For whatever reason, watching the NBA this season is an incredibly weak form of entertainment. Though they are only a third of the way into their respective schedules, more than half of the teams have losing records, and some of those teams are downright embarrassing.
"Tanking" for a high draft pick in next June's draft is not only expected but encouraged in basketball meccas like Philadelphia (and New York City, though they haven't gone on the record saying this is the plan), and players are talked about like expensive building blocks ("contracts") rather than likable, talented basketball players.
And because there are so many games and weeks and months between the start of the season and the play-offs, NBA beat writers find ways to triumph over the monotonous schedule with dramatic stories about trade deadlines, free agency, and whining superstars.
Add it all together and you have a boring sport.
And the ironic thing is, basketball is one of the most beautiful, fluid games on the planet. The action is spectacular, the athletes are at the top of their profession, and the coaching strategy is, for the most part, excellent. The game play is exciting, the physicality impressive, and the possibility of an unbelievable, edge-of-your-seat play is greater than 50% each game.
So how would you change it if you could? Make little tweaks or junk it all and start over?
1. Recast the divisions and conferences into an "A" group and a "B" group. The "A" group would battle for the championship in a given season, with the worst "A" team being demoted to the "B" group. The "B" group would battle for a promotion to the "A" group in the following season.
2. Reconsider the draft. The draft lottery would be reserved for "B" group teams; "A" group teams would not have the possibility of a pick in the first 15 draft picks, unless by trade. The team that won the championship would not receive a draft pick.
3. Reduce the number of regular-season games. Currently, most NBA teams play at least three, sometimes four games a week. Now multiply that by 24 weeks. Eighty-two games is a lot of games, and usually a handful of star players will be hurt—sometimes significantly—over the course of the season. If the league kept the same November 1 to May 1 regular season but cut the number of games in half, fewer games would be missed. Games would have more meaning, with greater buildup to each game. Take a page from the NFL: Every week, each team is focused on one opponent, not three or four. Whole sections of the country are focused on that Sunday's (or Thursday, Saturday, or Monday's) game. There are so many games in the NBA that fans often can't watch every game, let alone tell you who their team is playing on a nightly basis. Even the television networks don't carry every game, and only highlight a handful of games each season, whereas every NFL game is highlighted, regardless of the teams.
4. Instruct the referees to call a looser game. Too many touch fouls make for a boring game. The inherent attractiveness of the fluid motion of the game disappears when every touch foul is called. The league adores and revels in its colorful history. But if the game was called "back then" like it is today, none of those iconic moments would exist. Jordan pushing off Byron Russell for the championship-winning bucket? That was definitely an offensive foul on Jordan. Or how about Larry Bird and Julius Erving fighting in the play-offs? Both stars would've been ejected and suspended for at least one game. Same with Robert Parish and Bill Laimbeer, Kareem and Bird in the Finals, McHale and Rambis, et cetera, et cetera. When there's the threat of ejection and suspension, and players standing around the court and not helping their teammates during a fight, how are the fans supposed to feel? I want to see my team's players stick up for each other. I'm going to a game to see a battle, and violence and emotions are part of the game.
There are other things the league can do to save the game, such as making basketball game-play the front-and-center attraction at each game, rather than a Jumbotron "kiss cam", mascots and loud, blaring music, but these four steps will keep the regular season entertaining to the fans, meaningful to the players, and worth reading about on the Internet and in newspapers.
