We all work too much. It’s pretty widely accepted that the 40-hour workweek is outdated — there is actually a piece of recently proposed legislation in Congress to knock that down to a 32-hour workweek, for what it’s worth! — but despite that, plenty of us work much longer than 40 hours a week. A 9-to-5 is now an 8-to-5 with an hour-long lunch break that no one actually takes, leaving the office late or taking work home with you is common, all that stuff.
NBA players get paid a lot more money than, well, most humans, but they’re also overworked. The league packs 82 games into its season, which is a lot of basketball. There have been calls over the years to reduce that number, or to limit the stuff that really wears players out, like back-to-backs or brutal travel schedules. While the league has done some of this, in recent years, it’s actually placed more of an emphasis on having guys play as much as possible before the playoffs roll around — the In-Season Tournament and Play-In Tournaments are here now, while players have to meet games played thresholds to be eligible for awards, which means if you want to maximize your earning potential, you’re gonna have to grit your way through being banged up sometimes.
Reducing the number of games is unlikely any time soon, in part because the NBA and NBPA just agreed to a new collective bargaining agreement. What the league can do, however, is give players more opportunities to rest up and get their bodies right amid the grind of the regular season. As of now, the only chance to do this is during the All-Star break, and even then, if you’re a star who participates in the weekend, you get a truncated break in February. So when it ends, you’ve got to go through two more months of playing ball after spending the prior four months stuck in the slog that can be the NBA in the early part of its season.
So, how about a compromise that also could also benefit basketball fans who don’t really have the ability to follow the NBA over the next few days? I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that the NBA makes its way onto the back-burner in mid-March for most sports fans due to the NCAA Tournament starting up. The men’s tournament tips off on Thursday, while the women’s tournament begins on Friday. There is a ton of single-elimination college basketball on the horizon, all of it kicks ass, and while it’s going on, only the real NBA sickos are able to dedicate the time and energy to tuning in for non-college games.
As such, what if the league used this as a chance to give its players a few days off before the stretch run? Following the slate of games on Wednesday night, the NBA then goes into a break until the following Tuesday. This would mean that every game for the first two rounds of the men’s and women’s tournaments get every ounce of attention from the sports world (well, except from hockey and soccer fans, but at least there’s an international break in the men’s futbol world right now). It’d give players a chance to rest and recover ahead of the final 15 or so regular season games, while the league’s two main television partners — Turner is the home of the men’s tournament, while ESPN broadcasts the women’s tournament — get to go even more wall-to-wall covering the events than they already do.
It’s also the rare portion of the season where fans wouldn’t be too broken up about the lack of NBA games, as there would still be ample hoops action on their TV screens. It’s not like the NBA and its television partners don’t understand where the eyeballs are this weekend, either. From Thursday to Monday, there are nine games on national television, and all of them are on NBA TV. On Tuesday and Wednesday next week — the first two days without either NCAA Tournament — games are back on TNT and ESPN before the league goes back to putting its marquee games on NBA TV during the Sweet 16 and Elite 8.
Obviously the NBA is not going to just plop a two-week break in the middle of its stretch run, particularly when the Tournaments have days off on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. But between the first two rounds of both Tournaments, there are 96 college basketball games in a stretch of five days that most people are going to be watching. Why not use that as an excuse to let players decompress at a time when all the attention is going to be on something else?
As an added bonus, this serves as an opportunity for players to go to these games. While not every guy made it to the NBA via college ball, a whole heck of a lot have, and I’m sure plenty of them would take a trip to go see their alma maters play. The NBA really likes when its players are visible, so why not give them some time to be courtside for the Tournament — how cool would it be if Aaron Gordon or Jamal Murray got Nikola Jokic to throw on an Arizona or Kentucky jersey at their first round games? What about Keegan Murray leading a Kings contingent to cheer on Caitlin Clark and Iowa, or Evan Mobley making his way to a USC game to see JuJu Watkins? What if a gigantic group of NBA and WNBA players who went to the same school made their way into a student section and showed off the school pride that is always endearing? Plus there’s the obvious: NBA players hyping up the next generation of athletes is awesome, and maybe the league can get a moment involving a current star and a guy like Rob Dillingham at Kentucky that it can look back on when they battle over the years.
Seeing NBA players care about their alma mater is usually really cool, and while I’m sure that some would use this as a chance to go sit on a beach somewhere for a few days, this would give them an opportunity to grab some courtside seats and let loose. And the NBA really likes when it gets a chance to be involved in something that people are paying attention to. Getting to have a presence at the multi-day event that takes over the American sports conscience every single year is a chance for them to do that — I’m willing to wager that the very talented social media folks with the league would go all-in on players being in attendance for games, or would dig deep into the archives to show off the college highlights of today’s biggest stars. No one is going to care more about Draymond Green being at Michigan State-Mississippi State than they will the game itself, but I’ll tell you this as a professional contentsman: People tend to really like seeing famous folks acting like, well, fans.
It would, of course, be completely shocking if the NBA took any of this seriously, and decided that punting on a few days during the final push to the postseason would be an idea worth pursuing. But at the same time, NBA players are people, and like everyone, getting more chances to make sure they can do their jobs to the best of their ability — that they are healthy enough, that they are in a good headspace — is a good thing. Letting the players catch their breath for a few days and enjoy (or, if they want, be part of) this incredible celebration of the sport that happens every March would be a way to do just that.
