On Friday morning, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, these are some of the changes the NBA is considering for the regular season:
"There would be four significant changes starting with:
- A minimum 78-game regular season,
- 30 team in-season tournament that we're told, tentatively, would begin after/around Thanksgiving and take you into mid-December.
- And there would be a postseason play-in for the 7th and 8th seeds competing with the 9th and 10th seeds.
- They're also looking into reseeding the four conference finalists so that it's possible that you can have an NBA Finals that could be two teams from the East or two teams from the West. They would reseed the final four of the NBA, based on regular-season records."
These changes were said to be a direct response to the adversity the NBA ratings have faced this season. The NBA has had several challenges entering this season from having superior talent flooding west coast teams, to injuries to some of the NBA's best stars. Of course, there's the ongoing discussion on load management where teams are intentionally sitting their talent in hopes of preserving them for the postseason.
Are these good ideas? Doug Gottlieb asks the crew their thoughts on what ESPN describes as 'sweeping changes' for the NBA, potentially. Doug Gottlieb compared these ideas to European competition, but he's not entirely on board with the reseeding of the conference finals:
Doug Gottlieb: "The biggest challenge would be the reseeding of the four conference finalists, just because you run the risk of the Lakers and Clippers in the NBA Finals, and that's NOT a good thing for the sport."
Listen to the discussion below.