Colin Cowherd provides solution to NBA stars missing games
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver is well aware that star power is one of his league's most prevalent draws.
And with that, he is constantly at the drawing board, crafting innovative ways to elevate the NBA's consumption metrics. And many of his tactics proved successful, like the play-in tournament he helped implement two years earlier.
"The play-in tournament, I thought, was a beginning of creating renewed incentives for teams to remain competitive and be fighting for playoff position," Silver told reporters Wednesday.
But for Silver, one of the most effective ways to ensure consistent engagement among his fan base is ensuring the availability of his premier players. It's a mission he's currently setting out to accomplish.
"[I'm concerned with] a trend of star players not participating in a full complement of games," Silver said. "I'm not standing here saying I have a great solution. Part of the issue is injuries. One of the things we have focused on at the league office, and we're spending — we had begun to spend a lot of time on pre-pandemic — are there things we can do in terms of sharing information, resources around the league to improve best practices, rehabilitation?
"The other way we can get at it in terms of player participation is creating other incentives," he added. "It might be through in-season tournaments and changes in format where we can get at it."
Colin Cowherd had his own ideas about a potential solution to the problem, which he shared on Friday's airing of "The Herd."
"Obviously you shouldn't have to incentivize people making $30 million a year to go to work," he said. "It's just the world we live in. You know the old saying: Give somebody an inch, they’ll take a mile. The players have a lot of leverage, and they're taking advantage of it.
"I would say you have to play 85% of the games on your schedule, or you can't play at the All-Star Game, you can't win a scoring title or any individual title [and] you can't go to the 3-Point or [the Slam] Dunk Contest. You can't be All-NBA [either]."
Cowherd acknowledged that the winners of those awards would look much different if the NBA put this rule in place.
"My First-Team All-NBA would be Trae Young, DeMar Derozan in the backcourt … Jayson Tatum and Andrew Wiggins in the frontcourt … Giannis [Antentokounmpo], Kevin Durant [and] Anthony Davis didn't play enough games. [Nikola] Jokić is an MVP candidate at center. Here's the second team: LaMelo Ball, Anthony Edwards, Tobias Harris, Julius Randle [and] Karl-Anthony Towns. Those awards have incentivizing bonuses."
Silver acknowledged that he'd pondered other ways to address his concerns, including shortening the length of the season.
"I also have said in the past, if we have too many games, that's something we should look at as well," Silver said. "It's something, as we sit down, and we're looking at new media deals and looking at a new collective bargaining agreement, we will be studying. From my discussions with players, they recognize it's an issue, too. The style of the game has changed in terms of the impact on their bodies. I think we've got to constantly assess and look at a marketplace going forward and say, 'what's the best way to present our product and over how long a season?'"
Silver mentioned eliminating "take fouls" as a potential solution as well.
"That is something, as you know, we're very focused on and considering making a change for next season," he said in reference to the "take foul." "We still have some work to do with our competition committee.
"We'll be meeting with the board again in July, which would be a possible time to change that rule. But as we're seeing sort of a pretty dramatic increase in ‘take fouls,’ we don't think it's a great part of our game."
Silver was clear that all of these concepts were still in the brainstorming stages.
But could Cowherd's suggestion be the solution the NBA is looking for?
