{"id":890096,"date":"2026-10-21T23:28:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-21T23:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/890096\/"},"modified":"2026-10-21T23:28:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-21T23:28:08","slug":"espns-top-nba-crew-dismisses-nba-shortening-regular-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/890096\/","title":{"rendered":"ESPN’s top NBA crew dismisses NBA shortening regular season"},"content":{"rendered":"

As more and more NBA players sit out games due to load management,<\/a> the league has been actively exploring ways to combat the issue, such as eliminating back-to-backs attached to nationally televised games<\/a> and fining teams for sitting players in those contests.<\/a><\/p>\n

One frequently proposed, and rather simple, solution from players and fans has been to shorten the length of the 82-game season. However, ESPN\u2019s top NBA broadcast crew doesn\u2019t see it happening in the near future.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe play the same schedule that they\u2019ve played [since the 1967-68 season], so what is going on? We\u2019ve spent hundreds of millions of dollars in sports science, so what\u2019s going on?\u201d game analyst Richard Jefferson said on a preseason press call with reporters.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe players have more resources, more trainers, more planes, more equipment, all of the stuff. The quality of the product is how players are taking care of themselves, how they\u2019re doing things. There are not as many back-to-backs, [and] less practice days, so that \u2018Ferrari\u2019 stays in the garage until race day. \u2026You are disrespecting the older players that were doing back-to-backs on commercial planes with one equipment manager. It\u2019s like, how easy do we want to make this?\u201d<\/p>\n

Tim Legler largely agreed with Jefferson, noting that even with a shortened schedule, key players would find ways to rest ahead of the playoffs, reducing the opportunities fans would have to see the game\u2019s stars.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn an 82-game season, our expectations right now of how much we\u2019re going to see guys has changed. You\u2019re not expecting 82. You\u2019re praying for 70 and realistically you\u2019re going to get 65,\u201d Legler said. \u201cSay you played a 70-game season. I don\u2019t think you then see guys play 65, 70 games. You\u2019re going to have a lot of guys play 60 games. Maybe 58 becomes the number. Now there\u2019s even fewer nights when you\u2019re seeing the top guys. \u2026You\u2019re just hoping you can get the top guys upright and healthy on April 15 for a two-month playoff run because it still will be the salvation of the NBA season.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mike Breen, who has served as ESPN\u2019s lead play-by-play voice since 2006, focused on the economic ramifications of reducing the games played, before ultimately arriving at the same conclusion as his colleagues.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s never going to happen,\u201d Breen asserted. \u201cEveryone is going to have to take less money. Ten games away to make it 72. That\u2019s a lot of revenue over 10 games, and not just players, coaches, owners. How about all the peripheral people that work those games? Whether you work in the arena, whether you have businesses around the arena that rely on those 41 home games to make sure they pay their bills, etc. I think it impacts so many people in so many different ways financially that I don\u2019t ever see it happening.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As more and more NBA players sit out games due to load management, the league has been actively…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":890097,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[88,276223,257532,101077,58547,95478,76003,92],"class_list":["post-890096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-load-management","tag-mike-breen","tag-nba-on-espn","tag-nba-schedule","tag-richard-jefferson","tag-tim-legler","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=890096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/890097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=890096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=890096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=890096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}