Classic Lakers-Spurs Game Proves One Thing: The NBA is Boring

By: Tom Alexander

The NBA is pretty boring.

I’m not kidding, I really believe that the NBA is one of the most boring leagues in the history of man. The games, I believe, are absolutely interminable-surpassed only by the fact that they play 82 of them in the regular season and (potentially) 28 more in the postseason. You’ve got to think that we can figure out a way to figure out who is the best team for that particular year in less than 5,000 minutes, but it’s pretty doubtful.

The NBA is particularly frustrating to me for two reasons: First, it has BY FAR the most talented athletes in the world. Without any offense to football players, hockey players, pugilists or any other athlete, the modern basketball player is an athletic specimen. Second, the NBA is so in love with itself that it makes me want to puke. David Stern sits back and talks about the great competition, and the wonderful athletes, and in a sense he’s right. And yet he has created a system by which any intensity is destroyed.

I say all of this being fully aware that Derek Fisher’s shot last night was probably in the top 10 all-time as far as exciting basketball moments, and definitely the crowning moment of this season (much as Robert Horry’s shot against the Kings two years ago crowned that year). This is all said with the acknowledgement that the Lakers are in a good position to win this series, which will put them in good position to again become the NBA champions, which will etch them into the history books once again. I really believe that, at the end of the day, it is slightly silly that a 5,000-plus minute endeavor is resolved in a mere four-tenths of a second. What is the point of playing so hard, and trying so long, and having one moment-a blink of an eye-determine the outcome?

I had a conversation with a historian once in which we discussed our favorite United States Presidents, from history. One of his, unsurprisingly, was George Washington, but his reasoning was interesting. His admiration for Washington came from the fact that Washington left office willingly, as the height of his power. The historian said Washington’s willingness to cede power, and recognizing that change could be helpful even while he was at the top, was a characteristic that should be celebrated and acknowledged.

I’d say the same thing for the NBA today. Yesterday was a spectacular moment, and the playoffs are all the more interesting from this point out because of what happened yesterday. But something needs to change. I believe that the NBA needs to seriously reduce its schedule of play-maybe go from a potential 110 games to a potential 80. If they make the first round of the playoffs three games, and the second and third rounds five games each, and only the finals a seven-game series, they’ll limit the playoffs to a maximum of 20 games. Then, the regular season can be composed of 60 games. The play will be sharper. Each game will be more intense. No longer will teams tank a game here and there, or lay a total egg. The playoffs will be totally amazing. An eight seed wins game one on the road in the first round? Now they’ve got a chance to close out the number one team in the league at home? How fun would that be?

The bottom line is this: yesterday’s moment was incredible. We need more moments like that in the NBA. The best way to go about that is to manufacture some additional intensity, not wade through thousands of minutes of tedium hoping for the one dynamite moment that shocks us into excitement.

Of course, the NBA will never do this, and it’s not about competition-it’s about money. 82 games, plus a long drawn out playoffs, where no game in the semifinals and beyond will even overlap with another one-this is an issue of dollars and cents. The NBA is a business, and as such, they’re going to try and make as much money as they possibly can.

The irony, of course, is that with a more exciting product, the NBA might even be able to do more with less. Not that we’ll ever get a chance to find out.

Tom Alexander founded the Chicago Sports Review in 2003, and currently serves the publication as its co-publisher. Alexander's media career has spanned a variety of interests, including newspaper reporting with the Times of Northwest Indiana, online reporting with ePrairie.com, and a two-plus year stint as a professor in Columbia College Chicago's journalism department. Outside of journalism, Alexander works to redevelop communities that have been struck by natural disasters. Alexander, a 2000 graduate of the University of Chicago, currently lives with his wife Tiffany and their black lab mix, Johnny Cash, in Arlington, Va.

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