David Kahn, Columnist

LeBron Is Right: NBA Season Is Too Long

Nothing in sports ever shrinks. Sports only expands.

October 22, 2014 at 5:25 PM UTC

David Kahn has been general manager of the Indiana Pacers, president of the Minnesota Timberwolves, head of the Oregon Stadium Campaign for Major League Baseball and is currently teaching two courses on sports economics at New York University.

Hey, you getting tired of this?
Photographer: Garrett Ellwood/NBAE via Getty Images

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The National Basketball League season doesn't start until next week, but many feel it's too long a slog. Recent calls from LeBron James -- likely the most important voice in pro basketball for the next decade -- and Dirk Nowitzki to shorten the 82-game schedule deserve serious consideration for several reasons.

First, a shorter season would arguably lead to a corresponding drop in injuries, as James has posited. Shorten the season by 10 percent -- from 82 to 74 games -- and you may not see a 10-percent reduction in injuries, but you’d likely see some sort of drop-off, a worthy objective in a league populated by players who already enter the league with a lot of mileage on their tires thanks to AAU basketball.