LeBron James wants a shorter season to protect players
LeBron James wants a shorter season. Before the Cleveland Cavaliers' game against the Indiana Pacers on Wednesday, the best player on the planet said that he doesn't care about the length of games, but he thinks there are too many of them.
LeBron: "The minutes doesn't mean anything. We can play 50-minute games if we had to. It's just the games."
— Dave McMenamin (@mcten) October 15, 2014LeBron James: "We want to protect the prize and the prize is the players"
— Dave McMenamin (@mcten) October 15, 2014LeBron: "We have to continue to promote the game ... If guys are injured cuz there are so many games, we can't promote it at a high level"
— Dave McMenamin (@mcten) October 15, 2014LeBron James liked the amount of games in the recent 66-game lockout season without the back-to-back-to-backs of the lockout.
— Marc J. Spears (@SpearsNBAYahoo) October 15, 2014You can add LeBron to the list. Earlier Wednesday, Dallas Mavericks superstar Dirk Nowitzki said that he'd like the season to be trimmed from 82 games to the "mid-60s." Miami Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra said this week that he thinks "everybody agrees" that the season is too long.
The NBA is experimenting with a 44-minute preseason game on Oct. 19, but the consensus from players seems to be that this won't get them more rest. We can't know exactly how coaches would handle it, but my guess is that stars would still play major minutes and role players would find their playing time reduced. Portland Trail Blazers guard C.J. McCollum didn't exactly censor himself on the matter:
CJ McCollum on the 44-minute game: "I hate it." Points out it diminishes role of bench players.
— Casey Holdahl (@CHold) October 14, 2014James wants to put this issue on the table when the time is right. It's something that we definitely will have to sit down and try to figure out," he said, via the Cleveland Plain Dealer's Chris Haynes. No one knows if cutting games is a realistic possibility, but it can't hurt the players' cause to have the biggest name in the sport fighting for it.
