NBA Schedule Proposal A Change Long Overdue Hello Mr. Silver (and any others), I want to thank you for the opportunity to present to you today. My name is Casey Slaughter and I’ve been a NBA fan since I was young. I have followed the league very closely, and written some pieces for newspapers and magazines. I am always looking for ways to improve the league. And as you know, the NBA schedule is the biggest problem in the league right now. But I am here today to propose a solution that everybody will enjoy—fans, players, and owners.

Why Make A Change? Global Market National Market Local Markets So why should we make a change now? The issue is obviously fresh in our minds with another season that ended with Western Conference teams watching the playoffs while sub-.500 teams competed in the East. And also, this summer, you implemented a change where division winners aren’t guaranteed a top-four seed. In my opinion, this change made divisions useless, which is a problem and is addressed in my proposed schedule. Overall, this schedule will improve league popularity globally, nationally, and locally.

New System Preseason Regular Season Postseason It all starts in the preseason, which coaches, players, and owners all agree is too long. Most teams play six or seven games during the exhibition season. I am proposing a three game preseason for all teams. This will eliminate the need to squeeze media days, practice, and games into a couple weeks before the season starts. This will also allow the season to start earlier which will spread games out and eliminate back-to-backs. I also believe that no preseason game should take place in the home arenas. The NBA has found success having preseason in foreign markets such as China, Canada, and South America and should continue playing games in foreign locations. Every preseason game will be held in a new market, which will boost global and national markets. I will go into detail on the regular season in a moment, but right now I will focus on the playoff system. Because this system eliminates conferences, the teams with the top-16 records will qualify for the playoffs (keeping the current tiebreaker rules) The playoff format will then work like the NCAA Tournament where the 1 seed faces the 16 seed, the 2 seed faces the 15 seed and so on. Taking the top 16 teams into the playoffs will boost all three markets due to the balanced competition. Last year, the Western Conference playoffs received higher TV ratings than the East. This is because the West featured seven 50 win teams, while the East featured only three. The East also featured three teams that won 50% or less than their games. If we balance out the schedules of all teams and eliminate conferences, better teams will end up in the playoffs which will lead to more viewers and more tickets sold.

X4 X2 Northwest Division Utah Jazz Oklahoma City Thunder Denver Nuggets Portland Trail Blazers Minnesota Timberwolves Southwest Division Houston Rockets San Antonio Spurs Memphis Grizzlies New Orleans Pelicans Dallas Mavericks Pacific Division Golden State Warriors Los Angeles Clippers Phoenix Suns Sacramento Kings Los Angeles Lakers X4 X2 Atlantic Division Toronto Raptors New York Knicks Boston Celtics Brooklyn Nets Philadelphia 76ers Central Division Chicago Bulls Milwaukee Bucks Indiana Pacers Detroit Pistons Cleveland Cavaliers Southeast Division Miami Heat Washington Wizards Orlando Magic Charlotte Hornets Atlanta Hawks So now let’s move on to the regular season. I believe that division rivalries are very important to the league, and currently the best rivalry is Golden State and the Clippers—who both play in the Pacific Division. So divisions are here to stay as constructed. The new format however pairs two divisions together, and rotates year by year. For example, the pairs would begin Northwest/Atlantic, Southwest/Central, Pacific/Southeast for one season. The next season would be Northwest/Southwest, Pacific/Atlantic, Central/Southeast and would continuously rotate. Let’s take the Utah Jazz as an example. They will play the other nine teams in their group four times, they will also play the other twenty teams in the league twice. That’s 76 games, which is six less than currently scheduled. That may not sound like a good thing but less games will lead to less back-to-backs, which results in better game quality and more rest for players. This overall will cause a huge spike in fan interest. Instead of seeing the same teams and players year after year, this rotating schedule will bring new teams and players to the arena every year. Fans of the Utah Jazz will get to see all-stars such as Carmelo Anthony, Kyle Lowry, and DeMar Derozan live twice a year instead of just once. The rotating schedule will allow fans to see new players twice a year instead of just once. I also think this schedule will help limit tanking (intentionally losing to get a high draft pick). I believe this rotating schedule will force teams to always be competitive. There is no way to predict changes that happen over the offseason, so teams won’t know how good the other nine teams in their group will be. This will make teams build the best team possible to try and win as many games as possible within their group.

Concerns Travel Level of Team Equality East and West Markets “Big” Markets Obviously there are concerns about making this drastic change: the amount of travel teams have to endure is always the first concern talked about. But I don’t think it will be that big a deal. All teams already have “East/West Coast road trips” where they travel cross-country to play a series of games. This schedule means there will be more of them, but this isn’t as big an issue as people believe because less games in both the regular and preseason will mean more rest for players and more travel days, making the travel much easier. And currently teams in the same conference have to travel long distances. Los Angeles to Minnesota and Toronto to Miami and Orlando are already long distances, so travel is easily managed. We already covered the team quality and lack of tanking so that won’t be an issue. Another issue that could potentially happen is if a majority of teams that qualify for the playoffs are in the same time zones, which will cause issues with the TV double-headers which are slated at 8 and 10:30 pm Eastern. But I believe fans will still attend playoff games even if they start an hour earlier or later than usual, it is the Playoffs after all. The last concern would be a lack of “big” markets in the playoffs: such as Boston, Los Angeles, and Chicago. But the recent success of small market teams—like San Antonio and Oklahoma City have shown that basketball fans just enjoy great basketball, and market size doesn’t matter. The record-setting Finals from last year between Golden State and Cleveland just confirms small market success.

Make the Next Great Change to the League When the 3-point line was adopted to the league in 1979, nobody was a fan of it. It was only shot if you were down by a lot. The leader in 3 pointers that season was Brian Taylor with 90. Steph Curry hit 98 3’s in just the playoffs alone last year. Golden State used the 3 pointer to it’s fullest potential and won the highest-watched Finals. Be the Commissioner that changed the league for the better with this new playoff system.

Resources http://www.allenbwest.com/2015/06/why-the-nba-champs-do-not-belong-in-san-francisco/ https://eliteinsiders.wordpress.com/2015/05/22/james-harden-upset-after-taking-game-2-l/ http://www.salon.com/2015/04/14/lebron_james_underdog_how_an_nba_legend_became_a _humble_hungry_hero_of_the_downtrodden_rust_belt/ http://www.nba.com/hornets/press-releases/hornets-participate-nba-global-games-china- 2015 https://fortonsports.wordpress.com/2015/05/28/warriors-1-vs-cavaliers-2-the-finals-are- here/ http://espn.go.com/nba/playoffs/2015/story/_/id/13102198/nba-finals-draw-highest- ratings-1998-michael-jordan-last-season-chicago-bulls http://sportstvratings.com/tag/brooklyn-nets-vs-atlanta-hawks-tv-ratings/ http://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_1980_leaders.html