I\u2019m sure there are still more, but that doesn\u2019t matter. Because the only one anyone ever talks about is tanking. That\u2019s the one we can\u2019t escape.<\/p>\n
No one wants their teams to tank: not fans, not front offices, not owners. Perhaps, upon creating basketball utopia, we\u2019ll turn every team into title contenders every season. Until then, bad teams will exist. They\u2019ll be incentivized to build rosters and hold out players that reduce their chances to win games because the league\u2019s structure incentivizes it. Most proposals aimed to fix this would still be exploitable or have other ramifications. (That said, I do find some of them fascinating.) In the meantime, we\u2019ve seen more teams tanking sooner this season than any prior point in league history. I do understand why it has become the league\u2019s punching bag.<\/p>\n
I won\u2019t defend tanking. It\u2019d be better for every game to be played between two teams that have every intention to win. I do think it\u2019s overstated how much it affects the NBA\u2019s viewership. Teams amidst losing seasons will always lose fans, no matter how unethical those losses might be, but most fanbase\u2019s diehards embrace a purposeful tank for a better future. (Look at how furious the Utah Jazz fanbase has been after last week\u2019s tanking fines.) The league\u2019s player participation policy has resulted in fewer stars being held out from nationally televised games, an obvious concern for the league\u2019s most broadly watched showcases, which helps.<\/p>\n
Those points aren\u2019t meant to convince anyone who still can\u2019t stand tanking. I understand those who see it as an unethical act, that it undermines sport\u2019s intention. I sympathize with fans who bought tickets and then had their favorite player ruled out. But, far more often, those instances have nothing to do with tanking.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The league\u2019s most serious issue, no matter how much oxygen this debate about tanking has burnt this week, is an increasingly clear crisis the league should acknowledge: That superstars and role players alike are getting injured more than ever before. That keeps more players off the court than even the most egregiously tanking franchise ever could.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Perhaps you still disagree. Perhaps you\u2019re worried about how often players are getting hurt but even more disgusted by the franchises that hold out healthy players. I\u2019ve heard you, and I\u2019d like to counter with this: These two issues are so deeply connected that there\u2019s one common fix that helps both problems.<\/p>\n
The NBA should shorten the season. It\u2019s time.<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
The drums warning of the NBA\u2019s growing injury crisis have started sounding more ominous. As of the All-Star break, there have been 4,253 games missed this season by players due to injury or illness, according to<\/a> injury guru Jeff Stotts. That\u2019s close to three players missing every single game for both teams on average before counting games missed for rest or injury management, which comes in at just 199.<\/p>\n What\u2019s concerning is that those numbers keep growing. Last season, once again according to Stotts\u2019 excellent work<\/a>, had the most games lost due to injury and illness since he tracking it in 2005. Earlier this year, before tanking discourse replaced it, alarm bells rang louder after scores of stars went down injured. You don\u2019t hear quite as much about calf strains at this point of the season. Unfortunately, stars still keep getting injured and ruled out every game.<\/p>\n Some tanking teams shut players down for injuries, of course, and offer players more recovery time than they might in another situation. (See: Kyrie Irving being officially ruled out for the season on Wednesday while Jayson Tatum, injured two months after him, still seems to be nearing his return.) The overwhelming number of these cases, however, are real injuries that really prevent players from playing basketball.<\/p>\n What\u2019s commonly accepted as the primary driver of these injuries, which has happened even as teams continue spending millions on sports science and injury reduction methods, is how the game has changed. Players play fewer minutes but run more miles in those minutes than ever before. More specifically, there are more closeouts, longer rotations, frequenter bursts. As the league embraced the spacing revolution, defenders have been asked to cover more ground to combat how many players can shoot.<\/p>\n There are other reasons theorized to contribute to this: That youth basketball grinds down<\/a> young players and forces them into sports specialization<\/a> from an early age; that the teams these kids play for don\u2019t have long-term prioritization in mind; that athleticism has reached such levels that more players\u2019 bodies can\u2019t handle the forces exerted on them; that even on the other end, on offense, players move horizontally more than ever before. These ideas all have merit, and it\u2019s different for each player. But how much more this sport asks from players might be the most important one.<\/p>\n The NBA wants its players to be healthier more often. Here\u2019s one solution: Toss out the 3-point line, eliminate Eurosteps, and make basketball look like the \u201890s again. Any takers? (I know some oldheads are reading this thinking hell yeah.) Since that won\u2019t and shouldn\u2019t happen, however, we\u2019re left with modern basketball pushing against the limits of the modern player\u2019s body. The less radical solution would be reducing how many games they must play.<\/p>\n This idea doesn\u2019t appear to have much traction with the league office as things stand right now. That\u2019s despite the aforementioned fact that most regional sports networks, and the revenue from those local broadcast rights, have crumpled in the past few years. This feels like the opportunity to reconsider what has always been an arbitrary 82-game schedule, established back when gate revenue was the only thing keeping the NBA from bankruptcy. The league\u2019s long-awaited expansion seems to be inching closer, too, which would add games back to the ones lost from the reduction. I\u2019m sure you\u2019ve heard the rest of the argument: Fewer games would allow stars to be more available, which would increase the product\u2019s quality, eventually earning back whatever revenue was lost through fewer ticket sales.<\/p>\n The standings don\u2019t move much in the season\u2019s final months. Last season, among the 12 teams finishing with top-six seeds in each conference, 11 of them were in place on March 1. The year before that, 10 of those 12 teams were already settled into top-six seeds. And for the 2022-23 season, not only were all top-six finishers already within the top-six on March 1, but they were in the exact same seed they\u2019d finish the season with. This has been the trend for years: The best teams have been established and the posers have fallen off each season by February. It\u2019s why March has become known for such wacky basketball, why coaches leading teams destined for the postseason talk about how hard it is to keep up the motivation.<\/p>\n The same March where tanking teams lose all shame.<\/p>\n Most schedule shortening proposals don\u2019t want the league\u2019s schedule to change. We aren\u2019t running from March itself; there\u2019s no Bermuda Triangle-esque effect it has on the players. Fewer games in the league\u2019s established schedule, however, would mean less bad basketball even before tanking reforms happen, which can still also happen if you want. The standings might not move much after 60 games, but franchises still need the first 20 to decide how good their teams really are. There\u2019s less time to turn to a tank.<\/p>\n Eliminating back-to-backs has been one of the shortened season\u2019s purposes, too, which would come at tanking teams\u2019 chagrin. They love that excuse to sit veterans who might dare help them win. It\u2019s a built-in excuse the league provides them not so different from the very incentives that cause teams to tank. Teams also shut down players for season-ending surgeries, ones that stem from nagging injuries they\u2019d try playing under different circumstances. I want players to have more chances to recuperate midseason away from this current meat grinder they\u2019re ran through.<\/p>\n I\u2019d like to make one concession to my earlier argument that tanking doesn\u2019t affect how many fans actually tune in. I still believe that\u2019s true. But why shouldn\u2019t a casual basketball fan, seeing this many headlines and podcasts devoted to making teams try, believe there are no competitive games around this point of the regular season? Rather than this truer statement: There\u2019s great basketball most nights, we\u2019d like if there were more, and it\u2019s more than just the tankers. (To that point, you do realize Utah won one of the games the league cited when fining them for tanking last week, right?) But how would anybody know that from spending 10 minutes in any NBA space?<\/p>\n I try not to weigh in on this because it\u2019s not my sport but it seems fairly apparent to me that about 95% of the NBA\u2019s problems come from the unfortunate fact that no one \u2013 not the league office, management, fans, media, players or anybody else \u2013 actually seems to like the NBA<\/p>\n