Kobe Bryant Comments on Potentially Shortening NBA Season
No one knows about the grind of an 82-game NBA season more than Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant, whose body eventually broke down in the final three years of his illustrious 20-year career.
Injuries are part of any sport because of the constant and unnatural movement put on the body, but Bryant believes there is one way to minimize the problem, per an article released Tuesday by ESPN.com's Baxter Holmes and Tom Haberstroh about the NBA's increasing injury woes:
"You can't [just] lose five-to-10 games. If you're going to do it, you've almost got to go quality versus quantity. If you're going to shorten the schedule, then you've got to shorten the schedule and look to enhance your TV numbers substantially ... because now every regular-season game is worth a s--t.
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Bryant did reveal he never used to believe in shortening the NBA season "until now."
The main reason Bryant believes that injuries are becoming more prevalent is because there are so many players showcasing their basketball abilities in events—AAU is one specific example he cited—and young athletes are so focused on one specialty:
"Looking back, when I grew up, I played soccer until I was about 14, and so when I came back to the States [from Italy] when I was 14, that's when AAU was starting to take off, and I literally played basketball all day, every day, every tournament, everywhere, which does nothing but wear the knee cartilage out -- which explains why I didn't have much cartilage left in 2003.
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Holmes and Haberstroh highlighted the injury problem, noting "rotation players have missed 61 playoff games in 2016" before the NBA Finals started, "the highest total in the past two decades and three times the rate from 1996 to 1999."
Bryant's suggested solution was to "shorten the games." He added that "you shorten the risk for injury [with shortened games] and things of that nature. It definitely helps." He also pondered gathering more information about the way players train and receive nutrition while going through the grind of basketball day in and day out for years.
The problem with shortening the NBA season, as would be the case in any business, is money.
In 2014, the NBA agreed to new TV deals with ESPN and TNT worth $24 billion over nine years that goes into effect next season. Those deals are contingent on networks being able to provide a certain number of games every year.
There's also the matter of individual team ticket sales. Having fewer games means a decrease in revenue, making any potential change to the schedule problematic for owners around the league.
