Warriors coach Steve Kerr brought some spark back to the ongoing debate over whether or not the NBA should shorten the regular season.
One of Kerr’s star players, Draymond Green, reacted to his coach’s plea by acknowledging both sides of the aisle.
“There [are] a lot of games and things are different,” Green said on “The Draymond Green Podcast.” “And I know everybody looks at it like, ‘Oh man, they used to play 82 games all those years ago.’ Man, they used to walk the ball up the floor. The pace that the game is played at now and the pace that the game was played at in the 90s [are] drastically different.
“Like, the fastest-paced team in the 90s would probably be the slowest-paced team today. It’s drastically different, and so the game has changed. And I think [with] the amount of games, like you’re putting all these things in to protect the amount of games played by stars, 65-game rule [and] all these things.”
To compare the pace between the 1990s and the 2020s, the Boston Celtics had the highest pace of 96.0 during the 1996-97 NBA season, while the Miami Heat currently leads the league with the fastest pace at 103.8.
On the other side of the coin, a lot of money would be lost if the NBA ever decides to shorten the number of games in a regular season.
“And the reality is [there are] just too many games,” Green stated. “But you have arenas that [have] to get filled, you have TV slots that [have] to be filled, and all these things. So, this won’t change. I don’t think this is something that will change at all because no one is taking less money.
“The TV rights are sold. Just about every team owns an arena. They need to fill these nights in these arenas. So, you need dates, and so I don’t think that’s going anywhere, but I think that’s going to continue to be a problem, especially as the game gets faster and faster.”
Meanwhile, injuries are also factored into the argument for shortening the NBA season, especially with notable star players sitting out games due to load management.
“When you see players take games off and it’s like load management, I told you all most of the time that’s not really [on the] players,” Green added. “Most of the time, that’s the teams saying that because they have all this data and they’re like, ‘Yo, we see you favoring this. You’re at a high risk of injuring this. Like you should take a game off tonight.’ Like these are all the things that [go] on behind the scenes.
“And so I think we’re speaking of like 10 less games. Like, it makes sense because the product ultimately just gets dumbed down. I think in my opinion, when you just [have] tired guys playing against tired guys, injured guys playing against an injured team, injured teams playing against injured teams, the product just gets dumbed down. So you know, they say less is more, right? And I think that can be the best case in this scenario as well.”
Before the Golden State’s 119-116 loss to the Utah Jazz on Monday at Delta Center in Salt Lake City, Kerr responded to a question about which issue he would prioritize if he were to become the NBA commissioner.
“I know this will not be a popular opinion in the league office, but I will continue to say it because it’s obvious; we need to play fewer games,” Kerr told reporters. “We need to take 10 games off the schedule. I think it would be great for the league.”
The topic of shortening the NBA season will continue to be a hot debate in the basketball world, with many pros and cons. But only time will tell if the NBA ever moves toward lowering the number of regular-season games.
Download and follow the Dubs Talk Podcast