The funny thing is, growing up in the 80's and 90's, the perception was that the AFC was the pretty-boy finesse conference with QBs who piled up gaudy stats but then couldn't beat the big bad tough NFC teams in the Super Bowl.
Which is also strange because the teams losing those Super Bowls were the "tundra" teams in Denver and Buffalo. (with Cleveland another contender).
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One thing from the Cowboys Netflix documentary is that both the Cowboys 49ers NFC Championship games played at Candlestick were on waterlogged fields. Seems that Levis Stadium might stand up to the elements a little better (I can't imagine they would schedule the Super Bowl there if that was a real risk).
Coming from a hockey background I have always thought the number 1 obvious inefficiency in basketball is not using the bench WILDLY MORE and having all the players play like twice as hard.
Maybe the real stars stay in, but the 8th guy on the roster going 100% is almost certainly better than the 4th guy going 80%. There is so much jogging. Constant constant sprinting and when guys get tired swap them immediately, would yield a lot of benefits.
Hell with the advanced tracking these days you could measure the possession someone's top speed starts flagging a bit and yank them.
Honestly line changes are underused in hockey, even with all its changes, and you will see late in games stars eating up too much ice time when they are already gassed, but the politics/optics of it are hard in a lot of cases I think.
People will whine "rhythm", but they say the exact same shit about hockey and it mostly is just BS.
Well, I think for the NBA as an entertainment product, you'd rather see a style of play that allows LeBron James to play 40 out of 48 minutes at age 40, rather than the bench players.
So, if say, the Rockets were able to win a championship playing 12 guys 20 minutes each, I think you'd see rule changes that would make that style of play less effective.
Well I did make a specific exemption for stars, as I don't think it is clear player 8 at 100% is better than player 2 at 85%.
Also from an entertainment standpoint the NBA wouldn't be better off with Taylor Swift and Mr. Beast on the court, but lets not try that eh? Not everything needs to be driven by the almighty dollar. It is ok to let some things (especially sports) attempt to be driven by excellence and what works best.
I'm imagining the increased hustle would be aggressive, pressing defense, flying after loose balls and rebounds, and things like that. The NBA could dial up how closely they call things like hand-checking (similar to how they dialed things down last year) to make those tactics less effective.
They could lower the roster size, such that a team that is over-reliant on depth would be thrown into a crisis with any injury.
Though I did miss the part of your OP where you said stars should stay in, so it might not be as applicable.
Ugh, another not-betting-betting one.....
What’s the password for the over/under thing? Haven’t listened to the pod yet. I assume you say it there?
I guess I just clicked the wrong thing. I finally clicked the right thing... no password required.
(maybe Peyton Manning was just wildly overrated)
No? This is a silly comment.
🧻🐅
The funny thing is, growing up in the 80's and 90's, the perception was that the AFC was the pretty-boy finesse conference with QBs who piled up gaudy stats but then couldn't beat the big bad tough NFC teams in the Super Bowl.
Which is also strange because the teams losing those Super Bowls were the "tundra" teams in Denver and Buffalo. (with Cleveland another contender).
--
One thing from the Cowboys Netflix documentary is that both the Cowboys 49ers NFC Championship games played at Candlestick were on waterlogged fields. Seems that Levis Stadium might stand up to the elements a little better (I can't imagine they would schedule the Super Bowl there if that was a real risk).
Coming from a hockey background I have always thought the number 1 obvious inefficiency in basketball is not using the bench WILDLY MORE and having all the players play like twice as hard.
Maybe the real stars stay in, but the 8th guy on the roster going 100% is almost certainly better than the 4th guy going 80%. There is so much jogging. Constant constant sprinting and when guys get tired swap them immediately, would yield a lot of benefits.
Hell with the advanced tracking these days you could measure the possession someone's top speed starts flagging a bit and yank them.
Honestly line changes are underused in hockey, even with all its changes, and you will see late in games stars eating up too much ice time when they are already gassed, but the politics/optics of it are hard in a lot of cases I think.
People will whine "rhythm", but they say the exact same shit about hockey and it mostly is just BS.
Well, I think for the NBA as an entertainment product, you'd rather see a style of play that allows LeBron James to play 40 out of 48 minutes at age 40, rather than the bench players.
So, if say, the Rockets were able to win a championship playing 12 guys 20 minutes each, I think you'd see rule changes that would make that style of play less effective.
Well I did make a specific exemption for stars, as I don't think it is clear player 8 at 100% is better than player 2 at 85%.
Also from an entertainment standpoint the NBA wouldn't be better off with Taylor Swift and Mr. Beast on the court, but lets not try that eh? Not everything needs to be driven by the almighty dollar. It is ok to let some things (especially sports) attempt to be driven by excellence and what works best.
Like?
I'm imagining the increased hustle would be aggressive, pressing defense, flying after loose balls and rebounds, and things like that. The NBA could dial up how closely they call things like hand-checking (similar to how they dialed things down last year) to make those tactics less effective.
They could lower the roster size, such that a team that is over-reliant on depth would be thrown into a crisis with any injury.
Though I did miss the part of your OP where you said stars should stay in, so it might not be as applicable.
In the 90s Rick Pitino tried a version of this with the Celtics
https://sports.yahoo.com/why-rick-pitino-full-court-110031544.html