Mark Cuban suggests extending season into July to space out schedule
As the NBA openly looks for ways to lessen the toll an 82-game schedule takes on its players, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has some ideas.
Cuban has an opinion. We'll give you a second to collect yourself, we realize how shocking that must be.
While plenty of ideas have been kicked around that the league or union may not be amenable to - shortening the schedule altogether, shortening games, shortening the preseason - Cuban's suggestion is actually pretty agreeable. While it would cost players some of their offseason and force the league to alter its draft and free-agency schedules, Cuban thinks the league should just run deeper into the summer.
As Cuban explained Tuesday:
I've been bringing it up for years. (Commissioner Adam Silver is) more open to it, and he's going to be considering it. Everybody's for it now.
...
I'd rather us go later in the season into July. Used to be, we had to be concerned about baseball. Now we don't. Baseball, particularly from a media perspective, has become regional, so it doesn't negatively impact us from a national TV perspective to go late.
If Cuban's evaluation of the competition with MLB is valid, then the primary concern with his idea becomes whether a shorter offseason would be counterproductive to the league's ultimate goal of resting players.
It's definitely something worth exploring in greater logistical detail.