Haberstroh: 82 Games Season Dead

[Saint Cy of JFC]

The point of the regular season is to determine the best 8 teams in each conference for the playoffs. Look at every season, these are usually decided at the All-Star break and dont change much after. The other point of the regular season is to give every city a (theoretical) chance at seeing every player in their city. It's important that every team play a road game against every team.

 

[Saint Cy of JFC]

If back-to-backs can be eliminated all together, why is it important that they don't play 82 games? Isn't your point of this conversation to limit the physical stress on on the players, resulting in less injuries and creating an overall better product? Maybe that can be achieved while still preserving the 82 game schedule. Why would that be so bad? If you cut games, which games do you cut? Do the Jazz only play the Eastern Conference teams once a year? Do they scale back division games? I like the current balance of an NBA schedule and I think they can preserve that while making some changes that would accommodate the other side of the argument.

Because the NBA season is too long. Individual games dont hold much weight and it just results in teams resting players either because they are so good and so far ahead individual games no loner hold meaning. Even if you get rid of back-to-backs teams like San Antonio are going to be up by so much they are still going to rest players because it will still be valuable. Hell most NBA standing are decided at the All-Star break every year. Very little changes in terms of overall standings of the top 8.

It's laughable anyone thinks simply getting rid of back to back will stop teams from resting players. If a team is up by a ton in the standings with a lot of meaningless games ahead, they are going to rest their stars and older vets.

 

[7StraightIsGreat]

Because the NBA season is too long. Individual games dont hold much weight and it just results in teams resting players either because they are so good and so far ahead individual games no loner hold meaning. Even if you get rid of back-to-backs teams like San Antonio are going to be up by so much they are still going to rest players because it will still be valuable. Hell most NBA standing are decided at the All-Star break every year. Very little changes in terms of overall standings of the top 8.

It's laughable anyone thinks simply getting rid of back to back will stop teams from resting players. If a team is up by a ton in the standings with a lot of meaningless games ahead, they are going to rest their stars and older vets.

The 8 seeds in both conferences were not decided by the all star break and are still up in the air with 5 or 6 games to go. The 4-5 seeds almost always jostle for position until the end of the season. The East's #1 seed has been going back and forth for quite a few weeks now. Each year, you'll have 1 or 2 teams that run away from the pack and 14 to 15 other teams that have to play out the year. Let's shorten the season to accommodate the top 3% of the league? Seriously?

 

[Saint Cy of JFC]

The 8 seeds in both conferences were not decided by the all star break and are still up in the air with 5 or 6 games to go. The 4-5 seeds almost always jostle for position until the end of the season. The East's #1 seed has been going back and forth for quite a few weeks now. Each year, you'll have 1 or 2 teams that run away from the pack and 14 to 15 other teams that have to play out the year. Let's shorten the season to accommodate the top 3% of the league? Seriously?

Yeah, we really need to play an extra 20 games to decide who loses to the #1 seed. You have it completely backwards, playing 82 games is accommodating the %3 while the other 97% are already set in their position. It's accommodating to the top team to be able to rest while whoever is #8 has to play all 82 games to be battered to play the #1 seed.

 

[Saint Cy of JFC]

So not only is the NBA geared to the best teams with 7 game series, which basically guarantees the best team always wins with little random variation, but those teams also get to benefit from being the best by resting since they only need about 60-70 games to become a top 1-3 team. So they get an even bigger advantage that is completely unnecessary.

 

[7StraightIsGreat]

Yeah, we really need to play an extra 20 games to decide who loses to the #1 seed. You have it completely backwards, playing 82 games is accommodating the %3 while the other 97% are already set in their position. It's accommodating to the top team to be able to rest while whoever is #8 has to play all 82 games to be battered to play the #1 seed.

Heading into last night's games 4 TEAMS were still alive for the #1 seed in the East. That's half the damn conference's playoffs teams! Teams 5 through 9 in the East are separated by a whopping grand total of 2 games as of this morning. Literally, as I type this, it's quite feasible that EVERY playoff team in the East changes it's seeding between today and the end of the season. The West is more settled with it's top 3 seeds but you still have Utah trying to hold onto the 4 seed, the Clippers trying to take the 4 seed, OKC trying to reach the 5 seed, and Denver and Portland 1 game apart from the 8 seed.

Even if I disagree with you, I can at least see the logic in your other arguments for shortening the season, but don't sit here and tell me that most of the playoff spots are locked in at the All-Star break. That's just straight idiocy.

