The NBA is “formally exploring” introducing a reduced regular season schedule for its 75th anniversary season in 2021-22, according to a report by ESPN.

A brainstorming session last week reportedly included talk of a midseason cup and postseason play-in tournament.

NBA reportedly looks at fewer games

Per the report, at least 12 top team executives from both the basketball and business operations side of things discussed potential changes and what that would look like on a June 17 conference call.

It is the first time the concept of playing fewer games has had such focus by those who can make recommendations and changes. The session was strictly for brainstorming and thoughts ranged widely for how many games could be stricken.

From Kevin Arnovitz at ESPN:

The number of games in a reduced regular season discussed on the conference call ranged from 58 — ensuring every team would host each of the 29 other teams in their arenas over the course of a season — to a marginal cut of only a handful of games. According to sources on the call, the appetite among team officials for a major reduction in the number of games was limited.

The committee can only make recommendations to the NBA’s Board of Governors and was formed specifically to look into structural issues, per ESPN.

NBA looks at mid-season cup

Economics has historically impeded the conversation around reducing the schedule, since more games means more money for teams and the league itself. To make up for financial losses from a reduced schedule, the group is reportedly discussing implementing a play-in tournament and midseason cup.

The play-in tournament was reported last month as a new path to the playoffs. According to Marc Stein of the New York Times, it would be a way to ensure the best 16 teams in the NBA are playing for the championship instead of the eight best of each conference.

The NBA is also considering a European soccer-style championship in the middle of the season. Commissioner Adam Silver discussed this publicly in an April news conference, noting it might take fans time to adjust to having “multiple goals throughout the season,” like they do in international soccer.

“That's why I'm particularly interested in looking at different kinds of formats — at midseason tournaments, for example, play-in tournaments — because even accepting that players have so many miles on their bodies, there may be better ways to present it,” Silver said in April. “Assuming guys are going to play 82 games, maybe there should be a certain number of games in the regular season and then there should be two tournaments throughout the season.”

The changes would go hand-in-hand. A reduced schedule allows for either or both tournaments time wise. The tournaments allow for a reduced schedule money wise.

NBA players face 82-game grind

The NBA season is long and the issues around it created ongoing scrutiny from players, teams and fans.

For the top teams in the league — or even teams in the hunt with aging superstars — it means keeping the best players out of certain regular season games to keep them fresh for the postseason. That’s irksome for fans with tickets expecting to see Toronto Raptors forward Kawhi Leonard or Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James.

And the postseason is a grind in itself, spanning up to 28 more games. The Golden State Warriors played an extra 105 games during their five-year run to the NBA Finals. That’s an entire extra season and a quarter covering 10 extra months of playing time. The injuries the team had this postseason aren’t a direct result of that, but so many extra games on top of a long season couldn’t have helped.

The discussion was simply exploratory and nothing can happen until the players union, ownership groups, broadcast partners, sponsors and other entities came to an agreement.

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