NBA and NHL regular season

[Dave Gray]

I am a fan of basketball.  I also will get on a hockey bandwagon when it's fashionable.

But it's hard to watch the regular season.

There are so many games, a lot of teams make the playoffs, and the seeding doesn't really matter.

As opposed to the NFL, where home field advantage makes up 100% of the game.  In the NBA/NHL, home field is only a 15% difference and that's only if you manage to get to a game 7.  In most cases, it doesn't come into play at all.

Additionally, the NFL product in the regular season is much like the post season.  But the same isn't true for the NBA (and probably not in NHL either, although I'm less versed.)

The regular season in basketball is about managing your minutes, keeping guys rested and healthy, and using your bench to keep your stars available.  The benches are long and guys down deep on the bench giving you minutes during the year matters a good amount.

The postseason is just a different animal.  Superstars play almost the whole time and it's more about foul management.  There isn't as much 1:1 between a regular season and postseason team like there is in the NFL.

So, because of that, I'm just a lot less invested.   Every game in the NFL matters so much and you really can see how good your team is week to week.  It doesn't feel that way in these other sports.

82 games is just too much.

[EDGECRUSHER]

Can't argue with any of this. I don't know how to fix this other than add in a bye for the top few seeds in the NBA, but they will never do that. The league loves their playoff revenue.

[Spider-Dan]

I think the business model for baseball, basketball, and hockey has already baked in that the majority of fans not going to follow every regular season game like they would for the NFL.  ASo I don't see it as a "problem" that needs to be "fixed."

[Phishfan]

I don't think Dave is suggesting a fix is needed, just making an observation

[Fau Teixeira]

I was actually thinking of a change to the NBA regular season rankings would go a long way towards making it more exciting.

Instead of just using W-L for regular season ranking, I'd like to see basketball adopt 2 points for a win, 0 points for a loss and 1 point to whichever team wins the most quarters. (tied amount of quarters gets 0)

So some games will give out 2 points, some games will give out 3 points some games will give out 2 points for the winner and 1 to the loser. That would make the regular season more dynamic.

[Dave Gray]

I don't think Dave is suggesting a fix is needed, just making an observation

Yeah, I'm not sure what you can do about it or even if you should do anything about it.

I would probably have a greater interest if the season were shrunk, but that's just me, and maybe I still wouldn't pay too close attention.  There was a lockout season or a strike season or something where they played around 60 games and it seemed a lot better for me.  It was about 2 games a week.

[Brian Fein]

In the NHL, you generally play your division opponents 4 times per season - 2 home and 2 away.  You play all other teams twice, some 3 times for in-conference, non-division opponents.  that's why there's so many games. 

But, in the merit of the long season, there's been remarkable stories of teams that have started off terribly and were able to make mid-season adjustments, overcome injuries, and pile it on down the stretch.  The Florida Panthers are one such story we are witnessing right now.

So, yes, there's a lot of games to the regular season, but I think its necessary.