Fixing the NBA the European Way

Since the World Championships, much has been written about the problems with the NBA. One popular perception is the length of the season which creates meaningless games, either at the beginning of the season or once teams are eliminated from the play-offs and begin sand-bagging to join the Greg Oden Derby.

While watching Man. U play Celtic last night in a Champions League football (er, soccer) match, I devised a plan to fix the NBA.

1) Get rid of the play-offs.
2) Crown a regular season champion.
3) Shorten the season so each team plays every other team home and away (58 games)

Not exactly a novel idea. And, of course it is impractical, as the NBA needs the extra games for ticket revenue and television money. However, to make the league more exciting and to elevate the intensity each and every game, a shortened season makes sense. One early season loss could ultimately determine the champion, because there is no play-off for a team to make up for a sub-par record.

Going into the 2006-07 season, some teams will inevitably be in the play-offs: San Antonio, Miami, Phoenix, Detroit, Chicago, Dallas, etc. These teams would have to suffer one or more season-ending injuries to miss the play-offs. So, in the regular season, they play solely for home court advantage. And, because of the length of the season, they secure a spot in the play-offs with many games left to be played, leaving time to rest stars for the play-offs. The shortened season would create a fight to the finish line for these top teams; no games off, no relaxing, as every game counts. And, rather than ignoring the regular season champ (who had the best record last season?), the regular season champion would be celebrated, which is appropriate because they managed to outlast the opposition over 58 games, quite a feat.

Now, to offset the financial losses due to the loss of games, the second part of the plan.

Crown a Cup Champion.

The Cup Championship would take place during the course of the season. A schedule could be a Tuesday/Thursday regular season schedule (29 weeks or roughly 7 months) with cup games played on the weekend.