Now in retirement, five-time NBA champion Kobe Bryant is changing his stance on just how much players should be pushing themselves during the season.
Bryant, who once made it very clear that he’s willing to push his body to tremendous lengths to accomplish big goals, has never really been a proponent of shortening the NBA season.
That’s no longer the case.
“You can’t lose five-to-10 games,” Bryant said, via ESPN. “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 (expletive)”
Bryant’s primary reason for wanting to shorten the schedule is to provide a better product for fans of the game. He believes that if back-to-backs are eliminated, players will be able to perform at a higher level.
He also understands that this is unlikely to happen based on the revenue both the players and the teams see with an 82-game schedule.
The primary issue most have with the length of the NBA season is not the amount of games that are played. Instead, it’s about how long the season itself lasts.
Opening night for the defending champion Golden State Warriors was on October 31st. If they are able to close the Cleveland Cavaliers out in four games, their season will come to a conclusion on June 10th.
That’s seven and a half months of competitive basketball. That’ also well over 100 games.
For his part, Bryant acknowledged that playing so much basketball for such a long period of time is the primary reason why he dealt with injuries later in his career.
“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.”
Bryant also suggested that shortening the games themselves would help players avoid injury.
The issue here is that the NBA would see a complete change in terms of how stats are accumulated, pretty much ending any possibility that players in the future could break previous records.
If the Association were to shorten the 82-game schedule, the same could be said for season-long marks such as the Warriors record-breaking 73-win season.
That coupled with the revenue we are seeing teams bring in around the NBA today seems to suggest nothing is on the horizon when it comes to shortening the schedule and/or games.
Though, the NBA would be smart to listen to people of Kobe’s ilk when it comes to this. He played basketball at such a high level for such a long time before seeing his body abandon him. He’s a voice of authority on this.