Daryl Morey, the 76ers team president wants the NBA playoffs to be a single-elimination and a reduced regular season.
NBC revealed that over 100 million people watched Super Bowl 56, and 11 million more streamed the big game between the Rams and Bengals. If you compare the championship clinching game of last year’s NBA finals, the NBA had about 10 percent of the NFL’s ratings.
The NBA imposed a play-in tournament where 4 teams play for 2 spots to the playoffs to face the top 6 seeds in each conference and that idea raises the stakes of win and advance or lose and go home for the summer.
In the MLB playoffs, there is a somewhat similar structure to the playoff series but with one fewer round, but all of the rounds end within a week. The playoffs last a month at the longest, where the NBA playoffs start on April 16 and including the finals series would take 2 months to complete. If this year’s finals series were to go 7 games, that would last two weeks looking at this year’s schedule. The NBA finals starts on June 2 and if it goes the distance, the series won’t end until the 19th.
Morey has a point, the fans tend to lose interest if it is not their team in the finals or championship series and a 7 game series seemingly never ends. It can be hard to keep up with all of the off days sandwiched in between games. I understand having extra days off when traveling from one city to another but why should a NO. 1 seed have to win 4 games against a NO. 8 seed in the first round when it is fair to assume the NO. 1 seed will advance? Why not save an extra game for the Phoenix Suns for when the competition starts to get even stiffer assuming they make it to the conference finals?
I understand the reason why the first round to the finals series is a best-of-seven but these games are absolutely grueling for the players, and for the teams that get in through the play in tournament. If the NBA wants to increase viewership in the playoffs, they should reduce the first round to 5 games at the bare minimum.
One-and-done is a stretch too far, but you could make the first round after the play-in tournament a best-of-3 and more fans would watch knowing that there is a sense of urgency to win now and not a week later.
ryanhackman1026 