Prior to Game 1 of the NBA Finals, NBA commissioner Adam Silver addressed the media talking about several interesting issues. The points of interest were wide in variety, and Silver was asked about the injury issues, the season length and the load management.
Silver claimed he’s not against changing the regular season format, and the NBA has made strides in this direction with the reduction of back-to-back games and the potential in-season tournament.
“I’m not against potentially changing the format of the season, possibly even shortening it a bit, if we can demonstrate that that’s going to have a direct impact on injuries,” Silver said.
For example, last season, we played ten fewer games, and essentially had no impact. And people seemingly quickly forgot. I mean, again, it was a function of COVID and our need to start the season later and end later.
But we played a 72-game season instead of an 82-game season last year. And, yes, it’s true, if players aren’t on the floor, it reduces the chance they can get injured.”
The NBA commissioner claimed that there’s no actual connection to the number of games in a season, but the way players are getting injured due to actual fatigue, which is more common in back-to-back games.
A potential reduction of the regular season length will be on the prospect of making the games more competitive, according to Silver.
“We continue to talk to our Competition Committee about it, our team governors, the Players Association, to see if there’s a way throughout the season to create more meaningful games, more games of consequence, potentially a tournament that would arguably replace some of the regular-season games but would be more meaningful.”
Silver clarified that the league is not there yet considering the in-season tournament. However, he touched another often dismissed subject from the NBA teams, which is the load management.
“Real quickly, you mentioned load management. That is something we are concerned about at the league, meaning that we want to make sure that we have a system where our best players are incentivized to be on the floor. At the same time, we obviously don’t want to see them injured.”
Silver admitted there will be talks in the near future about what would be the best way of approaching the matter in the upcoming seasons.
“What we are hoping is that we can all work collectively, 30 teams together, in a non-competitive way, together with our Players Association, and figure out what is optimal on these players’ bodies,” Silver noted.
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