A Lockout Shortened Season....Every Season?

The 2011-2012 NBA season almost didn't happen. The combined greed of millionaire players and billionaire owners almost kept arenas across the country closed to the fans of the league, but at the last minute the sides cooperated just enough to squeeze in a shortened season so they wouldn't lose more money for the benefit of the fans. The result has been at times extremely sloppy due to the fact that rookies missed out on their usual summer leagues to get them up to professional speed, and training camps and the preseason were both truncated; but, it has also provided some great advantages that we haven't seen in past seasons. No I'm not suggesting that there be a yearly scare that we won't get to watch our favorite ball players for a year, but there are a few things the league can learn from this lockout shortened year.

Christmas Day Opening Day:

As negotiations between the leagues owners and the players association wore on to late fall, the general consensus was made that if a deal couldn't be reached in time for games to tip-off on Christmas Day, the entire season would be scrapped and all we would see of the best basketball players in the world would be limited to shaky videos on outdoor courts. Greed took over when both sides realized how much money would be lost with a cancelled season, and a deal was struck just in time.

Christmas Day tipped-off the new season with 5 highly anticipated games. Those games provided the league with some of the most watched regular season games in league history. TV ratings are a great boost for the league, but the holiday opening is a great boost for fans. The usual November start for the NBA regular season gets lost in both the NFL and College Football season. And when basketball competes with football, football wins in a blowout. By late December, College Football is playing meaningless bowl games, and in the NFL playoff positions have mostly been determined. In normal years, most people don't start paying attention to the NBA before Christmas anyway. Why not wait and start the season when people will actually take notice, instead of playing two months largely being ignored?

Less games = Each game means more.

As we come down the home stretch of this NBA season, players are playing games with more hard nosed defense and even harder fouls. This was on display in a recent Heat-Thunder game, a possible preview of an Finals match-up. These highlights show just a portion of the intensity of the game.

Generally, there are so many games in an NBA regular season that players coast through a significant part of the season. With this years shortened schedule, each game matters more(66 games are being played as opposed to the usual 82). This has made for a more exciting season as essentially 16 games which would have been played halfheartedly were thrown out and we were able to get to the games that mattered more quickly. Fans don't want to watch games where the players aren't putting forth their best effort, we want to watch ones like the video above, where all ten players are putting forth maximum effort all game long. Less games means more meaning in each game, a concept which our beloved football has perfected.

Although the greed of the lockout nearly left us without an NBA season, in the end it showed some ways that the league could improve their product. In the end the same thing that caused the lockout and brought about it's eventual end, the greed of those making millions of dollars every year, will likely prevent these changes from being made. With less games and a shorter season: less tickets will be sold, television revenue will be down, the league will be in the limelight during a smaller portion of the year, and owners won't make as much money. So although the pursuit of the all important dollar will probably prevent us from enjoying a more streamlined NBA season anytime soon, at least we got to enjoy it for one year; and maybe in ten years when the Collective Bargaining Agreement is up for negotiation again we'll enjoy another one of the NBA's most exciting seasons.