Regular Season, the excitment is gone
So the NBA schedule has just been released for the upcoming 2007-2008 season. Couple of quick highlights for me was: Chicago being one of the most nationally broadcast teams (does the League know about some Kobe trade plans we're not aware of?), Portland-Seattle Christmas Matchup (am I the only one not excited about this, a Durant vs Oden matchup sounds like one of those Chrismas presents your grandma gives you that you dont really want) .
What I will be looking out for is certain matchups. Games with either Kobe vs Tmac vs Gilbert vs Wade vs Lebron should be interesting, thats if they don't chicken out and they actually guard each other. Besides these scorers trying to outdo each other, I dont know what else can motivate me. Watching Yao Ming shoot 15 footers over Dwight Howard isnt really my cup of tea. Watching two defensive teams like Detroit and San Antonio can quickly get boring in a setting where it doesn't matter at all who wins. I'm not from the States, so I can't truely get attached to a team and experience crazy suspense when I'm just watching another one of the 82 games that make up a season. Teams can have 12 game losing streaks and still win their conference, or they can go undefeated all season and just gain the advantage of playing a lower seeded team which might or might not be better than the team the 2nd seed has to play. Homecourt advantage isn't enough for me, and clearly wasn't enough for Dallas this past summer. Add the fact that half of the League is a non-factor (the East), and you might just start to wonder why at all should we be excited about the regular season.
Well the answer is simple, we love basketball, and that is the best we got. You look at the MLB with their 68,507,298 games season and you can see that this kind of problem is present in most leagues. The NFL and certain football competitions (Champions League) beat this problem since they have very few games, so each one counts significantly. This sort of do or die situation is what creates the suspense in spors. No one wants to see a game that doesnt matter. No one wants to watch a game with a blowout - even if Im cheering for a team, I sometimes want the other team to make a comeback. Simply put, there needs to be hype and consequences. There can be no trace of "so what" surrounding a game. So why hasn't the League addressed this issue. Well, the NBA is a business so it wants to have as many games as possible - to increase TV money, game ticket money, and any other revenue that might arise from a lenghtier season. The NFL would also lengthen its season if it could, but the brutal nature of the sport prevents that from happening. Having said that, it's not that this is an unsolvable problem, it's just that the NBA hasn't thought it through, or hasn't thought that it was necessesary. With recent problems, and all time low ratings, perhaps this is the best time for me to suggest my idea to improve this meaningless regular season which we are being subjected to each year.
What to Do
Grand Slam
If we start thinking outside the box for a second there can be immediate solutions to solve the 82 game "boredom-marathon". What if I told you we should take a page out of the ATP and Tennis' book. Their 'season' actually lasts the whole year and each player can play easily over 100 games. The real excitement starts to grow around the Grand Slams (Australian Open, Roland Garos, Wimbledon, US Open). Each of these are very exciting moments for tennis fans, comparable with the Playoffs for NBA fans. The difference is obviously that they get this excitment 4 times per year, with increasing excitement as each tournament progresses. In the current state of the NBA, we get it once and ratings almost seems to go down as the Playoffs progresses.
The IDEA
So what can we take from the Tennis format to possibly improve the current framework the NBA employs? Simply put, turn the long marathon into a couple of sprints! Split the season into 3 parts.
Part I: Battle of the Conference
First part will start off with 14 basic games, with each team of a specific conference playing the other. Following these 14 games the team with the worst record (15th) will be out. The 1st and 2nd teams of each conference will get a bye to the quarter finals. The 3rd through 14th teams will get matched up in similar style to the current Playoffs (3/14, 4/13, 5/12, 6/11, 7/10, 8/9). These teams will play a single elimination game with the better rated team having homecourt advantage. This way we can assure that everyteam is motivated to get better seeds, as anything can happen in a single game series. Also, the top two teams will be approapriately rewarded and not have to face the risk of a single game elimination.
Following that round we will have 8 teams left in a conference. Quarterfinals and semifinals will be played using a 3 game series. The final of each conference will be a single game. Meanwhile, so other teams also get to play and participate despite being out, they will play similar series to determine the rankings of 1-15.
So in a mere 20 or so games, fans will be able to see each team of a conference play against each other. Each fan will be rooting for their team to get a good seed. There will be great excitement in avoiding being the 15th, and also in trying to be in the top 2. The elimination games and mini-playoff series will no doubt be hugely popular rivaling that of the actual playoffs. That NCAA march madness fever will be present throughout a whole NBA season, can you imagine??!
Part II: Battle of the Conferences
The second 15 game cycle will be similar to the first, but instead of playing every team in its own conference, teams will play every team outside their conference. Teams will again be rated 1-15 in their own conference, judged on how they performed against the opposing conference. Then the 2 'conferences' will be split up as follows:
Conference A
1. 1st of West
2. 2nd of East
3. 3rd of West
4. 4th of East
5. 5th of West
6. 6th of East
7. 7th of West
8. 8th of East
9. 9th of West
10. 10th of East
11. 11th of West
12. 12th of East
13. 13th of West
14. 14th of East
15.15th of West
The exact opposite would constitute Conference B. The winners of these tournaments would be decided in the same way that I explained for Part I.
Part III: Battle of the League
Part 3 is where everyone plays all other 29 teams once. Seeds are then formed across the whole league, 1-30. Teams with the worst 2 records are out. First two teams receive a bye. Then the tournament carries on in normal fashion. All games are single elimination except the Quarter/Semis/Finals which are 3 game series. The eliminated teams still play games to rank all the teams from 1-30.
Part I+II+III: Determining who gets into the Playoffs
To decide what are the top 16 seeds to finally go into the playoffs, this is the formula that should be used.
Ranking in Part 1+Ranking in Part 2+ ( Ranking in Part 3 divided by 1.5)=Total Number
The 16 teams with the lowest total number are our Playoff teams.
What this system accomplishes
-Every game in the season matters!
-Every team and its fans, no matter how bad of a roster they have, will have a shot.(Just the inclusion of a playoff hungry team like Golden State changed the whole playoffs last year)
-Fans of 'rebuilding' teams wont be totally left out in the cold
-All three parts of the season are important, while the end counts the most (thats why we divide by 1.5 and not 2)
-No more teams throwing away their second half of the season just to land lottery picks
-No more teams with great records having nothing to worry about in the second half of the season
-No more "unbalanced" East vs West problems
-Regular Season is great fun and exciting, yet still the Playoffs are where Champions are made
-More opportunities for great memorable moments, and exciting highlights/games for fans
Conclusion
This system seems close to perfect for me, but of course there can be changes made to how long the mini-series last, how many points are given and hence which playoff teams selected. The best of it is that there is no reason why this system cant be implemented. There is still a framework where each team plays at least 80 games, where only tried and tested teams get into the playoffs, where each team plays every other team at least twice. Just think about all that Ive said and imagine all the possible excitement. Imagine those crazy games where the 28th seeded Cinderella-Hawks try to upset the Spurs. Imagine all those one game battles and cluth heroics in single elimination games. Imagine the unprecendeted hype/interest/and involvement from every team in the league and every fan in the world.
Then imagine our current league. With 82 straight boring games where excitement doesn't start to kick in until April, at best. Sports is suppose to give fans suspence and excitement, its suppose to test players and determine whether they can compete with the best when stakes are high. Currently, our sport is a long grind that seems to be tedious rather than exciting. Let's bring fun and excitement back into the league - for every game, for every team!
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