Fixing the NBA: Six ways to speed up games

As someone who watches basketball for professional reasons, I admit that a shorter NBA telecast is very appealing. Although the owners will likely balk at any ideas that can infringe upon their advertising dollars, all sports leagues are trying to streamline their broadcasts to capture the ever-fickle youth, who are ruined by their reliance upon quick-twitch videos and flash-fried highlights (or so the old heads in charge imagine).

The MLB, perhaps the most hidebound of all the leagues, introduced a pitch clock to almost universal applause. Are there similar fixes available for the NBA? Yes. Let’s discuss a few.

1. Fix free throws

A modest but easy implementation: a free throw clock. While it’s sort of funny watching fans and opposing broadcasters hold up timers to count down Giannis Antetokounmpo’s interminable trips to the line, enforcing the already-existing 10-second rule would make a difference on the margins. Heck, why not reduce the free-throw timer from 10 seconds to eight?

If that’s not going far enough, the league has already thought about making free throws an all-for-one deal: i.e., if you get fouled, you get one free throw for all (or none) of the points. The G-League has been testing this idea (although it goes back to the traditional one-point-per-free-throw system at the ends of games). This would be particularly helpful at the end of games when teams start hacking to jump-start a comeback.

Finally, an idea I saw online: What about moving all free throws to the end of the quarter for the first three quarters? Make it an assembly line after the buzzer; it could even come during the commercial break. That would minimize the stoppages in play from fouling and make for some fun little mini-runs at the end of quarters, too. Imagine your team being down nine but having 12 free throws in the bank. It would at least make early-game garbage time less predictable.

Of course, players often use free throws as a chance to catch their wind. Without freebies, if players want a breather, they’ll need to take a timeout. Speaking of which...

2. Implement fewer or more restrictive timeouts

This one isn’t likely to pass, but can we remove a timeout from each team? The seven granted to each team is way too many, particularly given the additional two TV-mandated breaks in each quarter. I know, I know. Advertising. But if people aren’t watching games because they’re too long anyway (I’m skeptical, but go with me here), this might be a short-term loss for a long-term win. Can we change it so all timeouts are 30 seconds? The NBA has already been increasingly utilizing picture-in-picture advertising without cutting away from timeouts; they could keep their ad inventory intact.

If even that is infeasible, can we at least change NBA rules to follow FIBA’s timeout regulations? FIBA doesn’t allow teams to call timeouts except in dead-ball situations. Imagine how much smoother the end of an exciting NBA game would be if teams didn’t call timeouts after every defensive rebound. This is a win-win in every sense, and I’m unclear why the league hasn’t already implemented it.

3. Fix replays

Speaking of end-of-game stoppages, replay reform has become a popular talking point. There has to be a happy medium between accuracy and flow. We can limit the number of replays, but the process is the problem. We have the referee review center in Secaucus; why can’t they independently decide on replays (as they already do on some calls) and radio it directly to the on-site referees? It would dramatically save time and, by moving the decision-making to a centralized office, enforce greater consistency in calls. This obvious next step would be particularly valuable at the end of close games, when replay reviews murder drama.

4. Start the game on time

Here’s an idea nobody could argue with: start the games on schedule! Owen Philips at The F5 broke down how late games start by the broadcaster. He found that ESPN was the worst offender, tipping games off an average of 14 minutes after the theoretical start time. Meanwhile, TNT was the fastest, starting games in almost half that time. Viewers do not care about a pregame show, I promise. Save the national anthems and unabridged player introductions for the in-arena attendees. Let’s get to the good stuff.

5. Shorten halftime

This seems obvious. Halftimes average 15 minutes. Players need to rest, for sure, but 15 minutes is long enough that they have to warm back up before re-taking the court. Can we make it seven minutes, or 10? Halftimes are an easy place to trim some fat.

6. Shorten the game itself

Euroleague, FIBA, NCAA, and WNBA games are all 40 minutes long. Why is the NBA 48 minutes?

Adam Silver posed that question during an interview, and the downstream ramifications are fascinating. Certainly, 10-minute quarters would make the most significant impact. The NBA could get close to its desired two-hour broadcast window, and as someone constantly battling to stay up-to-date on 30 different teams, I’d personally welcome a quicker game. Perhaps the reduced minutes' load would even reduce superstar injuries, arguably the gravest threat to league popularity.

But there are plenty of subtler knock-on effects. Most NBA records would become unobtainable (although the NBA has never been quite as beholden to records as the MLB, the chase still creates excitement!). Additionally, fans intrinsically understand what “good” per-game stats are, built upon decades of exposure and experience. They’d need to recalibrate their expectations, which may cause some friction.

Perhaps most worryingly, however, is what would happen to players and rosters. If starters typically play 30-35 minutes per game today, they likely wouldn’t see much of a reduction in playing time. However, reserves averaging 18 minutes per game could see their minutes cut by 30 percent or more, which would reflect in their corresponding paychecks. Backups matter less if they play less, and if starters play more, there would be less variance, and less night-to-night parity.

Theoretically, shorter games could even lead to smaller rosters overall – 10 active players instead of 12, for example, very conveniently saving the owners a boatload of money.

Shortening games would solve one problem but introduce many more.

For more from Mike Shearer, check out his irreverent blog Basketball Poetry, where he deep-dives the NBA several times per week.

This article originally appeared on Hoops Hype: Fixing the NBA: Six ways to speed up games