In bi-weekly installments, OtB brings you a long-form joint re: NBA and its ontological extension unto all of sport. Epochrypha: writings or statements of questionable authorship or authenticity, but always impassioned and always with an eye on the times we're spectating in. Enjoy.
First off, I'd like to take credit for the ingenious new NBDL play-off scheme. See, almost a year ago I e-mailed Truehoop's Henry Abbott with an idea very similar to what they're doing. If you haven't been looking under rocks for NBDL news, what they're doing is letting the three division winners pick their first round opponents. Now, I came up with this idea a year ago not in response to the too long NBA season or the stagnantion caused by too obvious outcomes/too few upsets/7 game first round series but rather in response to last year's discussions about conference discrepancy. We all know how that discrepancy played out, though. The 50 win Nuggets put up much less of a fight than did the 37 win Hawks, and that argument hasn't been brought back up again, especially with a lot of teams in the East looking much better than their records suggest. Anyway, the discussion revolved around seeding teams regardless of conference. I suggested allowing the top teams the privilege of choosing their first-round opponents as a way to get around geographical difficulties. If you're a Florida team do you really want to play Denver or Portland in a 7 game series regardless of how well you match up? So let the best teams choose. It'd be like draft day, with a count down to decisions and war-room set ups and everything.
I'm not saying this is the best idea or that the NBA should necessarily implement it, but I do think playoff structures in general should be thoroughly examined and perhaps reconstituted. It being March Madness and all, we would be remiss in leaving The Tournament out of our discussion. The Big Dance is probably one of the biggest money makers in all of sports, especially accounting for its relative brevity and the fact that its players don't actually require a significant cut of the profits (recently debated). I don't have the numbers to back this up, but c'mon, everyone knows the NCAA is sports' cash cow, the sacrificial lamb, the Isaac to "pro" sports' Ishmael. What makes it so exciting? To fun to watch? So endlessly begging for prediction and wagering and heartbreak/bolster? It's the one-and-done format. We love it, but who would accept that for a pro sports league? Oh wait, that would be the NFL.
I'm not going to rag on USA's favorite three letter excuse to get drunk and yell (hey, this isn't the first stone). However, when comparing sports the NFL's penchant for upsets and parity is always brought up as one of the reasons for its intense popularity. I've always got the sense this was both a good and bad thing. Parity makes for a lot of excitement within the moment, but what about long term potential? Perhaps this is where I show my sport homerism and side with basketball, but I think one of the great things about the NBA is the potential for the creation of histories, story lines that extend beyond players' careers. The perfect example was on show last June when the Celts and Lakers suited up for the finals. In what other sport would that be a rivalry when none of the players had battled against each other while with their respective current teams? It doesn't happen in other sports because parity is the antithesis to dynasty. Okay, but back to the NFL. You can't rag on these guys for playing less games than other athletes. They're killing themselves out there, and everyone knows it. It's the closest thing we have to Roman gladiators. Scratch that, the second closest thing. But the lack of games brings up another salient point.
There was an article a few months ago comparing sports attendance and musem attendance, and museums were higher by a landslide. Why? Because you can't see the famous paintings online. Well, maybe one or two really famous ones, but those are just the highlights. If you want to see that Matisse you've heard so much about, you have to go down to the museum and actually see it. Because they don't put it on TV for you, and they carefully guard it from spreading across the internet. They decrease supply to raise demand. Don't get me wrong, I don't ever want sports taken from TV. Having these epic battles broadcast straight into my living room is part of the genius of modern sports. But the point is that with football less is more.
With baseball? Not so much. The national pasttime has never been about the games, and it's a pity. MLB players are artists. They perfect their skills so meticulously. They are neither the raw, wrecking-ball forces of nature you see in football or the smooth synthesis of athleticism and style in basketball. Rather, one might dub them the supreme stylists. And in this they pattern themselves most after the industrial working world, where specialities become one's calling card. Who needs a complete player when you can pull in a pinch hitter? But it's that workman-like dedication to specialities that creates the MLB atmosphere of nonchalance. MLB season ain't a track meet, it's a marathon. Okay, I know the World Series is a big deal, especially with the reason cancellation of Olympics competition...but, honestly, I can't tell if baseball fans care more about the World Series or the race to the pennant. I've never been to a baseball park, but I hear it's all about being there, catching foul balls (that don't matter to the actual game), getting hot dogs, y'know the works. The idea, then, is that you're so inundated that you can't stop inundating yourself. We're immersed in baseball, even though it's probably behind football as America's favorite sport by a long distance. I swear half of sportscenter is baseball during the season, and it drives me crazy. What do I have to say about their postseason structures? Not much. They remind of the NBA's, except because of the nature of baseball, 7-game series are not really as grueling. It's crazy to have such a long season and then such a comparatively short postseason. Or maybe it's crazy to have as long a post-season as the NBA does? Yeah, that's more like it. There's also something to be said about the wild card element in both these sports, but I'm not sure I'm the one to say it.
Back to the NBA. No one will disagree that there's something rotten about the whole season and post-season's structure. There are moments of absolute magic. Underneath March Madness are developing the playoff races that are going to matter in April. But there are definitely doldrums that lurk every season. After the bloom is off the first round rose, people quickly lose interest. Even some near die hard fans only watch four or five out of a series that goes seven. And then it's just a wait-and-watch-sportscenter game until June. January and part of February are like that in the NBA too. Fans know that, and you just maintain interest enough to be informed when you start to care again. But it doesn't have to be this way. One of the suggestions that's been batted around is less games, or even less teams. This would achieve the lower supply higher demand model we see in football, but would it really be a solution? It just decreases the problem, it doesn't make it go away. What we really want is an NBA season where all the games matter. Where we don't get lost in what does 30 wins in December translate to down the road games. The other proposition I've seen is based on a Euroleague soccer model, one I'm not that familiar with but that sounds great. The idea is to have a bunch of different tournaments during the season. This way you can incorporate different groupings of teams and see different dynamics come out. Mark Cuban even mentioned the idea of bringing in teams from over seas. I'd propose a thirty game seeding "season" and then maybe three tournaments with options like challenge exhibition games between tournaments that would affect the next round of seeding. I think it could be a lot of fun. I'd go into specific examples, but I think I've spun off enough words here already.
One last thought. This kind of tournament model could mean the NBA could play a host of different venues. Maybe home court would be a huge part of it. Or you could take games to cities without teams. What this would look like is "pro" wrestling, which I sometimes think the "big" sports could learn from in terms of endorsing story lines (see: you can't argue how much wrestling is like ancient Roman blood sport, can you?). But maybe that's bush league. D-league. Semi-professional/playing for scholarships. I don't know. I can't really get a hold on these sports ethics/aesthetics when they get too macro. But on the ground, talking to growing sports fans, it's kind of amazing how much velocity wrestling gains. I think tournaments could function much like wrestling's pay-per-view events, except bigger and not campy like pay-per-view shit. Anyway.
So what's the ideal system for the NBA? Or for any sport? I think every sport and league has to come up with their own model. It's important for it not to be too complicated, but it shouldn't be too simple either. You want fans arguing deep into the night about what's right and what's wrong with a system. Make it too simple and they have a two minute argument and go home none the wiser. So all this discussion was to increase our wisdom quotient, then? Well, something has to. The good stuff's in the argument, not in the way you walk away from it.
Epochrypha: Outside the Bracketology
