OT: Adam Silver in favor of 10 minute quarters

[Stratmaster]

You don't get why people hate it, if you think that is the reason.

My experience is more or less every change that is proposed is ripped on. The In-Season tournament is really good IMO, but people absolutely hated it at first, but the result is that it has created something interesting in the early season and the games ARE more intense. The play-in tournament has been good, but people absolutely hated at first, but the result has been more competition on the back end of the season and some really good games.

NBA games aren't too long. NFL games are. MLB games are (a little better since the role changes).

Both those sports have more play stoppage than they do actual play. Not only are NBA games shorter than other major sports, there is more consistent action than in those other sports. It is why my favorite sports went from "MLB, NFL, NBA" TO "NBA, NFL, MLB". Frankly, if the Bears fan wasnt drilled into me since I was 7 I probably would never watch an NFL game and I quit watching MLB a few years after the Cubs won the world series. Just not enough actual playing the game.

As others said, this is a solution looking for a problem. I have never had anyone list "the games are too long" as being one of the problems the NBA has.

Maybe, off the cuff, I don't see anything magical about 48 minutes vs 40 minutes. Maybe it doesn't solve a huge problem for you, but I think it might help with several minor problems. I would rather watch a 40 minute game than a 48 minute game and get the time down shorter, and I think most younger fans are the same.

Every other pro version of the sport is at 40 minutes right? So the format obviously works.

I've not seen any real reason to hate on the idea presented in this thread. Just a bunch of people who hate Adam Silver for some reason and think he sucks, which is sort of hilarious, because he's grown the value of the NBA at an insane clip. Adam Silver took over in 2014. He's absolutely crushed every other sports league in terms of growth:

https://www.reddit.com/r/billsimmons/comments/1buy37f/franchise_value_growth_over_the_last_decade_for/

Again, you are assigning your opinions to groups of others and assigning motives to people without any basis. I have no issues with Silver. I don't hear anyone complaining about the length of games. In a blowout it can be tedious in q4... but then just don't watch the last few minutes of a blowout, right?

[dougthonus]

League has grown 500% in profits? Revenue? Good for them. Many products and services get more expensive as they get less desirable. It's decreased about 10-20% in enjoyability IMO.

Sum of the valuation of the franchises which is an objective measure (or at least reasonably objective measure).

Enjoyability is just a completely fictional thing that is personal to you and you can literally decide to make that number any number you want.

[League Circles]

League has grown 500% in profits? Revenue? Good for them. Many products and services get more expensive as they get less desirable. It's decreased about 10-20% in enjoyability IMO.

Sum of the valuation of the franchises which is an objective measure (or at least reasonably objective measure).

Enjoyability is just a completely fictional thing that is personal to you and you can literally decide to make that number any number you want.

Valuations are 5 times what they were when Silver took over?

Yeah, people desire to OWN an NBA team more than ever before. There are also way more hypercars than ever before.

Enjoyability could probably be quantified theoretically by measuring what percentage of people worldwide with the option to watch NBA basketball actually do, and to what extent.

A product selling more units and/or for higher dollars does not have to correlate in any way with underlying customer appeal / satisfaction. There are MANY more factors involved.

Sure, the rich throw around their meaningless discretionary dollars pretty freely around the nba, but in reality the majority of the fans are spending time learning about how to run wires across their rooms to antennas to watch this garbage for free rather than pay a few hundred bucks a year to have a superior experience (no antenna, dvr, etc).

[dougthonus]

Again, you are assigning your opinions to groups of others and assigning motives to people without any basis.

What opinions and/or motives am I assigning? That people don't like Adam Silver?

"Sure, why not. Silver has turned the NBA into a hot mess."
"Adam Silver was never smart person to begin with but now I realized he might be incompetent too"
"Let him kill the game. This guy is a joke"
"It's such a Silver thing to say that the problem of NBA games is that it's showing too much basketball. We need more commercials and sports betting content, that will bring the ratings up.

It's so very clear he doesn't care about basketball as a passion. He's the Jerry Reinsdorf of commishes. Great on maximizing monetization, but doesn't care a bit about the actual game."
"In over his head"
"Seems like only yesterday we were all hoping he would be as good as David Stern. Disappointments happen lol."

That seems to be a significant amount of the opinion.

There are certainly other opinions too, about "what problem does this solve", and I think the problems pointed out are fitting it into TV slots that are more desirable for platforms they are selling to is what Silver pointed out. If the TV partners are pushing for this, it is primarily not a basketball problem that is being attempted to be solved but a logistics / operational / partnering problem.

That's a big part of Silver's job is solving those problems, and so if you look at it from that perspective, a different question is if this is better for our partners and financial growth, is it hurting the way the game is played? I don't think that is true. Every other league plays the game this way already. No one is blasting NCAA basketball, the WNBA, FIBA ball for playing 40 minute games.

I have no issues with Silver. I don't hear anyone complaining about the length of games. In a blowout it can be tedious in q4... but then just don't watch the last few minutes of a blowout, right?

Do you think you would have a problem with a 40 minute game? I don't think it would be a large meaningful change for me one way or the other.

I do think that younger viewers whom have established patterns of not wanting to watch long form TV will find a 40 minute game to be an improvement. As I said, the format is used in the vast majority of other pro basketball leagues, so it isn't some off the wall idea.

I'm not championing this as "holy crap we have to do it", but I think it's probably a good idea for the league long term relative to changing audience preferences and broadcast partner desires if those things are proven out with research.

[Stratmaster]

Again, you are assigning your opinions to groups of others and assigning motives to people without any basis.

What opinions and/or motives am I assigning? That people don't like Adam Silver?

