The NBA Cup is ok but needs more of a playoff feel and more real incentive to participate. The All Star weekend is ok (and nobody knows how to fix the All Star Game) and the players need rest. As someone who watches all 82, I'm watching a lot of tired and sometimes listless basketball.
It is a hard sport. These guys need a lot more rest. And changing the game from 48 to 40 minutes doesn't fix back-to-backs and endless travel.
Let's jazz it up and make the NBA Cup very real and many more regular season games real, all while being kinder to the players, which will result in better games.
A Modest Proposal:
The pre-season should be shorter with scrimmages, not games, and the season should start sooner.
Eliminate conferences and eliminate divisions.
Back-to-back games are eliminated forever under all circumstances.
Each team would have two, permanent rivals. For example, Houston would have Dallas and San Antonio as rivals. (Full list at the bottom for fun.)
Start the season by playing all the other teams other than rivals. That's 27 games.
Then have a mid season tournament.
Three team rival groups would play in a five game series against their rivals (this also reduces travel.)
That's 10 more games for a total of 37 for each team.
The six best of the 10 rival groups advance to the NBA Cup.
The bottom six teams are also eliminated for the *NBA Playoffs* - yes, I said it. If your team is tanking, you don't care, if you are on the margins you need to fight like hell to stay in.
Tie breakers could remain point margin or somebody please think of something better.
NBA Cup games count as real games.
I suggest moving this week and weekend to the gap weekend before the Super Bowl.
NBA Cup weekend goes like this -
Sunday (NFL championship week) is the first day of no games. Who's watching anyway?
Monday trade deadline.
Yes, this means trades could be made to improve before the Cup. That's exciting.
All the below would be at a neutral site like today's All Star weekend and NBA Cup.
Wednesday - Play in games featuring the four lowest seeds, losers go to the bronze game, two winners advance.
Friday - NBA Cup semifinals, losers goes to the silver game, two winners advance to the gold game.
All Star Saturday. Three point contest and dunk contest. A real game featuring All Stars and Rising Stars who didn't participate in the NBA Cup or either contest. This is an incentive to compete in the contests and gives stars not on top teams or with special skills a chance to show out.
Sunday - Triple header with bronze game, silver game and gold game. It's so international, Adam Silver will love it.
At this point, the NBA Cup participants will have played 39 games or 40 if a play in team got to the gold game. These will be hard games, but at a neutral site so, that's less travel.
All Stars will also have played an extra game but should have enough space to give it some actual effort.
The following Thursday starts the stretch run of the season. Everyone will have had some rest.
The remainder of the season will be similar to today with more excitement and benefits for NBA Cup participants.
Each team plays every team play that isn't a rival again. That's 27 more games.
That's 66 or 67 games for NBA Cup teams. That's 64 games for everybody else.
Rest before the playoffs is the reward for getting into the NBA Cup tournament ...
The final 15 days of the season, NBA Cup teams play six games against the lowest seeded NBA Cup teams. The teams that were 25-30 in the NBA Cup ranking. Also, they've been eliminated as per above and have incentives to tank. Unless it is a very, very weird year, this should be the six worst teams playing with little motivation. These would be like scrimmage games for the very good teams.
The six worst teams finish with 70 games. A slight punishment for tanking and a reprieve for the rest of us since we don't have to watch them anymore.
For the NBA Cups teams, these games should be easier because of the opponent and because they are spread out, allowing for a lot of rest.
NBA Cup teams have now played 72 games.
The remaining 18 teams play eight games in the same 15 day period. (Again, still no back to backs allowed.)
These are all middle of the pack teams, fighting for playoff position. Four are (very mathematically likely) fighting to not be eliminated.
These are exciting games leading to the season's end. And, I suggest, almost like yet another tournament.
The end of the NBA regular season is usually a snooze fest. This makes it very exciting. Every game for 60% of the league is a playoff implication game.
The rest of the league has now played 72 games.
The playoffs are structured like this ...
It's a seeded tournament of 20 teams.
The top twelve teams are automatically in, with NBA Cup performance breaking any ties.
The next eight teams compete in a play in tournament while the top twelve teams rest. NBA Cup performance again breaks ties.
Then the playoff proceed as seven game series like they have for many years, just without the conference structure.
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Rivals as promised:
Portland - Sacramento - Golden State
LA - LA - Phoenix
Utah - Denver - OKC
Houston - San Antonio - Dallas
New Orleans - Orlando - Miami (not in same conference or division now!)
Memphis - Atlanta - Charlotte (not in same conference or division now!)
Minnesota - Milwaukie - Chicago (not in same conference or division now!)
Indiana - Cleveland - Detroit
Toronto - Boston - NY
Brooklyn - Philadelphia - Washington