Six ways to improve the NBA
06/13/2007
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Few would argue that football hasn’t surpassed baseball as “America’s Pastime,” but where is basketball on this list? It’s tough to say. Every spring, March Madness captures the nation’s attention, cramming all the intrigue and excitement of a full season of college football into three weekends of action.
The NBA certainly lags far behind the NFL in terms of popularity. The season is longer and the regular season games aren’t as important. Plus, fantasy football is much more popular than fantasy basketball, allowing a huge new audience to gain access to the NFL.
But even the NFL has its faults. Games last way too long due to all the commercials required to generate enough revenue to sustain the league financially. Considering the growth of DVRs, both the NFL and NBA would do well to scale back the salary cap, reduce commercials and shorten the amount of time it takes to watch a game. If they don’t, they’ll eventually lose a portion of this revenue because advertisers will (at some point) realize that no one is watching their commercials, making each league’s current financial plan unsustainable.
It takes at least three hours to complete 60 minutes of NFL play. NBA games last at least two and a half hours for 48 minutes of play. For both leagues, the math works out to just 1/3 of the total televised time actually being spent watching game action.
And it’s only getting worse. Recently, the NFL implemented a running clock rule that was supposed to speed up play. But games are still lasting three hours or more. Where is that extra time going? That’s right, more commercials.
But “too many commercials” is just one of several problems with the NBA. As I watched the playoffs this year, I scribbled down a few ideas that I think would increase the league’s fan base.
1. Shorten the season.
Take a cue from the NFL – its season lasts about four months (September thru December). Right now, the NBA runs from November to mid-April, or five and a half months. If the NBA shortened its season to four months, it would result in a regular season of 60 games. The idea of a regular season is to separate the good teams from the bad, and 60 games is plenty. One of the reasons the NFL is so popular is that the regular season isn’t that long. Games are more important and fans get a chance to actually miss the sport when it’s not in season.
2. Implement college five-second rule.
When people complain about how the NBA is “boring,” I can’t really blame them. For the casual fan, unless they’re watching their team, there are very few NBA teams that are fun to watch. It’s pure joy to witness the Suns’ breakneck offense. Even when things aren’t going well, they’re still in attack mode. There is still too much “back it down” and “clear out” offense, where a team gives the ball to their best player and the rest of the players stand around as he attacks the basket on his own. If the NBA utilized the college five-second rule (where a closely guarded player can only hold or dribble the ball for five seconds), it would encourage movement, cutting and passing, which is all more enjoyable to watch than one-on-five basketball.
3. No arena music during gameplay.
Anyone who watched any of the Golden State home games saw an arena full of fans who were into the game on their own, chanting “defense!” without any prompting by the venue’s musical director. Anything that distracts the fans’ attention away from the action on the court is a bad thing. Playing “Hot in Herre” or “Hells Bells” when the ball is being brought up court only serves to fragment an already fragmented fan base. Music is fine during and coming out of timeouts (to drive up anticipation), but once the ball is in play, everyone just needs to watch the game. There are lots of great college crowds now, but that all started with the Cameron Crazies and spread throughout the country. There’s no reason that the same thing can’t happen in the NBA. (Well, maybe not the same thing, but you get my drift.)
4. Reduce the number of timeouts.
Right now, NBA teams get six full (one-minute) timeouts and two 20-second timeouts. It’s so frustrating when a home team goes on a huge run (driving their fans into a frenzy) and the visiting team squashes all that good energy by calling a timeout. Doesn’t the NBA want loud, rowdy arenas where fans are screaming their heads off because their team is on a 16-2 run? I’m not saying we should do away with timeouts all together, but let’s at least cut them in half. It would encourage longer runs, better game flow and less handholding at the end of games.
5. No more guaranteed contracts.
Unlike the NFL, where a team can cut a player due to injury or poor performance, all the contracts in the NBA are guaranteed. Once an NBA player has signed a big deal, he has very little monetary incentive to stay in good shape or to continue to improve. This is why there are so many “bad contracts” around the league. For some reason, whether it’s nagging injuries or a lack of improvement, the player isn’t living up to the money he’s making. I’d like to see a system where if a player gets fat and happy after signing a big contract, the team can terminate the contract and only have to pay one additional year (assuming the player doesn’t sign elsewhere). Bad teams would be able to get out from under bad contracts and turn things around more quickly, while the player would still have some protection built into his deal. This would force players to continue to hone their games, and the overall talent level of the league would rise. In a free market, competition breeds improvement, right?
6. Change the playoff system.
With Greg Oden and Kevin Durant likely going to the West, the talent disparity between the two conferences is only going to grow. This season, in 450 interconference games, the East was 193-257 (.429) against the West. Moreover, Eastern Conference playoff teams were 118-122 (.491) against the West, while Western Conference playoff teams were 161-79 (.671) against the East. The top five teams in the league – Dallas, Phoenix, San Antonio, Utah and Houston – are all Western Conference teams, and one could argue that teams like the Nuggets, Warriors, Lakers and Clippers would be division champs if they were in the East. So, for the playoffs, why not seed #1-#16 regardless of conference? Better yet, seed #1-#14, then let the remaining 16 teams battle it out in a single-elimination tourney for the last two playoff slots. Then, shorten every subsequent playoff series to three games, increasing the tempo of the playoffs to more closely resemble the NCAA tourney. I’m the first to admit, this is a pie-in-the-sky idea. But wouldn’t it be great?
Unfortunately, none of the above ideas are in any danger of being implemented, as commissioner David Stern and the owners have enjoyed pretty good success over the last 20 years, which makes it unlikely that they’ll make drastic changes to something that’s already (sort of) working. The sad thing is, when compared to football and baseball, basketball is probably the most intrinsically exciting sport to watch. The action is up and down and there’s lots of scoring. The athleticism is phenomenal and the star power is immense. The NBA should be the most popular professional sports league in the country, but the success that the Association has had (despite its numerous flaws) means that in 10 years, things will be pretty much the same.
Send questions and comments to jpaulsen@bullz-eye.com.