time. Makes it a little more difficult to be a fan
The people with the biggest voices are the stars and coaches who likely all would support a shorter schedule. The problem is, even if those parties were OK with pay cuts, role players comprise the vast majority of the league. Those players would NEVER support reducing the overall pie available, as their career are short enough as is. They need to maximize their earnings. Furthermore, fewer games means less minutes/opportunities for them to break through for a bigger contract. Fewer games also means bench/role players become less valuable
To add to your point, one could argue role players benefit the most from having longer seasons. as more games = more rest games for stars = more opportunities for them to increase their minutes
i think this is problem tbh, because the majority of the league play less than 20 minutes a game and might not even play every game. of course they will say no, because they “only” get paid a few millions in comparison to the stars.
I believe most stars would sacrifice 10% of their money for 8 games less
Yes. They’ll just sit for load management and get paid for 82 games because there’s no consequences.
They’re already having their cake and eating. Many players get the 82 game paychecks while playing 72 or fewer games.
or just start the season in mid september, wayyy more spacing between games.
Not a good idea to shorten the offseason. Look at what happened to all the teams that had a deep run in the bubble - they all got significant injuries in 2021. Even teams that make it to the Finals in normal recent years have struggled to stay healthy the next year.
But a more spread out regular season can mitigate that a bit
Can it or is this just your theory?
I got to believe they’ve actually investigated some of this stuff
would you rather have to run 82 times over the span of 175 days, or 82 times over the span of 205 days? which one do you think will impact ur body more? which one do you think you’ll be able to get more rest with?
Of course it can, however I think you still need the rest in the offseason to fully recover from serious or lingering injuries.
I think everything should be on the table, since we know shortening the season is a non-starter. At the very least, they need to find a way to eliminate all of the back-to-backs.
ur logic doesn’t make sense because ur comparing it to something that was wayyy longer, they already HAD an offseason from march-july, and then started up again in july and the playoffs ended in like october. if the season started in september, teams would still have 3+ months off. premier league follows this, but they actually start in august. in the season after the bubble they had less than a month. not to mention 14 teams would have about 4 months off if they didn’t make the playoffs.
I’m willing to bet a gazillion dollars players will still be sat for “maintenance” if they shorten the season
I can’t imagine playing 10 less games is gonna lead to some crazy reduction in injuries
However, I think making it so kids aged 9-18 dont play 24/7/365 will go a long way in helping
It’s not just about injuries though which I agree with you that they probably won’t move much if the season is shortened. It’s about energy level and effort, teams on b2b either hold something back in game 1 or are gassed in game 2. The idea is that players will play harder leading to an overall better product when they both have more rest and every game is more impactful to the standings.
Yeah this is a complex problem without a silver bullet solution. The NBA can make all the changes it wants, but young kids are still going to come into the league having played way too many minutes growing up. The grind to get to the NBA starts really early.
This is it. It’s cumulative miles these (AAU and Euroleague) kids put on their bodies while they’re not even finished developing. I’d rather they dramatically change/reduce the amount of games that get played before they go fully pro.
Less games and less playoff spots would make the individual games matter more and they would be healthier on average.
Of course this would reduce the $$$ the sport makes so players/coaches/owners are all likely against it. But I think it would be a better sport for it.
Everyone says this all the time (esp because it would eliminate a bunch of back to backs) but because Steve Kerr said it, The real housewives of r/nba are going to suddenly be against it.
So stupid. I’m glad a coach is finally speaking up.
I am by no means against it and it would actually lead to me watching more basketball, but I also know theres no world the coaches and players take the 10-20 percent pay cut that would need to happen for this to work so I’ve given up on it
Owners are not going to cut revenue
sure, now he feels this way that his team is old as dirt
He said the same thing when they were defending champs.
https://sports.yahoo.com/steve-kerr-wants-a-shorter-nba-season-so-he-doesnt-have-to-rest-his-players-014149859.html
they were old then too lol
They were the 11th oldest team when he said that during the 2022-2023 season.
Now they’re the second oldest team.
Man. Warriors be getting hate no matter what they say huh
My guy has said the season is too long for years - this is just hate
Sorry, I don’t want less basketball. If the teams are so worried about their players getting injured, why not just play more guys? What’s the point of a 15-man roster if you’re all you’re doing is running 7 guys into the ground?
Because the 10th-15th aren’t gonna be good enough to win games.
Sounds like a team building issue then.
How is it a team building issue? Literally any team in the NBA would see a significant drop in wins if they started giving their 10-15 guys real minutes.
