As more and more NBA players sit out games due to load management, the league has been actively exploring ways to combat the issue, such as eliminating back-to-backs attached to nationally televised games and fining teams for sitting players in those contests.
One frequently proposed, and rather simple, solution from players and fans has been to shorten the length of the 82-game season. However, ESPN’s top NBA broadcast crew doesn’t see it happening in the near future.
“We play the same schedule that they’ve played [since the 1967-68 season], so what is going on? We’ve spent hundreds of millions of dollars in sports science, so what’s going on?” game analyst Richard Jefferson said on a preseason press call with reporters.
“The 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’re doing things. There are not as many back-to-backs, [and] less practice days, so that ‘Ferrari’ stays in the garage until race day. …You are disrespecting the older players that were doing back-to-backs on commercial planes with one equipment manager. It’s like, how easy do we want to make this?”
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’s stars.
“In an 82-game season, our expectations right now of how much we’re going to see guys has changed. You’re not expecting 82. You’re praying for 70 and realistically you’re going to get 65,” Legler said. “Say you played a 70-game season. I don’t think you then see guys play 65, 70 games. You’re going to have a lot of guys play 60 games. Maybe 58 becomes the number. Now there’s even fewer nights when you’re seeing the top guys. …You’re 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.”
Mike Breen, who has served as ESPN’s 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.
“It’s never going to happen,” Breen asserted. “Everyone is going to have to take less money. Ten games away to make it 72. That’s 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’t ever see it happening.”
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