NBA State of Play – Rule Changes – Trends – CBA – Schedule Reform – Load Mgmt – etc

xp "peak performance" and "meaningful regular season" are two different frames so i think we're talking past each other

well thats kind of my point, i think the league needs to incentivise being available to play over stars playing at their peak in the few games they do play

then listen to lebron--give time for recovery between games and stars will play

yeah its just not that simple haha

stars rest because they’re tired but they also rest (as directed by their teams) out of risk mitigation. and the way front offices view sports now, i don’t know if that changes if you reduce the schedule. this is partly why adam silver keeps going on about the midseason tournament — trying to create meaning beyond the one championship given out per year might give players more reason to play in non-playoff games — but i don’t think they have the right solution yet. making front offices care about regular season games is a more complicated issue than just shortening the schedule

yeah totes

Really the first order of business that would prob improve things enough without drastically changing revenue for owners is to get rid of back to backs, then go from there.

They are never going to meaningfully reduce the number of games in the era of TV contracts, CBAs and salary caps as that would require people (owners AND players) deciding to take less money. Could they go from 82 to 78? Sure. They aren't going to 72 or 58 or anything like that. They are more likely to go to 86 somehow (more ins, in-season tourney, whatever) than 76 imo.

i think they could do it, the money is def an issue but the quality of the game is too, the national tv money which is the biggest single source would be unaffected fwiw since thats for a relatively small percentage of the total games anyway, where they would take a hit is local tv and stadium revenue

wld be funny if they did the in season tournament and everyone just took the opportunity to rest their guys

Like baseball, I think owners (and to some extent players) don't ultimately care about the quality of the game v. wrenching every last dollar they can out of their investment.

a higher quality game makes them more money tho, obvs you cant guarantee theyre going to connect the dots eg mlb, but its not impossible

the game is v high quality rn though isn’t it? the regular season used to be way snoozier. you could argue the reason for so many injuries is that guys are actually playing like they care for more minutes than they used to

i think resting players particularly in big reg season matchups is a legitimate problem, and the league agrees in that they already tried to address it, granted in a totally ineffective way, basically when a casual fan tunes into a sunday abc game you want all the guys there, you want a really good game, thats how you bring people back

yeah the quality game to game is decent but the stars not playing drags things down quite a bit. the end of the season has gotten a bit better with the 7-10 seeds being what they are but you do still see a lot of guys get shut down.

yeah kudos to the league the playin tourney is working as planned, to decrease tanking, and the games have even been exciting which is a nice bonus, im sure theyll keep working on solving the resting issue but i kinda doubt theres as easy of a solution out there

guess one thing is they could do lengthen the season again, which addresses the games too close together issue if not the too many games one

yeah kudos to the league the playin tourney is working as planned, to decrease tanking, and the games have even been exciting which is a nice bonus, im sure theyll keep working on solving the resting issue but i kinda doubt theres as easy of a solution out there

― lag∞n, Monday, April 25, 2022 8:01 AM (forty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

add in that one of the lower teams that got in via the play in is giving the #1 seed a handful

the play-in has definitely worked better than i thought mostly due to the upward pressure to be the 6 seed.

yeah ive come around on the play in but dont think i will ever like the mid season tourney idea

getting rid of back to backs is my main thing thats the source of the most rest days afaict, also just generally a bummer when your team is playing without rest vs a team that is rested

a higher quality game makes them more money tho

much as I'd like to think is true, I don't believe this. the committed fans will watch the regular season because it's still the highest quality hoops in the world (outside of the nba playoffs) and casuals can't appreciate differences in quality and don't really care.

ciderpress otm, it’s not fair and also probably the biggest cause of resting guys(citation needed)

how feasible is it to eliminate back-to-backs? MSG, for example, is booked pretty full in winter and i have no idea who gets first crack at the dates they want

if back-to-backs are necessary another possibility would be playing two-game sets. it doesn't give bodies time to recover, but eliminating the need for travel in between would surely be a bonus (and fewer overall trips would save teams on travel expenses)

how feasible is it to eliminate back-to-backs? MSG, for example, is booked pretty full in winter and i have no idea who gets first crack at the dates they want

Answer is to fold the Knicks.

finally

League discussed update on the “transition take foul” during its General Managers meeting in Chicago today. There was widespread support in meeting, as conversations have been ongoing among the NBA, NBPA and Competition Committee over the past several months. https://t.co/TZnkcWcYLD

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) May 17, 2022

ok that’s good

also announced they are moving towards the in season tourney. reallllllly interested to see whats proposed here

ok that's bad

the play in worked so they earned it but itll prob be dumb, as long as they dont make it affect playoff seeding or whatever i dont really care maybe itll be fun who knows

yes more games what we need is more games

The NBA is changing the take foul rule for summer leagues in San Francisco, Utah and Las Vegas -- one free throw, plus the ball, for transition take fouls.

Likely a precursor to what's coming to the NBA. Board of Governors expected to make the final change later this month.

— Tim Reynolds (@ByTimReynolds) July 1, 2022

the play-in is here to stay. wonder if theyll find a place to put the stats?