That and people would much rather watch the 7-8 man rotation, they’re the reason tickets sell.
Spending your precious salary cap on the 10th-15th players to be competitive in more regular season games, only to handicap your team in the postseason when you shorten the rotation, would be really dumb.
Know what’ll keep players fresher than only playing in ~65 out of 82 games? Playing ~55 out of 72.
The number of games is also only one side of the equation.
If the “modern game with the pace and the space” is causing player injury issues, isn’t that on the coach to come up with an alternative gameplans over the season to lessen those risks? Developing more of your bench, lessen game minutes, run different offensive/ defensive strategies, etc.
we’re learning calculus as lim (x→0)
No chance it happens any time soon, if at all. The new 11-year media rights / television deal started this year and goes through the 2035-36 season.
It’d be near insurmountable to agree to schedule change and revise those TV deals.
I’ve been telling my boss about a 4 day work week for awhile now too
cutting back to backs would significantly raise average game quality. dudes will still get rest but with each game mattering more towards their record i don’t think it will be egregious.
obviously never gonna happen cause $$$ but it would be good i think.
or hear me out. use more of your bench depth?
Oh, he is. Trust me
Says the coach of an old ass team
Am I crazy for thinking that this line of thinking doesn’t exist in the NHL - which also has 82 games and is far more physical ?
NHL actually uses the entire active roster though. 4th line and 3rd d- pairing might not get a ton of minutes, but they usually are out there for at least a meaningful amount of time each game. NBA teams usually have 3 guys off the bench during the season and the rest are there for garbage time or just in case.
Which leads to the uncomfortable question of if the game has turned to a point that players are far more skilled, but less durable than before, shouldn’t more of the bench be used? And if the injuries are so much fatigue based then isn’t it on the coaches for riding guys for so many minutes night after night?
It’s because the actual fatigue developed as teens because modern NBA players grew up playing 4x-5x more AAU/youth basketball than LeBron’s generation did.
LeBron’s generation played multiple sports growing up as playing multiple sports strengthens different muscle groups and allows other muscle groups to relax (LeBron as an example was one of the best high school tight ends in the country)
The NHL is also adding 2 games to the schedule beginning next year for an 84 game season. Ticket revenue is a much bigger share of revenue in the NHL than the NBA due to TV rights not being worth that much in the U.S.
The modern NBA is hard on the body in a different kind of way than NHL. All that accelerating/stopping, changing direction, jumping and landing, is really hard on the lower body. NHL when you’re on skates it’s not really the same.
10 games are not going to make a difference beyond everyone taking 15% paycuts.
Sooo the Uber athletic basketball players with the best tech available to sustain longer careers aren’t capable of playing as long as the so called plumbers from the 60s who also played fast make it make sense
They’re highly paid, rest a shit ton and don’t utilize their full roster. Cry me a river.
82 games was fine before, but the hyper-athletic players of today playing an extremely high pace of game creates serious injury risks. This is why so many players miss 20-30 games a season, and teams choose to load manage.
Make the season a month longer and stretch the games out more so a team never has to play more than 10 games in a month
Idk something to that effect it’s not hard to figure it out but we’ll see what Mr. Adam Slitherrr does about it
I personally wouldn’t want less games for the sake of records and what not but that’s a personal problem
These professional athletes that have generational wealth for only playing basketball a few months a year need more time off.
Is there actual data behind these sentiments that show higher than normal rates of injury? I haven’t actually seen someone put out the actual data. And maybe it’s hard because of how teams handle the injury list now as a way to give players days off. Seems like it’s always people saying it seems like players are getting more injured amplified by a couple star players getting injured vs concrete data.
I’ve always wanted 15 fewer games and make the games longer to force backups to play.
No one is going to agree to less money so unfortunately this is not happening
It all boils down too if everyone wants to make less money
I’m against shortening the season. It’s a massive alteration. The 82 game season has been in place for 60 years. Institute rule changes to slow down the pace of the game. The game doesn’t need to get faster every single year. Work to bring back the midrange and low post. Allow more physicality on defense. I’d like to see a return to a more colorful and fun game anyways.
My idea is to play 1 home 1 away against every team. Seed 1-16 and go.
You can build in rest into that schedule. No back to backs. No 3 games in 4 nights.
Only problem is I cut 25% of the regular season schedule
Welcome to soccer. Only thing missing is kicking the shitters out of the league lol.
Owners and players would never agree to make less money
I just feel like even if the season is shortened we’re still going to see players sit out to preserve their bodies,extend their careers, and to be healthy for the playoffs.
