Joined: 03 Jan 2005 Posts: 665 Location: Washington, DC
Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2007 1:28 pm Post subject:
One thing the league could do to the game that might actually increase competition would be to make the court bigger -- longer and wider. That would put a premium on running and would make it tougher for the slow-moving behemoths to stay on the court. A longer court would give a few extra steps for pure footspeed to make a difference. That could make the little guy -- people like Nash, Iverson, Arenas, etc. -- a bit more important. And that could help balance out the advantage posed by the lack of big men available.
One thing the league could do to the game that might actually increase competition would be to make the court bigger -- longer and wider.
Without even commenting on the merits of your idea, wouldn't it also be really hard to implement just because it would force a change in current arena constraints, which while already hard, would also cut into ticket revenue?
schtevie, I thought that was a great analysis of the article, and I generally agree with all your points.
One thing you didn't address is perhaps a shortening of the season. While it has the same problems as shortening the playoffs (decreasing TV and ticket sales) I do think that one of the problems in terms of excitement is that any given regular season game has relatively little weight on the path of the season (from a fan's perspective). Now, personally I want to see as much basketball as possible so I'd be against this change, but the argument could certainly be made that shortening the season cuts down on injuries to stars, increases the urgency of play in any given game (a frequent criticism of the NBA) and makes the games "must see." Look at college basketball, where you have about 16-20 major games in a season, and each one is a huge event. You can never let down your guard.
In fact, I think that's one of the things that Bill James is hitting on, but also misses completely: the EFFECT of the upset, not the frequency of it. Upsets happen relatively frequently in the NBA, but we just don't care as much because it's not as big a deal. If Atlanta beats Dallas, OK, that's big but it's not going to drastically hurt Dallas' chances of winning the title. If a bottom of the conference team beats a top conference team, it seriously hurts their conference seeding, NCAA seeding, and chances of winning the conference. _________________ XOHoops - A New Kind of Fantasy Basketball
From a fan perspective, the problem is the very low quality of RS basketball.
Players coasting most of the time and waiting for the last few minutes and poorly coached offences that run way too muh isos.
Why? Too many games make each one less meaningful, over 50% of the teams are in the playoffs, not enough time to properly practice.
My solution?
50games RS october/april, 8 teams to the playoffs.
Downside: less teams=less money.
I've always been confused at the "players in the NBA don't play hard" argument. Maybe it's right there in front of me, but I've never really noticed it.
It doesn't make that much sense to me either. I could understand and believe that a star player or two on each team would have the luxury of taking it easy, but aren't most of the rest of the players fighting for their spot in the lineup or even to stay in the league? They have a guy sitting right there on the bench just waiting to take their job if they don't play well -- let alone if they don't try hard.
As for the star players, well there might be some problems there, but I'd say just as many are ultra-competitive types who don't know how to coast.
Regarding kjb's making the court bigger argument, my guess is that this would not have the desired results and instead would bring some undesired consequences.
For the bigger court to empower the small and fleet at the expense of the large and plodding, the extra feet of court would have to change the relative frequency of fastbreaks. As things stand now, the slower centers are already not involved in fastbreak defense and they have established value; so lengthening the court will not change that.
And then there is the downside. For all non-fastbreak possessions, having shotclock time used for moving the ball upcourt instead of attempting to create a better shot will only serve to decrease offensive efficiency.
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