 

[Saint Cy of JFC]

Heading into last night's games 4 TEAMS were still alive for the #1 seed in the East. That's half the damn conference's playoffs teams! Teams 5 through 9 in the East are separated by a whopping grand total of 2 games as of this morning. Literally, as I type this, it's quite feasible that EVERY playoff team in the East changes it's seeding between today and the end of the season. The West is more settled with it's top 3 seeds but you still have Utah trying to hold onto the 4 seed, the Clippers trying to take the 4 seed, OKC trying to reach the 5 seed, and Denver and Portland 1 game apart from the 8 seed.

Even if I disagree with you, I can at least see the logic in your other arguments for shortening the season, but don't sit here and tell me that most of the playoff spots are locked in at the All-Star break. That's just straight idiocy.

They are. The exact standing might not be locked, but the top 8 teams in the West are the same save for the #8 seed.

Why not play 10 more games so we can really see who deserves that 8 seed? 82 games is not the perfect numbers of games. It's an arbitrary number they do because that's the way it's always been done, even when there was less NBA teams.

 

[fishonjazz]

Damn liberal obummer snowflakes can't handle an 82 game season! The left wing fake news liberal media is to blame!

-dutch

 

[7StraightIsGreat]

They are. The exact standing might not be locked, but the top 8 teams in the West are the same save for the #8 seed.

Why not play 10 more games so we can really see who deserves that 8 seed? 82 games is not the perfect numbers of games. It's an arbitrary number they do because that's the way it's always been done, even when there was less NBA teams.

Lol, 82 is an arbitrary number? There's a schedule balance in the NBA. The league likes to play a certain amount of divisional games, a certain amount of conference games, and the standard 2 games per year against the opposite conference. As the league has expanded, they've had to make concessions on the amount of divisional and conference games being played for the sake of not expanding the schedule.

If they contract the schedule, you will lose more of that balance. You're either giving up games against the opposite conference, which hurts the leagues marketability, or you lose games against division/conference foes which could prove to be crucial. As much as you'd like it to be, 82 is not an accidental number. Can you play a 60 game season? Of course you can, but you can't do it without changing the current balance (which I think is fairly good right now) and skewing the record books. All of a sudden you have an asterisk by a scoring champion to denote whether or not the accomplishment was made during an 82 game season.

I know "old school" is seen as a bad word in this thread, but at some point your league's history has to hold some value. I think all of this is important enough to cause the league to at least look into other ways of lessening the physical pressure put on players while still maintaining the amount of games being played. It's called a compromise and more times than not, they usually yield the best results.

 

[Saint Cy of JFC]

Lol, 82 is an arbitrary number? There's a schedule balance in the NBA. The league likes to play a certain amount of divisional games, a certain amount of conference games, and the standard 2 games per year against the opposite conference. As the league has expanded, they've had to make concessions on the amount of divisional and conference games being played for the sake of not expanding the schedule.

If they contract the schedule, you will lose more of that balance. You're either giving up games against the opposite conference, which hurts the leagues marketability, or you lose games against division/conference foes which could prove to be crucial. As much as you'd like it to be, 82 is not an accidental number. Can you play a 60 game season? Of course you can, but you can't do it without changing the current balance (which I think is fairly good right now) and skewing the record books. All of a sudden you have an asterisk by a scoring champion to denote whether or not the accomplishment was made during an 82 game season.

I know "old school" is seen as a bad word in this thread, but at some point your league's history has to hold some value. I think all of this is important enough to cause the league to at least look into other ways of lessening the physical pressure put on players while still maintaining the amount of games being played. It's called a compromise and more times than not, they usually yield the best results.

Yes, it's arbitrary. Go back in time. They played 82 games when they had 21 teams, 22 teams, 23 teams, etc. It's arbitrary. The 82 game season was not designed for the 30 team league the NBA now has. That's a fact.

 

[Saint Cy of JFC]

The 82 game season doesnt even fit the 30 teams. There are a handful of teams you only 3 times every year instead of the 4 you play most teams in your conference. WE SHOULD ADD MORE GAMES FOR TEH BALANCE!

 

[fishonjazz]

The 82 game season doesnt even fit the 30 teams. There are a handful of teams you only 3 times every year instead of the 4 you play most teams in your conference. WE SHOULD ADD MORE GAMES FOR TEH BALANCE!

Good idea.

I love watching jazz games. More the merrier!