Might be better if they started earlier
Problem is no one gives a shit about the nba until Christmas
Owners would possibly agree to it if they renegotiate the deal so that players and coaches cut their own percentage to the degree that owners don’t lose anything by fewer games.
Without that, it’s kinda just “I wanna have easier job and be paid the same”, which is a legit demand, but also with the obvious opposing arguments that need to be faced rather than just ignored if anything was actually to change. Which, as far as I see in media, no one seems to be doing.
Get rid of back to backs.
Let’s be real, 82 is a silly number of games
Literally so many of the leagues problems comes from playing too many games.
They will never change it, the billionaires and the advertisers would cry
The NBA is insanely good at putting out a terrible product. I love top comments idea about keeping the 82 game schedule, while simultaneously stretching those games out over a longer period of time. The NBA really needs to reevaluate a lot of things like scheduling, games played, the “lottery” draft system, and my personal favorite, how fucking hard/expensive it is to watch your favorite team(s). I’m convinced Adam Silver does not care for the sport of basketball and it feels like he doesn’t give a shit if nobody watches it.
Eliminate back-to-backs, shorter pre-season, space the season out a bit longer.
Or… How about coaches develop their bench more
Maybe if their team wasn’t made up of AARP members, Kerr wouldn’t think this way.
He’s said out loud that the Warriors are no longer competing, so his takes now are very neutral.
It’s never going to happen unless you can convince TV partners that are desperate for content that less games leads to more importance which leads to more attention. Players will not take a pay cut to shorten the season when they can rest when they need already.
Regardless of feasibility, the season needs to be shortened game-wise. Just way too many games and too many back-to-backs.
Yes! There are too many games!
Cute
why isnt nobody thinking about the amount of money made from the endless advertisements and gambling apps? its kinda of sad to let them out of this discussion
/s
Doesn’t matter, players will still sit 15-20 games.
If the players are okay getting paid less, the league should be okay with 72 games a season.
Man…. this shit so annoying because the game is no where near as physical as it used to be and all they do is foul bait and shot 3s. Yall should be playing 90.
Fewer roadtrip games.
No more pre season games. No more all star. Just a one week break. No back to back.
Kerr getting old.
I believe that the NBA schedule is already mathematically long enough to avoid back to backs and 3 games in 4 nights, but it doesn’t work out to be possible due to the constraints with arena scheduling: most teams don’t own their own arenas and they have to schedule around hockey games, concerts, and other large arena events.
IMO, the NBA should start an experiment with say 3-5 flex games per team next year where games can be scheduled anywhere in the US or Canada there’s an arena available with the mindset of eliminating some of the worst scheduling problems. Not only would this be a lot of fun for teams to have games where there’s no home-court advantage, but it would be an amazing opportunity for people around the country to occasionally get a game in Seattle or Kentucky or Iowa or other places. You’re going to sell out an NBA game anywhere there’s a big enough stadium if it only comes once in a while.
Get rid of divisions and conferences. Add two extra teams. Everyone plays everyone twice, home and away for a total of 62 regular season games.
Now it gets spicy. Expand the play-in to a full elimination round. First 8 teams skip it. Teams 9-16 get home court against 17-24 in a best of five to qualify. The final 8 go into the draft.
Finally, get rid of the all-star break and instead hold a separate NBA cup, except make it single elimination where each team gets matched up based on their current seeding going into the tournament. 1 against 32, 2 against 31 and so on. The two finalist get draft picks 9 and 10 in the upcoming draft.
Funny thing is, with this format you barely lose any games, every single game gains a ton of importance, the tournament brings the excitement of March Madness into the NBA and of course the league becomes fair since everyone plays each other the same amount.
Stop back to backs where teams travel in between. Only change needed. Hockey players play 82 with contact and make a fraction of the wage. Basketball players are becoming divas.
Whatever amount of games need to be reduced to remove back to backs would go along way to having a better product and ensure older stars play and fans get their moneys worth.
The modern game would also be a lot healthier if you cut Dick Punter Draymond, ha gottem
Play your bench players they are in the NBA believe it or not
Can you imagine the old heads if they actually did this? “Back in our day we played 82 games. There should be an asterisk next to every champion now.”
Softer rules, and they rest games to get off and earn millions. Give me a fucking break
Cut the pay by the amount of games they take off. There have been plenty of players to play all 82 for multiple seasons
Mf created this pace now he wants the league to accommodate for him lol stfu Kerr
Oh and are they going to take a 12% paycut? They aren’t playing less games lol.
He should retire