Doug Robinson: NBA should shorten season — but here's why it will never happen

SALT LAKE CITY — Steve Kerr wants to shorten the NBA's interminable 82-game regular season. "I think 75 has a nice ring to it," the coach told NBC.

So does 50.

Do I hear 40?

And while we're at it, do the playoffs really need to run into June and include 16 of the league's 30 teams and take nearly two months to complete, which means from start to finish — opening day to the end of the Finals — the NBA season is a preposterous eight months, almost as long as this sentence and just one month shy of the time required to conceive, carry and birth a child.

Here's a handy quiz for NBA commissioner Adam Silver to help him determine if the NBA season is overkill::

— Are regular-season games so meaningless that players tend to take days off so they can "rest?"

— Are regular-season games so meaningless that teams can afford to rest players?

— Is the season so long that it requires a halftime (aka All-Star "Break")?

— Does the postseason take as long as the postseasons for the NFL and Major League Baseball COMBINED?

— Has one of the league's top players ever said the following about the regular season (hint, he's another one of those grumpy guys with a beard whose name sounds a lot like Tyree Serving)? "I'm definitely taking some games off before the playoffs," said Grumpy Guy. "Makes no sense, the emphasis on these regular games, when you're gearing up for some battles coming in the playoffs."

— If games are so unimportant that the top players can afford to take nights off, even weeks before the playoffs, can you think of any good reason fans should bother to show up at the arena for those games?

— Have players and coaches pretty much blown off any attempt you've made to stop teams from resting players?

According to Pro Sports Transactions Archive, from 2006 to mid-March 2017, players missed a total of 609 games simply to rest. The number of "rest" games has increased dramatically in recent years. The days of Michael Jordan — who played all 82 games of the regular season nine times — are gone. This year's list of players taking nights off includes Stephen Curry, Draymond Green, Klay Thompson, LeBron James, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love.

Silver has fined teams for resting players, and he sent a memo to all 30 teams warning that the practice of resting players is an "extremely significant issue." The league yawned. James said, "I don't understand why it's become a problem now because I sit out a couple games." (Well, LeBron, maybe you can understand this: Fans and TV networks — which pay your ridiculous salary — pay a lot of money to see you play, not preen on the bench.)

Silver also told the Washington Post, in officialese English, " ... we also have to be realistic that the science has gotten to the point where there is that direct correlation that we're aware of between fatigue and injuries.

"And as tough as it is on our fans to miss one of their favorite players for a game, it's far better than having them get injured and be out for long periods of time. So, we're always still looking to strike that right balance."

Uh, make up your mind about that "significant issue." Would "striking the right balance" include subtracting games from the schedule? Not a chance. The obvious solution to many problems is to cut the schedule, but it won't happen. It's all about money of course, and to reduce the schedule would require players and owners to take pay cuts. (By the way, why are players paid game checks if they skip a game to rest?)

"There's not going to be a drastic cut, obviously, because of revenue," Kerr said per NBC. "But if there were a way to get to 75, I'd be a big proponent. I understand that would mean less revenue. Salaries would come down a little bit. But the quality of play would be better, and the players would be more rested and maybe fewer injuries."

Kerr also says, "It feels like we play seven or eight games a year where our guys are just wiped out."

(A little aside: I realize I haven't addressed the issue of overworked players and the long season. We know that playing basketball is certainly difficult. Can you imagine having to get up and go to work every day for three or four hours, and having to chase a ball around a gym? Talk about grueling. What would that be like? No, I'm not getting into that.)

Putting more than half the teams in the playoffs is overkill and pointless because, strangely enough, in an 82-game season the cream of the class seems to rise to the top and there's no need for so many teams to advance. Since 2000, the No. 1 or No. 2 seed of the Western and Eastern conferences has won the championship 15 times (10 were No. 1 seeds). A No. 3 seed has won the championship just four times. No team seeded worse than No. 3 has won the championship. For that matter, teams seeded worse than No. 3 have claimed only four of the 38 slots in the Finals (all were No. 4 seeds). In other words, 10 playoff teams have no chance of winning.

But money talks, and the league won't change. Hang in there, fans; the end of the season is getting close now. You can do it.