Comments on: What If the NBA Was Like the NFL?

By: Gareth

Gareth — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 04:57:40 +0000

Someone better quickly sign up Tractor Traylor to slot in at Nose Tackle.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 00:42:32 +0000

I would love a single table, home and away round robin NBA.

By: mrparker

mrparker — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 19:37:30 +0000

I've always wanted to see a second season where the same number of teams make the playoffs but instead of playoff series there was a round robin format. The reward for best record would be playing all the second season games at home. 2nd place would have to play all but one at home and last place would have to play all their games on the road. After the completion of that 15 game round robin, the top 2 teams would make the championship 7 game series with the top second season team getting the home field.

I think ratings would be better for that, there would be more revenue generated, most likely the two best teams would most likely always play for the championship.

By: Jason J

Jason J — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 18:39:40 +0000

One major difference is that you'd take out some of the randomness of injury. NFL players get hurt constantly. It's much more of a rarity among NBA players. Player careers don't tend to tank as quickly either... I think that level of parity, logically, would be less likely.

By: Eric

Eric — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 18:07:29 +0000

What I think this is missing is that the minutes would more resemble a playoff game, where starters play dramatically more minutes. Teams like Atlanta (6 players over 1000 minutes, would gain wins at the expense of teams like the Spurs who depend on their depth as much as their starters.

What would the numbers look like if you trimmed your bench down to 1 or 2 players?

By: Brank_Manderbeak

Brank_Manderbeak — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 17:52:43 +0000

Very interesting take Neil, good work. That said, I'm glad I don't live in this awful dystopia that you've just created.

By: P Middy

P Middy — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 13:27:15 +0000

One thing's for sure, starters would play about 46 minutes a game each. Without the grind of 82 games, there's a lot less need to save anything. And a huge advantage would go to teams who kept their core players in tact and made as few moves as possible in the off season. When you've only got 16 games, being ready to go from game 1 makes a huge difference. There's no warm up time.

By: RobertAugustdeMeijer

RobertAugustdeMeijer — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 09:55:43 +0000

This is alot of fun, thanks for the delightful post.
I myself prefer the NBA's structure, but I imagine that American football is too physical for best-of-seven series.
If the basketball players could take it, I would even support a double-elimination playoff structure (getting knocked out of the playoffs puts you in a mirror playoff where you can compete a second time for a finals spot). I just like competitions to mean something.