I’ve been hearing from some of you on the inconsistency of my newsletter. I get it, I’m the best part of your weekend and when that’s taken away it’s like withdrawal. So, I’m very sorry for that.
But I’m back! For this week. And for the future.
Now, I present to you ideas on how we can make modern American sports better. Most of us enjoy watching an athletic contest from time to time, whether it be college basketball, NFL, MLB, professional soccer, NBA, or the bi-annual Olympics.
But, after listening to a recent episode of The Bill Simmons Podcast, I’ve realized we need to liven things up. Of course, this episode featured unofficial “Sports Czar” Malcom Gladwell (who is known for many other things outside of being the Sports Czar with Bill Simmons).
I say “of course” because I haven’t read much of Malcom Gladwell outside of his book “The Tipping Point,” but it just feels like he’s awesome.
Anyways.
Changes in professional sports is not uncommon, in fact the NFL has been slowly shifting the rules of their sport for decades. A big and recent example is the MLB, which added a few elements to the game, including a pitcher countdown clock to help speed the game up. I guess they realized baseball is really, really boring and awfully slow. Especially if you’re watching from home.
Gladwell and Simmons mostly discussed the NBA and small rule changes them league could make to add intrigue to the regular season. Most of it centered on home teams gaining an advantage because for several reasons home court advantage is starting to slide in the NBA and sports as a whole. A few examples of things that might help:
Home teams could choose where to draw the three-point line in their stadium for the regular season. It can’t be closer than where it is right now, but you can draw it as far out as you want and choose to build your team accordingly.
Home teams could dictate that there are no timeouts allowed when you play in their stadium. For instance, the Indiana Pacers are a fast paced, high scoring team and could use this to their advantage so that when they play at home, the away team can’t call a timeout to regroup. Gladwell suggested quarter breaks and halftimes be longer as a result of this, I’m guessing for players to rest but also so sponsors can get their ads in.
Anyone else in for this?! Sign me up.
Right now, the NBA is rolling out something new called “The NBA In-Season Tournament,” which is, you guessed it, a tournament that takes place during the regular season. Super creative name.
Basically, teams are put in groups of five and those five all play each other once. Then comes the knockout round, which is basically March Madness Final Four style with the best eight teams battling it out.
The winner gets… more money. Not much incentive for the fans to care but I guess the players will care more? So far it seems like the players are into it.
🔗 Link: Indiana Pacers players react to NBA In-Season Tournament after first game
The real winner of an idea that came out of Gladwell and Simmons discussion centered on the NBA draft and the concept “tanking,” aka a team purposefully losing to gain better draft stock.
Right now, the NBA tries to offset tanking with a lottery style selection where a handful of the worst teams are drawn to see which one will gain the No. 1 pick. The worst team has the best odds, the second worst team has the second-best odds, and so forth.
A different way of doing things with the draft would go like this: instead of your record at the end of your season determining where your draft pick lies, your record allows you to choose a team for the following season and you gain their draft picks. Sounds confusing, I know, it took me a minute to wrap my head around it while listening to them. It goes like this:
The San Antonio Spurs at the end of the 2023 season have the worst record in the league.
The Spurs have first choice at picking a different team’s future draft picks.
The Spurs select the Detroit Pistons 2024 draft picks. So now the Spurs own the Pistons 2024 draft picks.
If the Pistons have the worst NBA record after the 2024 season, that would mean the Spurs get to pick first in the draft.
So, instead of a team being incentivized to tank because their record determines their draft fate, you have every reason to play well because you don’t want another team who owns your future picks to gain high draft picks.
Apparently, this idea was proposed to NBA League Commissioner Adam Silver in the 2010s, but his response was essentially there’s still reason to tank because the team with the worst record gets the first shot at choosing a team’s draft picks.
Gladwell rebutted this quite well. Every year before the NBA season kicks off, Las Vegas will put out odds for which teams will have the worst record in the NBA once the season is all said and done.
Over the past few decades, Vegas has only been right six times about which team will have the worst record. Not a very good percentage. It’s much easier to pick a player in the draft than it is to determine who might hold the worst record next year.
At the very minimum, make the NBA In-Season Tournament count for something more. How about the winner gains an extra draft pick or holds home court advantage in the playoffs in every series except the NBA Finals?
I like that they’re trying to innovate, but there’s more to be done.
The NFL has less games a year, 17 compared to the NBA regular season of 82, but some changes wouldn’t hurt them, either. How about the home team not allowing timeouts? Or field goals are worth 1 point more at certain stadiums?
Let’s liven things up, shall we? Not that any of this will ever happen, but if it did, I see the NBA making changes quicker than the NFL.
Anyone else agree? Disagree? I like thinking about all the small ways sports could be changed. Not so much that the core game is ruined, but little things here or there add intrigue.
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Dumb outfits part 2:
Watched this live and it was wonderful:
Take it easy, folks. 👋🏻