ESPN Sources: NBA’s Board of Governors is expected on Tuesday to approve the Play-In Tournament as a regular part of future league seasons. The Play-In had been voted on a year-to-year basis in past two seasons, but support exists to turn it into annual element of NBA structure.

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) July 11, 2022

nice

The NBA Board of Governors have approved the "Transition Take Foul rule" this rule would award the offensive team with one free throw and retain possession, Per @ShamsCharania pic.twitter.com/pQsc2VccsY

— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPointsApp) July 13, 2022

Bless

Harden currently in the lab trying to figure out a way to game it in his favor

CP3 was already good at drawing those, he's gonna be out of control this season

this would be interesting

One of the best basketball leagues in the world, the ACB in Spain, is testing a new rule this season.

When inbounding the ball in the backcourt the referees no longer need to have control of the ball first.

(For the first 38 minutes of the game). pic.twitter.com/S4xJN3bfPG

— Dionysis Aravantinos (@AravantinosDA) September 21, 2022

love it

would likely lead to +/- 5 on-court heart attacks each year

NBA rules change this season to limit prolonged standing of bench players/coaches and crowding of sideline. Warning first. Then delay-of-game warning. Then technical. Unsportsmanlike technical assessed for players not in game who enter playing court or making "distracting" move.

— Ira Winderman (@IraHeatBeat) September 23, 2022

theoretically good seems like something that will never be enforced tho

So the Celtics bench always stands until their first basket, but the refs just held up play to tell all of them to sit down and get out of the way lol

— Jared Weiss (@JaredWeissNBA) October 5, 2022

seems like drafting high schoolers might not actually happen

Agents have no interest in guaranteeing full NBA combine participation or giving up control of players' medicals -- the only real leverage they have currently in steering clients away from undesirable franchises with poor track records for player development. NBPA members say they see little benefit to allowing a new class of teenagers to come in and take roster spots from veterans. And NBA executives are openly dreading the idea of returning to high school gyms and being forced to make career-altering decisions with limited information at their disposal. Sources say the union is indicating that in order to give Adam Silver -- who is the clear-cut driving force behind the elimination of the age limit -- what he desires in collective bargaining agreement negotiations in 2024, they expect to receive major financial concessions from team owners in exchange for this bargaining chip, something that may not be attractive to franchises since many believe that making the league even younger will water down the talent level. The fact that college basketball's biggest stars are now able to earn six- and seven-figure deals thanks to name, image and likeness deals softens some of the ethical concerns some had regarding preventing teenagers from earning a living when there is clearly a significant market for their services.

https://www.espn.com/nba/insider/insider/story/_/id/34775143/lessons-learned-team-usa-junior-national-team-mini-camp-cam-boozer-going-really-good

adam silver and... condoleezza rice are maybe the only ones who really want to do it

Silver himself admitted that, in the past, he favored increasing the age limit to 20, in theory meaning players would spend two years between high school and the NBA. But, after seeing how things have evolved over time -- including, he said, the proliferation of NIL deals and "a lot of societal changes," and the recommendations of the NCAA committee led by Condoleezza Rice on the subject -- he has changed his mind.

"It may be the case that it's in all of our interests that we start impacting with these young players, especially because in our sport they are identified at such a young age," Silver said, "and begin working with them on their development then, not just basketball skills but increasingly there's a focus on their mental health, their diets, just helping them build character and all of the important values around the sport."

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/34233695/nba-stiffens-penalty-transition-take-foul-approves-permanent-play-tournament

seems like silver is looking at it from a development perspective which is prob the way in which it makes sense no 18 year old is really good enough to be in the nba, maybe lebron idk

if you took the development pov to its rational conclusion what you would have imo is not drafting high school kids but rather euro soccer style academies, which is prob best from the pov of the players having basketball careers, there is the question of whether they have childhoods but most of these top players are so deep in the basketball system already its more offering them a better system than the typical aau prep schools weird quasi agent guys hanging around

particularly these guys just playing a million games is not great for their bodies and can cause injury issues, just giving them access to professional trainers, nutrition etc would be a huge plus, not playing so many games, focusing on skills development and so forth

i support the change to 18 on principle but otoh it’s possible the current system is….fine? not perfect but good enough?

i feel far less passionate about this subject now that there’s stuff like g league ignite & NIL etc. as a fan i’m not dying to accelerate the timeline on these kids by one year, i don’t see how it would change the viewing experience in any real way

i’m kinda surprised that silver is so passionate about this… ignite seems like a real success and i think for the league there is a benefit to players like zion, trae, scoot, wembanyama etc cultivating stardom for a year before entering the league

yeah i dont think drafting 18 year old is really good for anyone except maybe the players, from a purely entertainment standpoint having players do two years of college would prob be the best cause theyd be better and more famous by the time they hit the league, and itd be better for the college game, of course there are so many non college options now so its a little different, but thats not going to happen anyway

entertainmentwise drafting high school kids is i think a pretty strong negative you get too many busts and even good players take so long to develop

and yeah agree now that there are legit ways for them to get paid its less exploitative

only two of the top five prospects in this years draft are even in college, got big victor in europe, scoot on ignite, and ausar thompson is on the tiktok team (overtime elite)