Wait...Basketball Started?

Welcome to a bonus issue of my blog! Basketball season is back, I suppose, but the way teams are playing it doesn't seem like many players are all the way there.As I'm fishing through my three fantasy teams (at least 1 too many) I'm noticing that box scores are missing something: triple digit scoring. At the end of last year 11 teams averaged more than 100 points a game. This year: 5, with only 1 team at 99 and 2 teams at 98. Contrast last year, where no one averaged fewer than 90, to this year where 5 are in the 80's, including Detroit at a super low 82.8 a game.

I wouldn't be so concerned with it if we werent already 15-18% done with the season. But watching Dallas slug it out to a 90-85 victory the other night, and looking at the Lakers winning 90-87 in OVERTIME (yes it took an extra 5 minutes to get just one team to 90), and the Clippers beating Miami 95-89, also in overtime, I figured something was up. And I don't like it. The lockout really killed this first part of the basketball season, and who knows maybe with the schedule and lack of practice it killed the entire season. All I know is watching retro 80s basketball is no fun, and after last year's awesome season the NBA really took a step backwards this year.


This is quite different from the NFL lockout and how the schedule was handled there. Many free agents had a shortened camp but the season was still 16 games long and was regularly paced with 1 game a week and the players can actually practice and learn schemes and get into shape. The NBA's biggest mistake was trying to cram 66 games in the schedule that ends roughly the same time as if there was never a lockout. This is dumb. Why can't the NBA schedule into late July? It's not like the arenas are needed for anything during those months (outside of concerts which are easily worked around). Plus July is that dry month where all that happens is baseball fatigue (90-100 games already played, but 60 more to go). There is no football, there is no hockey, there is no major golf tournament, and even the Summer Olympics do not start until July 27.

So why did the NBA feel it needed to cram the season in and end the Finals in late June? With the structure of this season, injuries become much more devastating (and much more likely as players have to get into shape via playing games instead of practice), new players are being poorly integrated into lineups (see Lamar Odom), and the intensity comes down as players have to grind 4 games in 5 nights or the dreaded 3 in a row, including travel. I feel like the NBA took all of it's momentum and threw it away with this horseshit schedule. There is absolutely no buzz around the NBA right now and for good reason. The product sucks. I will happily stand on a mountain and for all of my fans of The League shout the words "This Season is Null and Void!!!"


Hopefully, it's just an extended preseason and not a trend for the NBA because this is garbage basketball. And because this is a bonus issue you get a bonus topic too! Some other big news this week is the Big 6 college football commissioners coming together and indicating a willingness to do a plus 1 or in other words, 4 team playoff. I have never been a fan of the plus 1, only because you don't get a good cross section of talent in the playoffs. The playoffs have to be as much about making money as the BCS bowls were for the commissioners to sign off on it. In a 4 team playoff you would have probably missed out on seeing Oregon, Wisconsin, and West Virginia (I add them because they finally got a full year under Holgorsen by the bowl game), all very good teams who on any given day in the playoffs could play with anyone. We would have gotten LSU playing Stanford and OK St. playing Alabama. Pretty good but i don't think its a great field compared to what you could have.

The playoffs have to be at least 6, and probably 8 for it to be worthwhile. The system is so simple I can not stand the fact it hasn't been implemented yet. This will address every problem possible:

1. Leave all the lesser bowls intact. There were some awesome games this bowl season and there usually are every year. Kids who play for Toledo, or Utah State, or Univ. of Louisiana, Lafayette finally get a chance to play on national television. The bowls raise enough money to give the conference some added revenue. There is no reason these can't exist.

2. An 8 team playoff requires 7 games, 4 one round, 2 the following, and then the championship game. That means the Fiesta, Rose, Sugar, and Orange Bowls all get the first round and then you alternate each year who gets the semi finals and the championship and which bowl gets left out. This actually doubles the bowl money for nearly every bowl every year, plus doubles the money How can you turn this down? Yes it means you lose two at larges, but really I think we all could have done without the Michigan-Virginia Tech game and every year the last two teams in usually aren't that good.


3. But, what about the kids academics? For one thing no one involved in the decision making really cares. A few examples: Oregon on the quarter system has their finals December 5-9. The Pac-12 championship game was held on the 2nd. UCLA, who by the way also played in the game, had their finals start the 3rd. Where is the outcry about those kids academics regarding the Pac-12 championship game? Nowhere, because no one really cares. It's a disingenuous argument against a playoff system.

For the sake of argument let's say they do care. All quarter schools have their exams well before right after conference championship games. Then they are off until January. Alabama, which is a semester system has their exams from the 12-16th then they are off into January as well. Let's use this year for example: Give all the playoff teams a bye week after conference championship games and you start the playoffs on friday the 16th and saturday the 17th (or all 4 games on the 17th). Everyone is done with their finals. They had the off week to actually study if they cared. Finals week they take their tests and have ample practice time. Then you run the semi finals the 24th and the kids get home for Christmas. You give them a bye week and bring back the championship game around the same time as the BCS title game was this year. The players are off school for most of this. Academics has nothing to do with it and in fact you actually get postseason games where the teams aren't on mega 43 day layoffs between games and get one team that looks super rusty every year in the BCS title game.

4. But that's too many games for college kids. In reality you are only extending the season for 4 teams, 2 play 1 extra game, 2 play 2 extra. Furthermore those teams most likely to play in a playoff system schedule some low low level DIA or some D1AA team at least once a year. Just give the option of getting rid of one crappy non-conference game for schools that don't want to schedule it. Otherwise shut up, 116 out of 120 schools will not have their schedules extended by this system.


5. But we have such an outcry when basketball snubs number 69 from the field of 68, can you imagine what happens in football when we snub number 9? First off, who cares? There will always be unhappy teams in tournament selection processes. That shouldn't even be a concern. Plus the teams that get snubbed in basketball have no chance to play for a title. In football youd be hard pressed to find 9 or 10 teams that have a legitimate shot to win it all. This year it was LSU, Oklahoma St, Alabama, Oregon, Stanford, Wisconsin, Boise State (I still think they were a top 8 team) and what...arkansas, clemson, west virginia?I mean I just got to 8 and im already naming teams that have no shot really. If you aren't a top 8 team you have no shot. Snubs happen, it gives us something to talk about, whether it be for a spot in march madness or a spot on NBA All Star team, it's definitely not a reason to hold back a solid system.

So BCS commissioners, you get more money, you don't impact academics, you hardly extend the schedule, you end the season the same time, and you only get in teams that have a real shot at winning. What am I missing here? A plus 1 is nice and good step, but I want 8! I want to watch more games like OK St and Stanford and Oregon and Wisconsin. What do you all think out there?