The NBA's star players don't dress for enough games during the regular season according to Adam Silver. The media and fans have been complaining about this for a while now, ever since the term load management entered the vocabulary. The jokes will follow it.
The NBA and its media are to blame. There have always been too many games. Basketball doesn't need to last until mid June, and even if it does, it's an absurd total. It only gets more absurd when we put more emphasis on the playoffs. When a player is drafted at the top of the draft, all he hears is that he will be evaluated by the number of rings he wears when his career is over. How much can that wear on you? When you push back, some retired player is always ready to tell any outlet how much harder they had it and then flash their jewelry.
The playoffs have always been emphasized by owners. Television contracts are weighted for them. Regular-season games are what networks put up with so they can get the rights to the playoffs. That is true in all sports. It's hard to get people to care about a Memphis-Denver game in February, and it's even harder when the league is telling people that nothing matters until April.
Why would the most important players, whose next contract or endorsement or how they are viewed by their own fans and what the stories about them all summer will be that all depend on playoff results, power through a tight hamstring or hip? Or close to it? Home court doesn't really matter in basketball where you have your own fans and your own comfort. You don't get the last at-bat or deal with weather that you are comfortable with. Does it matter if you finish as the first or third seed? Not really.
Look at the Warriors. They won 73 games. They lost less than 10 games. It is the most singular team accomplishment in the history of the team. It is unlikely to be topped. They lost a coin flip and no one cares. Every year, a team wins the Finals. One has won 73 games.
What did everyone learn from that? You can't do anything in the regular season if you don't go the full way.
What is the answer? It's obvious that the season should be shortened. If players don't have to play three games in four nights a season, they will play more often. Around the weekends, owners will keep more of their games. Teams would be able to rest in town more often if they were forced to fly out of town after a game. The benefits of a perfect 76-game schedule were discussed when we said the NHL could lower to a perfect 76-game schedule.
The NBA doesn't fit into a 76-game model as well, but there is a number they could find. Lessening the games makes them more important. This is the most reasonable answer, though some owners would need some convincing as they lose out on home dates. The players aren't going to give up 10% of their salary.
Along with shortening the season, a playoff restructuring would be another way to get there. The higher the seed, the easier it is to get to the finals. If you want players to dress for all regular-season games, you have to know that every game means something. If the reward is a shorter path to the finals, you will get there.
I might as well ask them to move the finals to the moon.
I will sign off for the week with Payet's goal.
You only get a few volleys per season. A volley that looks like it was hit perfectly, but that the ball is streaking back to a lover it has been kept away from for months. There is not a straighter line and there is a rush to the back of the net. When you were allowed to meet people at the gate, the airport was the only other place you could see this kind of meeting. The net and shot are drawn to each other.
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