The Case for a 58-Game NBA Season

The NBA has been playing an 82-game season since 1968, when they added the Seattle SuperSonics and San Diego Rockets. Since then, the league has only played fewer games in a season four times—due to two lockouts and the COVID-19 pandemic. Many have praised the long season as a testament to surviving through attrition, a commitment to the grind. But that badge of honor seems to be fading a bit.

Many have contemplated reducing the length of the regular season for a variety of reasons—player health, unwatchable late-season games, etc. Usually this has meant a suggestion of a 72-game schedule. I would take it a step further, however: perhaps the NBA can learn from other leagues and embrace the idea of a 58-game schedule.

The European Treble Model

In European soccer leagues like the Premier League, Ligue 1, La Liga, and Bundesliga, the schedule framework is refreshingly simple. Every team plays every other team twice—once at home and once on the road. If the NBA adopted this model, it would be the backbone of a 58-game schedule.

As currently constituted, NBA teams have the following schedule breakdown:

• Four games against divisional opponents
• Four games against six out-of-division conference opponents
• Three games against the remaining four conference teams
• Two games against teams in the opposing conference

What this creates is strength-of-schedule variance. Consider the scheduling calculus for a team like the Thunder, which had to play Denver, Minnesota, and Portland (all playoff teams) four times this season. Meanwhile, the Spurs had the benefit of playing three tanking teams in their division (New Orleans, Dallas, Memphis) four times each. Inherently, it creates an imbalance throughout the regular season.

A 58-game schedule removes the idea of a weak schedule by ensuring that all the teams play each other twice, regardless of division. Embracing this also reaffirms how inconsequential division titles really are in the modern NBA. Previously, a division winner was guaranteed a top-three playoff seed, but that was changed in 2015-16 after widespread criticism of the process. Therefore, it can be reasoned that prioritizing multiple division games is no longer applicable to the league’s modern format.

Another element that applies in a 58-game season is the potential introduction of a basketball treble. In English soccer, there are three trophies that a team can win in a season: the domestic league title, the FA Cup, and the UEFA Champions League. In the NBA, the equivalents would be the top regular-season team, the In-Season Tournament, and the NBA Finals. The balanced schedule would then reward regular-season dominance, while the In-Season Tournament remains throughout the season as its own entity, and the Finals stands as the ultimate achievement.

Incorporating the treble idea in a shortened regular season accomplishes a few different goals. First, it gives players and teams a reason to strive for regular-season success. Teams would have a reason to try and finish a season strong to be rewarded with a title, especially if there are additional bonuses attached to it.

It also would present an opportunity for the In-Season Tournament to be more separated from the regular season, with its four group games per team and three knockout rounds not counting toward the regular season but instead as its own entity, reducing confusion and creating more stakes in the tournament.

This all culminates in the NBA Playoffs, the NBA’s marquee event. With a more balanced 58-game schedule, we get a better idea of who the better teams are, with a clear separation of the three trophies, each representing its own level of accomplishment.

The Realities of Pace and Space

The advocates of an 82-game schedule usually cite precedent as a reason to keep the status quo. What this ignores is just how different the game is today versus how it was played 30 years ago.

In the 1995-96 season, NBA teams averaged 91 possessions per game. This season, that number has jumped to 100 per game. That disparity may not seem like a lot, but it equals 738 more possessions per team, or seven additional games by the standards of the past. This isn’t going away; NBA pace of play is only getting faster, not the other way around. This is why criticisms of “they’ve always played 82 games” feels a bit misguided, because the pace dictates that we are talking two very different products.

This faster play often leads to several wrinkles throughout an NBA season. Players strategically rest, and some players seem to pace themselves to last throughout the regular season in order to preserve themselves for the playoffs. This is especially true of star players, who often use the last 10-15 games of a regular season as a sort of ramp-up for the postseason.

It forces us to wonder: if the best players are giving 75% effort for a bulk of the regular season, is that the best possible system for the sport? At that point, 58 games of higher intensity due to more spacious scheduling would lead to a better product on the court even if there is less of it.

A strange NBA schedule anomaly has always been the existence of back-to-backs. This season, teams played between 13 and 18 back-to-back games. These games reduce practice time and are often defined by tired legs and missed shots. Teams will often use back-to-backs as a reason to rest players as well, speaking to a frustration that many fans have with the NBA as a whole today.

The NBA season lasts 26 weeks. A reduction from 82 to 58 would mean that teams would play 2.2 games per week as opposed to the current 3.15. Even with the four group-stage In-Season Tournament games accounted for, this would still only be 2.3 games per week, allowing for more rest between games and helping to reduce injury risk for star players.