"Sure, why not. Silver has turned the NBA into a hot mess."
"Adam Silver was never smart person to begin with but now I realized he might be incompetent too"
"Let him kill the game. This guy is a joke"
"It's such a Silver thing to say that the problem of NBA games is that it's showing too much basketball. We need more commercials and sports betting content, that will bring the ratings up.

It's so very clear he doesn't care about basketball as a passion. He's the Jerry Reinsdorf of commishes. Great on maximizing monetization, but doesn't care a bit about the actual game."
"In over his head"
"Seems like only yesterday we were all hoping he would be as good as David Stern. Disappointments happen lol."

That seems to be a significant amount of the opinion.

There are certainly other opinions too, about "what problem does this solve", and I think the problems pointed out are fitting it into TV slots that are more desirable for platforms they are selling to is what Silver pointed out. If the TV partners are pushing for this, it is primarily not a basketball problem that is being attempted to be solved but a logistics / operational / partnering problem.

That's a big part of Silver's job is solving those problems, and so if you look at it from that perspective, a different question is if this is better for our partners and financial growth, is it hurting the way the game is played? I don't think that is true. Every other league plays the game this way already. No one is blasting NCAA basketball, the WNBA, FIBA ball for playing 40 minute games.

I have no issues with Silver. I don't hear anyone complaining about the length of games. In a blowout it can be tedious in q4... but then just don't watch the last few minutes of a blowout, right?

Do you think you would have a problem with a 40 minute game? I don't think it would be a large meaningful change for me one way or the other.

I do think that younger viewers whom have established patterns of not wanting to watch long form TV will find a 40 minute game to be an improvement. As I said, the format is used in the vast majority of other pro basketball leagues, so it isn't some off the wall idea.

I'm not championing this as "holy crap we have to do it", but I think it's probably a good idea for the league long term relative to changing audience preferences and broadcast partner desires if those things are proven out with research.

The TV networks are pushing for this? I didn't hear that in his comments. I may have missed it. Seems odd as the likely result of this would be a reduction in ad slots.

[DropStep]

It doesn't solve problems that we have, but it might solve some problems he has. Packaging games is central to what he does, and I think this would put games into boxes that stack a bit easier with other shows. It might also reduce the amount of TV viewers who stray and don't make it back. And, it lets him solve a load management problem: "How do you make the season shorter, when your bosses don't want to lose any arena dates or a ton of money?" Answer: sell the same number of games at the same ticket prices, but put 17% fewer minutes on the players' joints per game. It's the equivalent of cutting 13+ games off the regular season, all for the price of a couple of commercial breaks - and he just got done negotiating the long TV deal. Then you could mandate that your stars sit out fewer of these shorter games, which helps fix the problem of disappointed fans who show up to watch Curry, etc. and don't get him.

[nitetrain8603]

He's interested in 8 minutes less in games to help fix the game. I'm interested in removing him as commish to help fix the game. He acquiesed to the players at every request and this is what it has got us.

Everyone jacking up 3s including slashers like ANT and LeBron. Star players always wanting to sit out, irregardless of age. Every player afraid to damage their brand.

Silver has been a bigger problem for the league than anything else in the last 10 years.

[dougthonus]

Valuations are 5 times what they were when Silver took over?

Yeah, people desire to OWN an NBA team more than ever before. There are also way more hypercars than ever before.

Enjoyability could probably be quantified theoretically by measuring what percentage of people worldwide with the option to watch NBA basketball actually do, and to what extent.

A product selling more units and/or for higher dollars does not have to correlate in any way with underlying customer appeal / satisfaction. There are MANY more factors involved.

Sure, the rich throw around their meaningless discretionary dollars pretty freely around the nba, but in reality the majority of the fans are spending time learning about how to run wires across their rooms to antennas to watch this garbage for free rather than pay a few hundred bucks a year to have a superior experience (no antenna, dvr, etc).

This is all philosophical nonsense that means nothing.

Relative to similar products such as NFL / NHL / MLB teams. The NBA is growing revenue 2x as fast or more than any of them over that time period and has franchise values growing more than 2x as fast as any of them. Those were all extremely mature markets 10 years ago, not big up and comers.

Rich people don't seem to be spending as much money on other franchises in comparison, nor do other leagues seem to have found as many new revenue sources (or improved existing revenue sources).

So from a financial perspective, Silver is absolutely kicking the ass of all his peers.

The rest of the argument that enjoyability is down is, again, just a thing you have made up, but you are free to your opinion, it definitely isn't an isolated one, there are many people complaining about various points of the game.

[suckfish]

The issue is that games are too long. Fixing that is easy. Don't change the quarter lengths and disrupt years and years of statistics and history, instead, tackle the actual issue which is game flow. Too many timeouts, too many ad breaks, too many challenges, and too much time taken to review calls.

The European game is really effortless to watch because there's no where near as many stoppages. You can only call timeout on a dead ball and they don't have crazy ads breaks.

Only argument to change to 10 minutes quarters is if the NBA and FIBA are trying to make basketball rules universal across all leagues and federations.

[ChiefILL53]

He needs to shorten the season by 6-8 games (without cramming the remaining games together)
He needs to make the all star game east vs west again (and let them wear their team jerseys again)
He needs to eliminate the play-in and nba cup tournaments

shortnening games to 10 min quarters for what? stop cramming ad breaks everywhere and get a better flow on stoppages of the game. Implement time limit for how long it takes to review a challenge or call. Limit the timeout lengths, have like two 60s time outs and like two 30s timeouts. There are ways for him to fix the issue of flow instead of doing dumb stuff.