What the NBA Should Consider After the Bubble Experience

The NBA has signaled it’s willing to get creative in the next decade. A neutral-site conference finals and Finals might be a great idea.

Our focus has settled on the chase for the Larry O’Brien Trophy in Orlando, with the strange circumstances surrounding the playoffs largely fading to the background. Yet the most unorthodox postseason in NBA history may lead to plenty of innovation moving forward.

The playoffs have featured impressive play throughout both conferences, which in part could be attributed to the circumstances surrounding the postseason. Players aren’t flying from city to city after a late-night contest. Opposing fans aren’t screaming on every possession. The games are in a sense pure, distilling the typical NBA experience into the best basketball product. Perhaps Adam Silver and the league office will keep this in mind as they continue to tweak the league’s structure.

But rather than tweak the current structure, let’s allow ourselves to dream bigger and imagine a better NBA: one where the schedule is ideal and the talent is maximized, allowing the world’s top athletes to play to their full potential. So what would an ideal NBA season look like? We at The Crossover examined four potential changes.

Neutral-site playoffs

Have you seen the level of play in the 2020 postseason? The playoffs are featuring some of the best basketball in recent memory, and that’s not because of the Mickey Mouse waffles on campus. There are no long flights after a tough loss, and perhaps more importantly, no road crowd to intimidate role players. There appears to be a truly even playing field in Orlando, a fact that’s increasingly evident in an impressive product. There remains plenty of intensity without fans, and the difficulties of playing on the road are (of course) dampened. The lack of home-court advantage has allowed the talent to shine through.

There’s no way Silver & Co. would hold games without fans if there were no health risk at play, but perhaps the league could look to the NCAA for inspiration. The NBA could hold its own version of a Final Four in a given city over a multiweek period, allowing fans to flock to a new location like a large hoops convention. Owners can show off their new arenas. The league can host a flurry of activities and events. The league has signaled it’s willing to get creative in the next decade. A neutral-site conference finals and Finals fit the bill.

Regular-season series

This is an idea that has been floated by Jazz vice president Dennis Lindsey, and it’s not hard to see the merits. The sheer distance traveled in a season puts a serious burden on NBA players, and the wave of 2 a.m. flights has long been the bane of players’ existence. There has to be a better way. The NBA could transition to a schedule similar to MLB’s, holding games in one city for multiple days at a time. Rather than randomly schedule four matchups a year, a team could host an opponent in their conference on back-to-back nights, then travel for a two-game away series later in the season. The days of three cities in three days should be a thing of the past.

Trim the schedule

This is probably the least-plausible suggestion on our list, considering the Board of Governors’ allergy to lost revenue. Though that doesn’t mean the idea of a shortened schedule should be discarded. The dregs of March are always the worst time on the NBA calendar, and the start of the season is traditionally swallowed by the NFL. Why not trim the fat? Beginning near Christmas remains the ideal time, and the season could still finish in June, or perhaps around July 4 if the league is so inclined. There’s only so much regular-season basketball a casual fan can take. Shortening the schedule should minimize load-management days and heighten the product. Television deals can be optimized to feature the best the league has to offer. A European soccer–style schedule has always made the most sense for the NBA. Let’s settle at 58 games and move the league into the next decade.

Eliminate conferences

Perhaps this will prove counterintuitive if the NBA returns to home arenas for all playoff games, but neutral-site playoffs would create a perfect situation for 1–16 seeding. The idea has two merits. For one, there’s the simple fairness issue as the Eastern Conference favorites currently get to loaf through the first round. Watching Orlando and Brooklyn falter as Memphis sat at home in August was a shame. Let’s even the field after two decades of inequity.

The entertainment aspect is arguably more important. Aside from a potential Battle of Los Angeles Part II, is there really any conference rivalry worth preserving? The Celtics and Raptors aren’t quite rivals despite their current classic series, and Philadelphia hasn’t held up its end of the bargain with Boston. There’s no guarantee of the Rockets’ rekindling their rivalry with the Warriors. Nuggets vs. Jazz doesn’t quite move the needle. Why don’t we inject some chaos and create some thrilling matchups in the process? We could see Boston face the Lakers before the Finals. Perhaps Luka Doncic will square off against Giannis Antetokounmpo. The conference tradition should be thrown away if location and travel aren’t issues.