By reducing game totals and scheduling density, stars have a higher chance of appearing in more games, which solves another pain point for fans when they watch nationally televised games. A recent study by Tom Haberstroh indicated that in nationally televised games this season, only 33% of available star players participated. A 58-game schedule helps to solve this, prioritizing player health and longevity while simultaneously presenting a superior regular-season product.

The Longevity Paradox

One of the primary caveats of reducing the number of games played is in the NBA record books. Playing fewer games will potentially mean that cumulative stat records will be harder to break. This is somewhat true, but it also ignores the rate and efficiency with which players score points today.

Of the top 25 scorers in NBA history, six of them are currently playing. Superstars have never been more efficient, and with the rise in three-point volume, points have come in bunches for the league’s best players. If we accept that most of the league’s top players would play close to all 58 games, they aren’t losing as many reps because no stars play all 82 games in the current NBA anyway.

The more spaced-out schedule combined with the wonders of modern medicine also presents a very real possibility that stars could more conceivably play well past their 20th season. Therefore, any potential lack of games per season is negated by the fact that they could add an additional 2-3 seasons to their total career.

The NBA already views 65 games as a sort of threshold for a complete season, given its awards and All-NBA minimum requirements. 58 games slots in to allow players adequate rest while still ensuring that they offer fans a compelling product. In that sense, what is really being eliminated are the games with multiple reserve players. In a business sense, that would be better for basketball—more stars playing generally means more people are inclined to watch.

Tanking Inventory

Tanking has been a topic of discussion this season, primarily because so many teams wanted to position themselves well in what is promising to be a draft class filled with talent. The end of the regular season saw many teams rack up wins against teams with zero interest in winning games, prompting many to label this as a crisis and forcing the NBA to promise action this offseason to curb the practice.

By adopting a 58-game schedule, some tanking is naturally removed because there are simply fewer games to play against those teams. This also decreases the number of times two bad teams play each other. Because of divisional requirements, the Grizzlies and Pelicans had to play each other four times. Reducing this number to two helps in terms of tanking game density as a baseline.

Most tanking seems to occur after the All-Star Game and trade deadline. By reducing the number of games per team per week, it helps to reduce the number of shameless tanking exhibitions that we see. As long as the NBA incentivizes teams to lose by having a draft lottery system, teams will try to lose. What a 58-game schedule does is simply limit the number of times that they can do it.

58 games also places a higher impact on each game, which helps to incentivize the teams in the middle of the standings. With each game increasing in value to the season by 0.5%, a three-game losing streak becomes more impactful to the fate of a team’s season. This creates an impetus for teams that view themselves as playoff contenders to focus on each individual game a bit more than they currently do. It’s not an end-all fix for tanking, but it helps to reduce its amplification, which should interest the NBA.

The Business Case

Perhaps the biggest reason that the NBA, and all pro sports leagues for that matter, are averse to taking games away is a revenue calculation. Teams cherish their 41 home games and lucrative TV contracts. Teams also have local TV deals that employ a lot of people. That is a lot to be willing to sacrifice. But what this ignores is the potential to make the NBA more of an event, to make it more like the NFL.

NFL teams play 17 regular-season games, with one game per week. Sundays are accepted as the NFL’s day, even if they play on other days during the week. This builds anticipation. How will a team react, what trends occurred in practice? These are all storylines on a local and national level for every NFL team. In the NBA, games aren’t allowed a moment to breathe. Similar to baseball, teams move on to the next opponent quickly, especially if there are back-to-backs on the schedule.

A shorter schedule allows the NBA to claim days during the week—Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays. NBC has already tried to apply that logic with “Sunday Night Basketball” that mirrors its “Sunday Night Football” product in an effort to make the regular season feel bigger. With modern network partners like Amazon and NBC, the NBA has a chance to create a bigger spectacle of the regular season, they just have to be willing to make the shift.

By creating a bit more scarcity, there is a natural incentive to watch the game. By waiting an extra day for a matchup between Anthony Edwards and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, NBA fans build up an additional layer of excitement. That sort of generated excitement is a way to elevate the regular-season product of the NBA, while also adding a parallel in anticipatory structure to the playoffs.

While it can be argued that going to 58 games creates less basketball, it should be noted that it simultaneously creates an environment for better basketball. It opens up a product that has players that are more rested, teams that can practice more regularly, and a way to increase fan investment. The NBA regular season has become a bit of an afterthought to many casual observers of the sport. The NBA has spent years asking fans to care more about the regular season. Maybe it’s time the league tried first.