RealGM

For the simple reason, like this year is showing, theres nothing worse than watching a post season where all the key guys are injured or get injured so we never see the best vs. the teams best with all key guys healthy and playing. Its cheapens the entire post season IMO and waters it down (Jeesh I couldn't even sit through most of these series (Outside of Denver-OKC or Wolves-Lakers) Which is something we can't have because the regular season is boring, too long, and missed by most people. No one even really gets interested until after the ASB anyways.. Even the Knicks-Celtics which on paper has the most intrigue has turned to crap due to Tatum missing and Knicks crapping the bed) . Most of the guys are just not capable of the 82 game format any longer. I mean the Wolves-Warriors was series got so bad after Curry went down it shouldn't have been televised. Warriors are a G-league team man without Curry.

The Cavs-Pacers series turned into a complete joke after all the Cavs key players went down with injuries. That should have been a highly competitive at least. Instead we had to watch a bunch of players hobble around on one leg,

Theres no reason for a long 82 game season that most people don't even bother watching, when everyone is getting hurt

A home and away for each team in the league seems like a simple enough setup. Assuming the 2 team expansion is locked in that'd be 62 games a year, not bad.

It will never happen because of money. Even if it could happen, I wouldn't want it to. It won't though.

I could see it maybe going to 76 or 72 games and Silver would have to sell it on the idea that healthier teams would get higher ratings in the playoffs. No way the owners or probably even the players would want less than 72 because it also impacts player salaries.

This is an idea that is commonly floated that ignores the business side of basketball.

Basketball isn't popular to make a 50-55 games schedule work. It would significantly reduce revenue as there wouldn't be enough ratings pickups in the remaining games to make up for losing a 1/3 of the season.

Players will oppose any reduction in games that meaningfully reduce revenues and thus players salaries. Owners will oppose any reduction in games that meaningfully reduce revenue

Expand to 32 teams

Home and away league phase - 62 games. Has nothing to do with playoffs, it's its own trophy. Spread the games out so that the season ends around the conference finals or finals. Large sample size basketball.

18 game round robin (2 games for each team in division, 1 game for rest of conference). Seeding games for playoffs. Larry O'Brien goes here. Small/medium sample size basketball.

Guaranteed 1 single elim game in-season tournament. Small sample size basketball.

1 more game that I don't know what to do with.

Teams could just rest their star players like they already do. Maybe the Warriors could have done a better job in the first half of the season to prevent from having to overload Curry at the back end of the season. Maybe don't rush Dame back way before he's ready to play basketball. There's freak injuries that happen every now and then, and Tatum would fall into that category.

eminence wrote:A home and away for each team in the league seems like a simple enough setup. Assuming the 2 team expansion is locked in that'd be 62 games a year, not bad.

That's probably too drastic of a change, but they have obvious recipes for a 72 or 76 game season.