Difficulty increases desire

Where the NBA lost the plot

In an essay entitled That difficulty increases desire, Michel de Montaigne explained that great pleasure comes from great struggle:

and that there is nothing naturally so contrary to our taste as satiety which proceeds from facility; nor anything that so much whets it as rarity and difficulty

This quotation came to mind when I contemplated the sad decline of my favorite sport—NBA basketball.

When I eat out at a fine restaurant, my favorite part of the meal is often the dessert. And my favorite part of the dessert is the frosting on top of the cake. But that fact does not mean that I’d prefer a restaurant that served me nothing more than a big heaping plate of frosting.

Photo by American Heritage Chocolate on Unsplash

The NBA has continually revised the rules of basketball with the idea of providing a more entertaining product. By itself, that an unobjectionable goal. The mistake they made was in forgetting Montaigne’s maxim about one crucial component of pleasure—overcoming obstacles. They noticed that NBA fans enjoyed certain types of outcomes and decided to serve them a big fat plate of chocolate frosting. To be more specific, the NBA decided that fans liked to see their teams score baskets and then did everything possible to make it easier and easier to score.

A typical score in football (soccer) is 2 to 1. In hockey you often see a 4 to 3 outcome. A score of 5 to 4 is common in baseball. In American football a score of 27 to 16 is fairly typical. During the 1990s, a typical NBA score might have been something like 102 to 96. And yet the NBA decided that the problem with basketball was that there wasn’t enough scoring. (No, I’m not joking.) They responded by limiting what defensive players were allowed to do in order to make it easier to score. They also began allowing offensive players to get away more often with “traveling”, which is supposed to be a rules violation.

Rules changes also encouraged more use of the 3-point shot. For instance, imagine a defensive player standing inside the 3-point line. The offensive player might jump up (and forward) from a position outside the 3-point line, shoot the ball, and then land on the foot of the innocent bystander planted firmly inside the line. I generally get annoyed when someone jumps up and lands on my foot, but the NBA decided that the real villain is the player who gets landed on. I have seen teams score as many as 7 points on this sort of possession. (A 3-point made shot, a free throw, and possession of the ball leading to another 3, based on the claim that this imaginary foul is unusually “flagrant”.)

This is just one of many rule changes that have begun to favor the offense, especially the three-point shot. The increased use of three point shots has made NBA games about as exciting as watching another person play pinball. In addition to jazzing up the offense, the NBA claims they are trying to reduce injuries. But I see no sign that this has had any impact, indeed serious injuries to key players seem to be happening with increasing frequency.

At times, the NBA seems to lack even a basic understanding of math. When someone is fouled in the act of shooting a 2-point shot, two free throws are awarded. When someone is fouled shooting a three-point shot, three free throws are awarded. But this makes no sense, as 2-point shots are successful about 54% of the time, while 3-point shots are successful only about 36% of the time. Both types of shots have roughly the same expected value (1.1 points), and thus a foul on either shot deserves the same penalty. How hard is that to understand?

The NBA also noticed that fans don’t like it when officials make a bad call. As a result, they instituted a review process where officials stop the game for several minutes to look at an instant replay of the contested call. Here the NBA forgets about the “hedonic treadmill”. This review process has not in any way reduced fan frustration with bad calls, but it has made the already overly long games even longer.

The best part of basketball is when players overcome resistance. The play with the least resistance is the “free throw”. If I had my way, the NBA would get rid of free throws. Just award two points to a foul while shooting, and one point plus possession for ordinary fouls (when in the bonus.) That alone would reduce games from 2 1/2 hours to 2 hours. Have the game play on when the ball hits the top of the backboard, or when it gets wedged by the rim. Don’t call jump balls so quickly. Don’t call kicked balls unless it’s actually kicked, not just hitting a foot.

Perhaps the biggest problem in recent years has been “tanking”, which is when teams try to lose games so that they’ll be first in line to draft the next NBA star coming out of college. The sports press has written dozens of articles explaining why it’s difficult to fix this problem. Nonsense. The problem could easily be fixed with a simply rules change—give all the bad NBA teams an equal shot at getting the best draft position. Then they would have no incentive to lose games to improve their draft position.

If the solution is so simple, why are other people not advocating this change? As with the three-point foul nonsense, there seems to be a lack of common sense in the sports world. They claim that you must give the very worst teams the best draft position to equalize talent. But as Tyler Cowen recently suggested, one of the attractions of sports is the David vs. Goliath aspect, seeing the underdog go up against a dominant team like the New York Yankees or the Boston Celtics.

At least 16 of the NBAs 30 teams have no incentive to tank, as they make the playoffs. Actually, 12 teams automatically make the playoffs, and 8 more vie for 4 play-in spots. So you could argue that only the ten worst teams have a strong incentive to tank. But that’s still a third of the league! This year we’ve seen the sad spectacle of ten NBA teams spending half the season intentionally trying to lose games. (The active players don’t try to lose, rather teams tank by withholding key players with fake injuries.)

The draft lottery favoring the worst record was supposed to help the very worst teams, but it doesn’t. The ten worst teams are all fairly bad and in need of good new players. But the teams with worst records are not the worst teams; they are the teams that try hardest to lose. My own team (the Milwaukee Bucks) is now the tenth worst team. Bucks fans were pulling out their hair in February when the team unexpectedly won 8 out of 10 games (despite their only good player being injured), making it unlikely they’d get one of the top draft picks. That’s right, fans were upset that their team was winning games! And again, this tanking problem could be easily fixed by giving each of the ten worst teams an equal shot as the best new players.

In March, NBA fans can switch away from games where many of the teams are trying to lose and watch college games where players are struggling mightily to win. One problem is that the NBA plays too many games—82 in the regular season and many more playoff games. NBA players get tired playing games on consecutive days and stop trying as hard on defense. In contrast, college players get several days of rest between games and play with much more energy.

NBA basketball is still my favorite sport, despite these flaws. The players are far more skilled than at the college level and when at its best it is an aesthetically beautiful sport. Unfortunately, the NBA management has been doing everything possible to reduce its appeal. Someone needs to step in and rescue the sport.

Happy Easter!