My Quick Fix for the NBA
There’s no denying that the NBA is a flawed product. Even those like myself, who absolutely love basketball and everything it stands for has to admit so. The second quarter of most games is completely unwatchable, the effort level is sporadic, and at times it seems that the teams on the floor are playing two entirely different games.
If only there was a remarkably easy (though entirely infeasible) solution that would fix almost every problem affecting the NBA. Oh wait, there is: Just eliminate the 12-minute quarters and play all games first to 100, win by 2.
That’s right, playground rules. Play to 100, win by 2. TV timeouts trigger when one team reaches certain point totals. Halftime when the first team reaches 50. Same number of timeouts. Same scoring rules.
Let’s take a look at how this setup would increase the quality of play in the NBA:
Efficient scoring teams would be rewarded, while a team playing all-defense, no-offense basketball would be punished. There is absolutely nothing worse than watching the second unit of an NBA team spend half of the second quarter just making sure that they don’t fall too far behind. This approach makes sense though, because the NBA is all about superstars, and as long as your superstar has the ball in their hands at the end of the game, a team feels pretty good about its chances. So why have a system that necessitates the use of far inferior players?
If games were played to 100, the fundamental approach to team-building would change. Right now, points are essentially the dependent variable for minutes played – meaning that the minutes stay the same and how ever many points you score is necessarily secondary. In other words, the length of the game dictates the approach to play. Playing to 100, the approach would be the opposite. Teams would start to figure out their rosters knowing that each night they need to get to 100 points, and figure out the best way to get there.
At first glance this might not make much of a difference. You might think that the effect would be minimal at best. But think about what happens when a team increases its scoring efficiency. They play less minutes. So take a team like the 2007-08 Suns, who were mediocre at best. But they averaged 113 possessions per game, scoring 110 points. Right now an NBA game has 240 minutes played. Unfortunately for the Suns, they only felt comfortable playing Steve Nash about 34 minutes per game. That means someone else had to play 14 minutes at a substantially lower level.
However, if the Suns only had to play games to 100, they would have only needed 103 possessions per game. If you assume that the Suns would score in a game to 100 at roughly the same pace (and frankly I think they’d be considerably more efficient), you knock the average game played down to 44 minutes. Even without any increases in efficiency that come from playing second-unit guys less, as well as the psychological effect of each point scored having a much more tangible benefit, the Suns would be able to shave 20 minutes of reserve play off the top of each game. I think that any game with less Gordan Giricek, Marcus Banks, and Brian Skinner is by definition a much more watchable game.
But what about the inverse? Let’s look at the two best defensive teams from that season: the Celtics and the Rockets.
Boston averaged 109 possessions a game, and for every 100 possessions, they scored 93 and gave up 82 points. In the end they scored 100.5 ppg. In this scenario, almost nothing would change for the Celtics except the way we arranged breaks in the game.
The Rockets however, were nowhere near as efficient as the Celtics. And judging solely by the scoring numbers, their games were uglier to watch. They played 106.4 possessions each night, and for every 100 possessions they scored 90.5 points and surrendered 86.5. Total, they scored just under 97 points per game. I love a commitment to defense as much as anyone, but is it really in the best interest of the NBA to have teams intentionally slowing down games? The Rockets were the 5 seed in a tough Western Conference – they were obviously a good team. I’m simply saying that this kind of slowed down, tough defensive game should come with a price.
That price is that you should have to play more basketball. Doing the math shows us that Houston should have had to play approximately 4 extra possessions per game, not nearly as drastic a change as we saw for Phoenix, but still significant. Assuming they already played their starters as much as they could handle (a safe assumption), these minutes would have to come from lesser players, either more minutes for their 6th, 7th, and 8th guys, or a very small number of minutes from completely fresh 9th and 10th guys. Hell, maybe we’d even see a true pro version of “40 Minutes of Hell,” where a pro team just got one or two scorers and paired them with 13 of the meanest, most intense defenders they could find to make it a real battle to 100 points. If nothing else that would be way more fun to watch than the 90-84 crapfest that made sure the Nets wouldn’t be the official worst team ever in a win over the Spurs.
Maybe moreso than anything else, Play to 100 would seriously improve the end of games. As of now, teams are fighting the clock at the end of games, not the other team. We’ve all groaned when teams call consecutive time outs so they can diagram “Give the ball to our best player and get the hell out of the way,” as if it were a difficult thing to do. But if teams had to ration timeouts as a function of total score and not of time remaining, well then we might see some real basketball played at the end of games.
If the other team has 97 points, the next possession may or may not end the game. Do you burn your last timeout? Do you save it? What kind of defense do you play? What kind of offense do they play? The strategy is endless, and the lack of a defined length of play would stop coaches from bastardizing the end of games. Think of how a baseball team can stage a 2-out rally in the bottom of the 9th as opposed to how an NFL team can have their quarterback center the ball for an entirely anti-climactic field goal to end the game. Let’s let the players decide the winner, not the clock.
So in the end, where does all this leave us?
The best players would play more of their teams’ games, which I think is a good thing. I will gladly sit through a more entertaining but 15 minutes shorter game if it means the quality of play is higher.
Defense heavy teams would still have to focus on offense, or field incredibly deep teams to play long games. As much as I enjoyed the Ben Wallace era, and trust me I really do appreciate the defensive side of the game, forcing these teams to score 100 points to get a win would allow us to mostly avoid horrible defensive battles.
There would be no more “killing time” until the end of games. More than anything, I think this might be the best result. Teams would have a reason to keep their best players on the floor.
The last 2 minutes of an NBA game might be enjoyable. No real explanation necessary here. The last few minutes of a game should be controlled by the players playing basketball, not free throw shooters and coaches.
Yep, that sounds pretty good to me.
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