Death of the regular season

By Derek Daggett Sports Central Columnist

The Lakers may prove once and for all just how unimportant the NBA's regular season is. At a mind-blowing 82 games long, and stretching nearly three-fourths of the calendar year, the season has become a marathon, much like Major League Baseball's season. But unlike baseball, over half the league makes it to the postseason dance, and herein lies the danger for the NBA.

Already facing it's lowest viewing numbers since pre-Bird/Magic, the NBA is doing anything it can to boost its regular season ratings. The networks are pimping Yao Ming and Amare Stoudemire as the new blood for the league, showcasing the Mavericks and the Kings as the usurpers to the Lakers' throne. All of this is great... if it were true.

But what if those sneaky Lakers find a way into the playoffs? Then what?

The Lakers have already proven they are too much for the Mavericks, coming back from 25 points down, this when the Lakers were probably playing their worst ball of the season.

And the Kings? They had homecourt advantage last season and couldn't do anything with it, and they will choke again if they have to play the Lakers in the playoffs.

The issue here is that the Lakers may finally prove to the world just how big of a joke the regular season of the NBA is --- and the league is deathly afraid of that. It happened once, when Michael Jordan semi-retired (the first time -- or was it the second? I've lost track). The Houston Rockets, a sixth-seed out West, ran through the playoffs and won an NBA championship.

The league was worried then --- what would happen if the Lakers, a potential eighth-seed this year, swept through the playoffs for their fourth straight championship? The league would have a serious credibility problem, worse than it already is.

While it would be a great story that the Lakers overcame their early season malaise to win it all, many would begin to wonder, why even bother tuning in to the NBA until after the All-Star Break? What kind of impact do games in November-January have on the eventual outcome? The answer would be none.

To fix this problem, the league should scale back to four teams in the playoffs. Fans would again care about what their teams do in the early stages of the season, because it would matter. If there were only four teams per conference, the Lakers would be 6.5 games out of a playoff spot, with five teams to jump over. A daunting task.

Can it be the league has already forgotten the days when the NBA championship was televised tape delayed? I know I haven't. And if the Lakers somehow rise from the dead to take the championship, the days of tape delay may be closer than we think.

Article courtesy of Sports Central.