National Basketball Association

Everyone would be better off without back-to-back preseason games

Published Jun. 30, 2017 6:28 p.m. ET

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You can say that preseason back-to-backs are good for conditioning. However, the Timberwolves gave Ricky Rubio, Karl-Anthony Towns, Andrew Wiggins, Zach LaVine, Gorgui Dieng, and Shabazz Muhammad the night off for rest. Those players comprise, what, six of the team’s seven best players? Clearly, the team wasn’t concerned over their condition. It’s like Jeff Van Gundy said on the most recent Lowe Post podcast, guys come into camp in shape. This isn’t like the old days where they’re playing themselves into shape in preseason.

Preseason back-to-backs aren’t good for the fans, either. These games aren’t renowned for their quality. The best players typically play a quarter or two, if at all. After that, it becomes audition time for the team’s camp invitees. That’s exactly what happened on Sunday when John Lucas III played 29 minutes. With all due respect for John Lucas III, if fans are going to a meaningless game, they want to see the Towns’ and Wiggins’.

Having to watch preseason basketball is really only an issue for people attending the games. Preseason games are seldom televised because of the cost/benefit analysis does not shake out in their favor. As a result, only a handful of a team’s preseason games are broadcasted at all. There are diehard fans that clamor for these games but fail to draw in the casual fan.

One of the arguments for having so many preseason games is that the owners don’t want to walk away from the extra money. Losing teams would likely be less willing to part with this as they know they wouldn’t have playoff revenue to make up for it. This is difficult to maneuver. Without being an NBA economist, there would have to be a way to divvy up the pool to compensate for this loss to incentivize owners to make this change. Of course, you probably couldn’t do this without cutting into the players’ share as well.

If the money could be figured it out, it would be wise to cut down on the eight-ish preseason games we see now to two or three, as most coaches feel is necessary. Doing so would enable the NBA to start the regular season earlier and spread out the schedule to alleviate some of the grind. With fewer back to backs and four games in five night stretches, it would be less necessary for teams to rest their stars in late-Winter. More rest would ideally enhance the quality of play and instances of injury as well because players would have more time to recover.

One thing is for sure, nobody wins with back-to-back games in the preseason. There is so much upside to eliminating them for fans and players alike. Finding a way to make it worthwhile for the owners will be the trick.