Eight Days.
The average patient could have had open heart surgery, been released from the hospital and been back home during this break in the NBA Finals. It’s been that long.
What is with that break? The NBA has been locked in for a June 4 start since before the season started, but when it became clear that both conference Finals were going to end quickly pressure mounted on the NBA to act and move the Finals’ start date up. It didn’t.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver was on the Rich Eisen radio show and explained why.
“Truth be told, we did have that conversation about potentially moving up, and Susie would know this, some years ago we used to have a built in move up. If both Conference Finals series didn’t go longer than five games, we would’ve moved up two days. So, under that scenario, we would have started (Tuesday) rather than Thursday night. So certainly when the East finished, and we saw that there was a chance that the West could finish with five games or fewer, we had that discussion. So…for Disney, ABC/ESP, it is difficult to move on short notice given they have other scheduled programming, but it wasn’t just an ABC issue…As you know, we’re broadcast in over two hundred countries, so then we’re dealing with broadcasters all around the world who have preset broadcast windows. So, then it creates enormous issues for them. On top of that, we have roughly a thousand credentialed media who come to the finals, many of them from outside of the United States who, well of course they don’t know exactly what city they’re going to be in, they fly into New York or L.A. depending where they’re coming from and then fly from there; and then there’s the hotels and other issues.
“So…for Disney, ABC/ESPN, it is difficult to move on short notice given they have other scheduled programming, but it wasn’t just an ABC issue… As you know, we’re broadcast in over two hundred countries, so then we’re dealing with broadcasters all around the world who have preset broadcast windows. So, then it creates enormous issues for them. On top of that, we have roughly a thousand credentialed media who come to the finals, many of them from outside of the United States who, well of course they don’t know exactly what city they’re going to be in, they fly into New York or L.A. depending where they’re coming from and then fly from there; and then there’s the hotels and other issues. So, you know ultimately there was a reason why we locked in the date and we decided to stick by it.
“And lastly I’ll say especially when there’s no doubt that there’s some players that will be benefitted from the rest, I’m always reluctant mid-course to change a rule and so everyone knew going into these playoffs, all the teams, exactly when the finals would start. They knew if the conference finals series ended earlier, they would have that much rest coming up. So it felt strange, even though we had the conversation with ABC and ESPN and said, “If we wanted to, could we,” we talked to the buildings to see if they were available, but ultimately we decided we had made this decision a few years ago to lock it in, let’s stick with it. And I don’t think it’s a bad thing. I think it will lead to better competition, because players on both teams need the rest.”
It will lead to a rusty first quarter/first half. After all the build up to these Finals, the start may not be pretty.
But it did lead to better health. Klay Thompson will play. Kyrie Irving will not be 100 percent but he should be better.
Still, this break was too long. The NBA has the Finals everyone wanted to see, and they stalled out the momentum. Now they need to get it back.