NBA: Regular season extreme makeover will BLOW your mind!

By ALAN WALLS

Welcome to The International Basketball Opinion, the world’s only blog specifically dedicated to international basketball news, business, and current events.

It is no secret, the NBA regular season needs a reboot, a redo, a redesign. An extreme makeover if you will.

After 75 years, it is INDEED time for some drastic changes!

If you ask the average NBA fan, they will tell you that the regular season is:

• Too long.
• Boring.
• Subject to TANKING (aka The Process)!
• Anticlimactic with most of the playoff teams already being determined within the first 15-20 games.
• Filled with unimportant and/or uninteresting games (good vs. bad teams and bad vs. even worse teams).
• Too much player load management.

THE REAL NBA SEASON ACCORDING TO ME 

I look at the NBA season this way:

• The preseason practices and games = training camp.
• Regular season games up to the All-Star Game (ASG) = preseason.
• Christmas Day games = a special optical illusion (a mirage if you will) of top-level competitive games that really matter to the players and the fans.
• Regular season games after the ASG = regular season.
• 1^st round of the playoffs = end of regular season. Pretty boring except the 4-5 matchups.
• 2^nd – 4^th (finals) rounds of the playoffs = the actual playoffs, the only time in the season where meaningful basketball is played. 

Summary: I really don’t start paying attention to the league and watching games (the good ones) until after the ASG. Christmas Day of course being the exception.

IN-SEASON TOURNAMENT

This is a terrible idea from the NBA. Adam Silver says they are studying the European soccer cup model and that it could work in the NBA.

Adam Silver says NBA 'moving closer' to adding in-season tournament.

No it can’t! The reason that the in-season European cups work for the fans and the players is that they are tournaments with teams from all the levels of professional and amateur soccer within that country. The top division teams, such as the Premier League in England, are not playing each other in the first rounds and that makes for some fun matchups and “Cinderella” stories.

Just like the NCAA tournament, though all teams are DI, small schools and conferences get to take on the big boys/conferences and upsets are celebrated! 

This will not happen in an NBA in-season tournament. It will be the same NBA teams playing each other. A pig is a pig, even when dressed up and with lipstick. 

The WNBA’s experimental version this past season was a joke with almost two months going by between the semifinals and the final. The players and the fans forgot what they were even playing for! No one cared, not even the players.

The ONLY away it MIGHT work is:

• 16-team single-elimination tournament played in Las Vegas.
• 10 NBA teams.
• Top nine NBA teams at that point in the regular season.
• Defending NBA champion if not in top nine. If so, top 10 teams.
• Four EuroLeague teams.
• Top 3 EuroLeague teams at that point in their season.
• Defending EuroLeague champion if not in top 3. If so, top 4 teams.
• Top two G League teams at that point in their season.
• Prize: $1,000,000 to every member of the winning team, including coaches, and a matching donation to the charity of choice of each player within their team market. 2^nd place: zero, zilch, nada! Win or go home with nothing!
• Four days of intrigue and competition among the top two leagues (+ the G League, far from a top league) in the world.
• Like the old McDonald’s Championship that the defending NBA champion played in vs. champions from Europe, Asia, South America, and Australia (1987-99).
• Potential future expansion including Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) and Basketball Africa League (BAL) teams. Imagine the global audiences and interest! 

Sidenote: Think the Basketball Africa League is a weird name? Me too.

Now we are talking something different, globally captivating, and where upset/Cinderella storylines abound.

This is also already done in the US with Major League Soccer and the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup. It has been played since 1913 and currently includes 100 teams from the four US professional leagues/divisions, as well as amateur teams.

Welcome to the party NBA!

Question: Does the NBA and its players want to risk losing to EuroLeague and G League teams?

Answer: No! So don’t hold your breath. I won’t…

PLAY-IN GAMES

No thank you! Who wants to see more games between mediocre and bad teams at or below .500?

I understand they generated some excitement among the fan bases of the teams involved, but that is because it was a new concept, and the regular season is so boring.

Nothing else to say. Wake me up when the second round starts.

 Now… without any further ado…

 

NBA SEASON EXTREME MAKEOVER – PLAN A

• Eliminate the divisions and conferences.
• The conferences could still be kept in place to guarantee an East-West finals which I personally like.
• One table of standings from 1-30.

