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Adam Silver said the NBA will evaluate whether a shorter season will improve their product.

Over the past few days, many playoff teams have strategically rested players either for actual rest or in an attempt to manipulate the seeding of the playoffs.

“I'm never quite comfortable where things are at,” said Silver.

“I think especially over that last week, you can imagine there's a fair amount of angst in the league office.”

Teams had been “calling our general counsel Rick Buchanan or calling Mark Tatum or calling me.”

Said Silver: “There aren't always bright-line answers we can give them. We always have one eye, too, that we know that the playoffs are what this is all about. So we don't want to end up forcing a team to do something silly when it could cause issues in terms of health for the most important part of the season.”

The NBA could shorten the season or have an in-season tournament similar to soccer.

“Those are all things we're looking at,” Silver said. “They're not the kinds of format changes you're going to make without lots and lots of deliberation."

The NBA would be unlikely to implement any changes for another five or six years.

“Sometimes it's science, but sometimes it's art,” Silver said. “I think a fair point from fans could be if ultimately the science suggests that 82 games is too many games for these players, maybe you shouldn't have an 82-game season. I accept that, and that's something we'll continue to look at.”

The NBA has traditionally had an 82-game season, but it's unlikely they would choose that number in 2019 if they were building the league from scratch.

“We and the players have a common interest in maximizing viewership and maximizing interest,” the commissioner said. “The format we have in place now… I'm a traditionalist on one hand, but on the other hand it's 50 years old or so, presenting an 82-game season, and there's nothing magical about it.”

Via NBA.com

Start by contracting two teams, then eliminate conferences. 4 seven team divisions to help with travel costs. A third team has to move to Seattle to balance out the divisions. Also, to get the NBAPA on board, you're probably going to have to give them another half a point of BRI... and maybe expand rosters to 16 plus 2 two-ways?

Division rivals *4 (24)
Everyone else *2 (42)
Total (66)

Playoffs are 4 division champs get top 4 seeds by record, then the rest of the league takes 5-16 by record.

The league can continue to name All-Stars (top 30 players), All-NBA teams, and individual awards.

Then if they want to have some kind of a mid-season club tournament, they can use that to replace the All-Star game. Those games can also help to add revenue to replace the lost home dates.

what would an in season tournament help in reducing the number of games? okay, for the spurs, every game of this tournament is one, where they could Rest their players cause why bother about These games?

Just shorten preseason. Keep 82games for the history of the game. Get rid of all back to backs

You guys understand that less games means less games, right?
Less games also means less tickets to sell. That equals less revenue for teams and higher ticket demand, both of which lead to higher ticket prices. I could see the NBA dropping 12 games a year and ticket prices doubling within the first three years. And to be clear, the league is run by the owners. The only way they agree to do this is if they forecast a monetary gain. It certainly has nothing to do with putting a better product on the floor.

Fans... don't be duped!

They should be Open to Revamping the draft to halt tanking.

They should be Open to Giving coaches some sort of challenge system to help cut down on bad ref calls.

They should stop moving towards World Wrestling Entertainment and start moving more towards Basketball as an actual, fairly called, Sport.

I know, I know, it is an entertainment business first, owned by a bunch of billionaires whose primary concern is adding to their billions. But damn it, a kid can dream can't I ?

Silver is the opposite of a traditionalist.
He's a disgrace to the human race

If they really want to make more money, sell a couple franchises to Seattle and Vancouver. I'm sure that could bring in at least two billion to be divided among the thirty owners. Maybe even three billion. Who is going to say No to an extra $100 million in their pockets? Most of these owners didn't even pay $100 million for their teams. Most of them have teams worth well over $1 billion now.

My only mild concern about this is that if they shorten the season, any old records/all time records will be even more impossible to break.

If they shorten the season too much the risk losing a lot of revenue of course. It would be good to drop it back to about 75 games. Give a full week between the season finally and the start of the playoffs. Allow for up to 25 playoff games to make a total of 100 full games each year. Of course if you drop it back to 70 games or less you could eliminate a lot of back to backs if not all of them.

1945 = The Greatest Generation
2019 = The Softest Generation

Winsome Gerbil wrote:1945 = The Greatest Generation
2019 = The Softest Generation

Meh, the league's softness is overrated.

I mean Magic sounded like a little baby resigning because people were saying mean things to him like his team sucked (even though they did). He'd be trashed for whining like that if he was still playing.

Also, NBA minutes aside, millennials are more likely to forfeit vacation days than any other generation, they're workaholics.

PAflet0001 wrote:If they shorten the season too much the risk losing a lot of revenue of course. It would be good to drop it back to about 75 games. Give a full week between the season finally and the start of the playoffs. Allow for up to 25 playoff games to make a total of 100 full games each year. Of course if you drop it back to 70 games or less you could eliminate a lot of back to backs if not all of them.

I was thinking 72 games myself. 3 games vs everyone in your conference, 2 games vs everyone in the opposing conference

Winsome Gerbil wrote:1945 = The Greatest Generation
2019 = The Softest Generation

Go and have a look at the athletes from 1945 and the ones in 2019.. big difference.. They are way more professional now..