With the NBA Regular Season ending soon, and the Playoffs starting, some fanbases are on top of the world, while some are wondering how they lost 28 games in a row during the beginning of the season. Nevertheless, all NBA fans want a way to make their sport better, so here are five ways in which the NBA can improve.

1. In-Season Tournament Reward

Lebron James and Anthony Davis at a press conference after In-Season Tournament Win. Photo Credit to: silverscreenandroll.com

$500,000 to every player and coach is a good reward, but not for people like Steph Curry and Kevin Durant, who have already made millions of dollars over their careers. A better reward that motivates the entire team to put in effort is an automatic playoff berth for the winning team. How would this work? I don’t know. Maybe the team could just continue on in the season, and if they get anything lower than the 6th seed, they automatically move up. Maybe. However, the ability to know early on that your team is avoiding the play-in and eliminated club, is a good reward for the players. The winners of the first In-Season Tournament were the Lakers, who even though they won the tournament, were not a very good team. They were mediocre, struggling to win games. However, when the game meant something, they flipped a switch and played their best basketball. And if a team turns it on when the games really matter, the NBA wants that team to participate in a the playoffs, making this a win-win situation.

 

2. Challenges and Refs

NBA Referees on the court during an NBA game. Photo Credit to: dunkest.com

First off, the coach’s challenge rule is confusing. Why would a coach only be able to use it once? If the refs get a call wrong, why do teams have to live with that? The rule should be, challenges are permitted infinitely, until a coach is unsuccessful. Once the two minute warning starts, all coaches are permitted one challenge, no matter if it is successful or not or if a coach has kept their challenge throughout the game. That way, the game can be more accurate early on and still let coaches maintain the ability to challenge a late call. This would lead to less frustrating losses and less people delegitimizing game outcomes. More on refs, they should be less sensitive and more lenient on technical foul calls. The refs should be able to live with a player arguing a call, or trash talking another player or ref. Of course, if a player makes physical contact with a ref, or too much physical contact with another player, a technical foul is warranted. But overall, the technical foul should only be utilized if a player makes physical contact with, or verbally abuses an official. Players chirping at each other makes the game more exciting and interesting, something to keep in the game for the fanbase.

 

3. Load Management Rules

Los Angeles Clippers Kawhi Leonard and Paul George sitting on the bench while resting during a game. Photo Credit to: sbnation.com

This whole game requirement for MVP and All-NBA awards is senseless. This year, Joel Embiid and Donovan Mitchell will not make an All-NBA team or have any MVP votes. Forget the fact that he averaged more points than minutes in a game, forget his 70 point outing, forget the fact that his 76ers were 15-27 without him and 29-8 with Joel, he didn’t play 65 games, he’s no better than Brook Lopez or Jalen Duren. Anyways, All-NBA teams and MVP votes affect people’s legacy. Also, Embiid’s legacy will be ruined because he won’t play 65 games ever if he has to carry the Sixers this hard for the rest of his career. A different way to limit load management issues is to not have back-to-back games, especially not home and then away back-to-backs. Star players have issues with playing a physical sport for 45 minutes or more twice in two days, and especially traveling in between. Just eliminate back-to-backs, and see the results. Sure, we want to see star players more and it’s good for the NBA, but the NBA is making their own problem worse.

4. All-Star Game Fixes

MIlwaukee Buck’s forward Giannis Antetokounmpo and Los Angeles Laker’s forward LeBron James during the 2024 All-Star Game. Photo Credit to: latimes.com

The All-Star Game lately has just been outrageous: there’s no fun in the skills competition and the dunk contest is filled with bench players, G-League players, and Jaylen Brown. In fact, the runner-up for this year’s dunk contest did a dunk over a 5’3″ guy sitting in a chair! There’s nothing exciting about a dunk like that for the NBA fanbase. Either get stars to participate, bring back the dunk wheel, or make a time machine to bring prime Vince Carter back; do whatever the NBA needs to make the dunk contest more exciting. As for the rest of the All-Star Game, eliminate the skills competition, nobody takes that seriously; Anthony Edwards shot left-handed to prove how unserious it is. As for the three-point contest, it needs a different scoring system. Overall, it is one of the best parts of the All-Star Game, however, Damian Lillard’s win was overshadowed by Sabrina Ionescu tying his score of 26, and Steph Curry beating it with 29. I was all for the contest between Ionescu and Curry, but shouldn’t they just have participated in the main dunk contest so that the champion didn’t have to watch two people do better than he already did? 

That brings me to the main event, the All-Star Game: the most unserious event of them all. Nobody cares about winning. Damian Lillard threw up 23 threes, Luka Doncic threw up a 70-footer, Nikola Jokic and Luka went the entire court without dribbling, nobody cares about playing defense or actually winning. A better option is a three-on-three half court tournament. A guard, wing, and big man make up one team and there are eight teams, four in the West, four in the East. Think about it. We could’ve seen Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, and Jokic face off against Donovan Mitchell, Jimmy Butler, and Giannis Antetokounmpo in the tournament championship. On the West, fans would get plenty of three-point action, while in the East, they would get a blend of mid-range, three-point and paint scoring as well, along with some defense in Giannis and Butler. This makes the NBA All-Star Game much better to watch and root for your favorite players through this new way it could be set up.

 

5. Draft Lottery Fixes

Former NBA commissioner David Stern pickign out a letter during the draft lottery. Photo Credit to: dknetwork.draftkings.com

The draft lottery, sucks, useless and not many people believe it’s legit. Anyways, there are much better ways to do it. One idea that is ridiculous but could still be fun is to have a March Madness-style tournament with all of the 11-15 seeds in the league. The NBA wants to avoid tanking, so making bad teams have to win in order to get good picks is a way to encourage front offices to rely on free agency to improve their team and put less pressure on the prospects. Also, the NBA wants stars to be healthy for the playoffs. How about after the Regular Season ends, the teams that miss the Playoffs play in the NCAA Tournament for the 1st overall pick, and give some time for the Playoff teams to get rested and healthy? Furthermore, a tournament allows some excitement for fans of bad teams to cheer for their team when it’s for a draft pick. Think about how many teams would have tried so hard to get Victor Wembanyama last year. In fact, a team like the Mavericks could have ended up with Wemby; imagine a pairing of Kyrie, Luka and Wemby! This would’ve made for an ultimate team by adding a defensive beast with no offensive limits. In short, a tournament for bad teams to play for an elite prospect that also allows resting time for the better Playoff teams is a great idea for the NBA, though it will never happen.

 

Conclusion

Anyway, that was a list of five ways that I believe could help improve the workings of the NBA. With the era of Kevin Durant, Lebron James, Steph Curry, James Harden, and Russell Westbrook coming to an end, the NBA will lose a lot of viewership and should try some of these ideas to add energy and more supporters to it’s fanbase.

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