Regular Season

• Keep the 82-game schedule – owners and players will not give up $.
• Every team plays every team twice – home and away. 58 games each team.
• Six additional games vs. six regional rivals – three home, three away.
• Example: The Lakers would play the Clippers, Kings, Warriors, Suns, Trail Blazers, and Jazz.
• 64 games total.
• Every team plays in every market before the ASG.
• Every game matters in order to qualify for the next phase.

All-Star Game Break (keep reading for my ASG extreme makeover suggestions)

Race to the Playoffs (this is where it gets really exciting!)

• Divide the 30 teams into three divisions of 10 based on standings after 64 games.
• Each team plays an addition 18 games home and away vs. the other nine in their division.
• 82 games total each team.
• Seeding Division
• Top 10 teams in the standings. The best vs. the best!
• To determine the playoff seeding 1-10 and home court advantage for at least the first two rounds.
• Play-In Division
• Middle 10 teams in the standings.
• Battle amongst themselves to determine the remaining six playoff teams.
• Seeds 11-16.
• Draft Division
• Bottom 10 teams in the standings.
• PLAY amongst themselves for the #1 pick in the draft.
• No more tanking and lottery. (I know the lottery is popular TV show, but the additional meaningful games will replace that easily.)
• Teams might still tank to get into the Draft Division, but it will be much harder and once there they will have to win games!
• 1^st place in this division gets #1 pick, 2^nd place = 2^nd pick and down the line to #30 with the other divisions in order of finish.
• New rule: no matter what, the same team cannot pick #1 two years in a row!

2^nd Round of Draft

• Second round of draft goes in reverse order with the 1^st place team in the Seeding Division getting the #1 pick, and so forth.

Standings in the Divisions (three options)

• All games carry over. The fairest option.
• Only games vs. teams in same division carry over. The most practical option.
• All teams start 0-0. The most exciting option.
• I will let the NBA decide this one.

Playoffs

• 16 teams.
• 1 vs. 16, 2 vs. 15, etc.
• East vs. West final? The 16 teams could be evenly divided into two geographical groups of eight to guarantee an E vs. W final.

 

NBA SEASON EXTREME MAKEOVER – PLAN B

• Divide the season into two as is done in soccer in MANY Latin American countries.
• They are called the Opening Season and Closing Season.
• Two champions crowned each year. Two finals = 2 x $$$.
• Summer Season (February – June); Winter Season (August – December).
• One month off between seasons, two months off between years.
• No conferences. No divisions. One table of standings.
• Each season = 58 games. Two rounds home and away.
• Top eight qualify for playoffs. 1 vs. 8, 2 vs. 7, etc.
• 1^st and 2^nd rounds best-of-five.
• Finals best-of-seven.
• If there is a different winner in each season, then one week later a best-of-seven (or three or five) series between the two for the overall NBA champion!

EXTRA CREDIT: ALL-STAR GAME MAKEOVER

Shorten the game and get to the 4^th quarter as soon as possible!

• By time:
• 1^st Q: 6 minutes.
• 2^nd Q: 8 minutes.
• 3^rd Q: 10 minutes.
• 4^th Q: 12 or 15 minutes.
• Summary: 36 or 39 minutes.
• Less BS, more intensity.

• By score:
• 1^st Q: first to 20 points.
• 2^nd Q: first to 40 points total.
• 3^rd Q: first to 70 points total.
• 4^th Q: first to 100 points total.
• Summary: first to 100 wins!
• Less BS, more intensity.

@Adam Silver - Holla @ ya boy!

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Author Alan Walls, the current Malta men’s head national team coach, is an American international basketball coach and administrator with over 28 years of experience on the youth, high school, NCAA, professional and national team levels in 16 countries and on five continents. Walls has worked with the national federations of Turkey, Romania, Palestine, Mongolia, Kenya and El Salvador as well as coached or conducted camps and clinics throughout the United States – including his native Hawai’i – Mexico, Costa Rica, Argentina, China, Hong Kong and Israel. Walls is the founder and Secretary-General of the United Nations of Basketball (2020 launch), founder and President of the International Basketball Union (2021 launch), founder and Editor in Chief of The HoopVine (2022 launch) and founder of the soon-to-be-launched 3x3HQ.com.